Old 07-20-2015, 04:30 PM   #1
cereboso
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Default Mid-Side: Sum Sides to Mono

Situation: I have a stereo file that I'm mastering and there are no drums at all in the mid channel, only the sides so they are gone when mono-ing.
I used Voxengo MSED to mute the MID, giving me only the sides.
I want to sum the sides to a mono mid track and then mix it back with the original file.
I've tried simply running this into a mono plugin but it only gives me the left channel.
How can I sum both the sides together into mono?
Thanks!!
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Old 07-20-2015, 05:23 PM   #2
Lokasenna
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Click on the little "I/O" button in the FX window for MSED. In the output section, check off the boxes until outputs 1 and 2 from the plugin are BOTH sending to channels 1 and 2 on the track. Then turn down the output volume in the plugin.
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Old 07-20-2015, 05:31 PM   #3
cereboso
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Makes perfect sense. Thanks!
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Old 07-20-2015, 05:43 PM   #4
Fergler
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That won't work it will mute itself (both channels would individually sum to 0).

You need simply flip the polarity of one channel, using for example the completely wrongly named JS effect, 'StereoPhaseInvert'. Invert either the left or right.
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Old 07-21-2015, 01:01 AM   #5
bezusheist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cereboso View Post
I want to sum the sides to a mono mid track and then mix it back with the original file.
You can't, it doesn't work that way...
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Old 07-21-2015, 09:26 AM   #6
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To achieve this simply don't run the Voxengo plugin at all (or any other M/S decoder) -- what you're basically saying is that you want the side signal and not the mid signal; so just mute the mid signal and use the side signal as a regular signal: it's no longer "mid/side", it's just a recording from a figure 8 mic that you're using. (Unless I'm not understanding what you're after.) Decoding with a M/S plugin just makes it harder.

If both mid and side are contained in the same audio file, then you'll need to extract just the side channel (usually R channel) and not the other. Lots of ways to do this; one is to use some non-acting plugin and pin routing (e.g. input just the L channel to both inputs of the plugin, disable the R channel going