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View Full Version : Using JS:LOSER/SteroEnhancer ?


Wolffman
02-14-2008, 11:08 PM
I'm just wanting to be certain i understanding how to use this plugin correctly.
Width low %, Crossover(hz), & Width high %
I'm assuming that a setting of 100% on the width high/low sliders reflects no change to the stereo field and less than 100% narrows & above 100% widens the stereo field above or below the Crossover frequency .
Is this right or is there more to it?
Cheers
Wolffman

Till
02-15-2008, 04:26 AM
yes. although that plugin only works on stereo sources by simply turning up the side-signal, so go easy on it!

the all new rob
02-15-2008, 10:00 AM
Suggestion: put in the goniometer plugin after it, twiddle the knobs on the stereo enhancer and watch in amazement at what you see. It should make what's happening quite evident.

Wolffman
02-15-2008, 02:51 PM
Thanks for the tips. ive been playing around with it on an older song i,m revisiting & you are right till it would be easy to go overboard with it, ill check out the goniometer but i'm not sure i'll know what i'm looking at ( sounds like something you don't want the doctor to get out of his bag ) haha.
Cheers :)

the all new rob
02-15-2008, 04:02 PM
Try a mono track and then a stereo track to get a sense of what the visualization means, but it visualizes the width of the stereo image for you in real time.

There's also a useful (but less sexy-looking) phase indicator tucked away at the bottom. Keeping that between 0 and 90 will ensure that if your stuff gets played back mono you won't get it brutalized by phase cancellations. >90 is a possibility when applying the enhancer.

simpsongb
02-16-2008, 10:10 AM
For me this is a terrific opportunity...

Would someone who has used and understands th issues behind the use of stereo wideners...please write a response in here...perhaps even a brief tutorial on how to tweak using one...

I use this on my master track, as a "mastering" plugin...or perhaps I should say I MISUSE this .....but all I know is that I like the impact on the sound in my studio monitors....I would just like to know how to not misuse this type of plug.....

the all new rob
02-16-2008, 01:17 PM
Better than a tutorial, here's a lab experiment.

http://shup.com/Shup/23484/stereo-lab.zip

Get the project file above. I built a mono test signal and a stereo test signal, and set up sends to the most interesting stereo effects for you to try. Goniometer is loaded on the master to help you visualize what's happening.

1. Open the FX chain for master and double-click the goniometer to float it. Then close the FX window, you won't need it.

2. Play the project with everything muted except track 1. Note the goniometer pattern that indicates a mono signal.

3. Keep it playing, and twiddle the pan control for track 1. Observe the goniometer pattern. Especially note the phase indicator at the bottom.

4. Unmute the stereo reverb. (Note--you may need to tell ReaVerb where the impulse file is--I put stereo plate.wav in the project folder.) Note the change in the pattern. Click the mono button on ReaVerb and observe.

5. Mute the stereo reverb track, and unmute the stereo field track. Play with the rotate slider and watch. Increase the width, then play with the rotate slider and watch.

6. Mute the stereo field track, and unmute the stereo upmix track. Play with the one and only slider, and observe.

Okay, that's about all the fun you can have with a mono source. Let's move along to stereo source material.

7. Mute the mono test signal track and unmute the stereo tremolo Rhodes track. Fire up each of the stereo enhancements and observe the pattern.

8. Add the Stereo Enhancer JS plug to the Stereo tremolo Rhodes track. Crank up the width sliders and observe what goes on with the goniometer. (If you're wearing cans, this could sound pretty annoying.)

The point of the phase indicator is to show you if and when your stereo field manipulation gets you into trouble with potential phase cancellation when your stereo mix is summed to mono. Staying under 90 is more conservative, but not a hard and fast rule.

Incidentally, anything loaded up to YouTube gets mashed to mono, as an example of why you should be concerned. There are tricks to get around that, but those are best saved for another time.

simpsongb
02-16-2008, 03:12 PM
Excellent!!...went throught the entire tutorial.....buuuuut...(ther's always a but-head in the house...)

Can you go back and clarify a bit what I am seeing in the different steps? As an example, you state something to the effect (no pun intended..) that a phase shift greater than 90 is not good....well...the meter along the bottom of the goniometer seems very erratic, and so makes it difficult to know when too much is too much. If I slide the slider over eben 1/4 of the way, I find the phase readings jumping into the 100s....

So, perhaps a bit more explanation of what is going on (..what's gooin on...great song..) would help also.

But indeed...thanks Rob......

the all new rob
02-16-2008, 03:57 PM
You understand that if a signal is 180 degrees out of phase with a copy of itself, the two will sum to zero, right?

If not, copy the first track, and push the flip phase button and enjoy the resulting silence to convince yourself.

If your stereo expanding stunt-piloting (using plugins, panning, delay, manual effort or otherwise) creates this kind of phase cancellation, you'll be scratching your head and asking "dude, where's my kick drum?" and other similar philosophical questions.

teej813
02-16-2008, 05:05 PM
... you'll be scratching your head and asking "dude, where's my kick drum?" and other similar philosophical questions.

i'm always losing my keys. is THIS why? :D


very helpful, rob. explained quite nicely.


tj

LOSER
02-17-2008, 02:22 AM
Can you go back and clarify a bit what I am seeing in the different steps? As an example, you state something to the effect (no pun intended..) that a phase shift greater than 90 is not good....well...the meter along the bottom of the goniometer seems very erratic, and so makes it difficult to know when too much is too much. If I slide the slider over eben 1/4 of the way, I find the phase readings jumping into the 100s....


You can edit the JS and just change 'PHASEUPDATERATE = srate/8;' to 'PHASEUPDATERATE = srate/2;' or (lower if you want).

So in general try keeping the phase correlation of the two channels at around 45 to 60 (do it so that the part of your mix with the most stereo spread hovers around 60 and everything else below that, never try to force everything up to 60). Very short jumps shouldn't matter, though you might loose the transient (or on whatever that jump occured in mono playback). So to keep everything mono compatible always use the mono button on the reaper's master (L+R), and see if the level changes and or instuments disapear etc...

Regarding the goniometer, if you are getting an oval shape (thats higher then it is wide) you are in the clear, regarding phase funkyness, if it starts to shape a circle or some thing that is (wider than it is high) you got problems.

Hope this helps.

earlabs
02-17-2008, 04:43 AM
I did the tutorial and see that it is quite effective. I noticed that the original signal is also send to the master mix. The results of what I do while twiddling the sliders is much better audible when the oriinal is not send to the mastermix?g

Then, after that it is a matter of finding the right balance between the original and the wet signal and avoiding too much out of phaseness. Right?

the all new rob
02-17-2008, 06:19 AM
you got problems.

By which he's saying "problems in the event of having your mix summed to mono."

It's sort of a calculated risk--the meter shows you a potential problem, or it can show you the absence of that potential problem.


I did the tutorial and see that it is quite effective. I noticed that the original signal is also send to the master mix. The results of what I do while twiddling the sliders is much better audible when the original is not send to the mastermix?

Yeah, most of those effects (other than reverb) wouldn't probably be best used on a send, I did it to keep the steps easier to describe for tutorial purposes.

earlabs
02-17-2008, 06:53 AM
Yeah, most of those effects (other than reverb) wouldn't probably be best used on a send, I did it to keep the steps easier to describe for tutorial purposes.

I don't argue that, but in your initial setup you might kill the send to master mix, and then suggest that the user connect track 2 to the master mix later on (as a step 9), because the result is rather spectacular.

simpsongb
02-17-2008, 07:35 AM
Yeah, most of those effects (other than reverb) wouldn't probably be best used on a send, I did it to keep the steps easier to describe for tutorial purposes.

Interesting...does that mean that this effect is better NOT used on the Master track as a mastering effect??

the all new rob
02-17-2008, 07:51 AM
Referring to StereoEnhancer: I would tend not to use it on the master myself, but mainly because I'd rather run as little low end as possible through it.

simpsongb
02-18-2008, 02:51 PM
Just a thought...doesn't the vst Schope from Schwa show the same info as the gonniometer???.....if set on phase???.......

Also...same thoughts probably apply to the JS plgin ....StereoField....

FoamieOmie
02-19-2008, 08:04 AM
I have been experimenting with stereo enhancer and have a few questions. I put it at about 160% on low and high and leave the crossover where it is. Is that too much spread or can it go further. If on the gonniometer it's within the 90 and never goes over thaere won't be any cancellation in mono, right? Also I have been mixing with the guitar and keys panned about 70-75% to the right and left respectively for seperation. With a wider stereo spread will I still get the seperation if I bring them to the center, to maybe 30-40% (these %'s are from center to far left or right)? I'm at work and can't experiment but wondering if anyone has had experience with this.

Thanks!

LOSER
02-19-2008, 10:22 AM
I have been experimenting with stereo enhancer and have a few questions. I put it at about 160% on low and high and leave the crossover where it is. Is that too much spread or can it go further. If on the gonniometer it's within the 90 and never goes over thaere won't be any cancellation in mono, right? Also I have been mixing with the guitar and keys panned about 70-75% to the right and left respectively for seperation. With a wider stereo spread will I still get the seperation if I bring them to the center, to maybe 30-40% (these %'s are from center to far left or right)? I'm at work and can't experiment but wondering if anyone has had experience with this.

Thanks!

You can go up to even 400% and everything will be fine, if you use it on a mono signal. The Point is it all depends on the material you use it on.

Also just cause the phase correlation is under 90 deg doesn't mean there is absolutly no phase cancelation. There will always be phase cancelation once you go over 0 deg. It just means that under 90 there is more signal summed than taken away (canceled) when mixing to mono. Also note that this displays the phase correlation of the whole signal (lows, mids and highs). In general the bass wheights more in such meters, because it has a much longer wave length than the rest and is mostly in phase, thus making everything look good on meters. So 45 deg is a good figure to aim for, though this doesn't replace listening to it in MONO! Do this often and hear how much of the signal disapears and then decide if it is still good. Also do a "L-R" mono check on reaper's master, too. This will let you listen to the part that get's canceled when you mix down to mono, you will mostly hear highs in there and only a tiny little bit of bass.

LOSER
02-23-2008, 11:04 AM
Fear not, 'cause here it is:
http://loser.asseca.com/StereoWidthLimiter

The first ever (at least I haven't seen any before) Stereo Width Limiter.

How it works? It just limits the stereo channels phase correlation at your specified value.

Note: This does not do hardlimiting, so if you set the Max setting e.g. to 45 you still get overs e.g. 60 deg etc.. but it will limit it, so all you scared people should get some sleep and don't have to worry about phase cancelation in mono.

P.S. This is a JS plug-in, just save the text in your REAPER/effects/LOSER/ folder and then it should show up in REAPER und the JS FX.

the all new rob
02-23-2008, 12:56 PM
Works superbly.

simpsongb
02-23-2008, 06:51 PM
sheeeit Loser!...I been usin your Stereo Enhancer, and this sounds noticeably better....different processing???.....

Very nice

LOSER
02-24-2008, 03:26 AM
sheeeit Loser!...I been usin your Stereo Enhancer, and this sounds noticeably better....different processing???.....

Very nice

No, but it has a limiter to limit the maximum stereo spread.

But please still be carefull! If you push the stereo width up all the way, you might still not get any out of phase stuff, due to the limiting, though it isn't recommended either.

teej813
03-17-2008, 05:21 PM
very cool idea, dude! anxious to give this a listen.


tj

hypermonkey1984
05-10-2012, 06:37 PM
I understand that the Stereo Enhancer widens the stereo image of the audio source but can anyone explain to me exactly how does it do this? What processing is it actually doing? And what does this have to do with frequencies? Is it pushing certain frequencies to the sides more than other frequencies?

Reaperto
05-10-2012, 07:15 PM
Crossover sets the limit between Low and High range. Then you can adjust stereo width of these ranges separately.

Indeed, only works with stereo sources

Mich
06-07-2012, 09:41 AM
I understand that the Stereo Enhancer widens the stereo image of the audio source but can anyone explain to me exactly how does it do this? What processing is it actually doing? And what does this have to do with frequencies? Is it pushing certain frequencies to the sides more than other frequencies?

It does simple mid side processing.

Basically a stereo signal has two channels left and right, well call them L and R for short. Now the mid signal (also the same as mono) M for short is L+R and the side (stereo portion of the signal) short s is L-R.
You can listen to L+R and L-R on the REAPER master via the stereo channel switch thingy.
Now with some math you can show that as M = L+R, S = L-R that L = (M+S)/2 = (L+R+L-R)/2 = L and R = (M-S)/2 = (L+R-L+R)/2 = R.
Now what the StereoEnhancer does is after decomposing the (L,R) signal into (M,S) it increases (>100%) or decreases (<100%) the level of the S signal. Then when recomposed the stereo part of the signal will be louder/"enhanced".

The crossover frequency simply - as already stated - processes the low and high band with the above algorithm separately. This is done because usually you don't want you bass to have much stereo width.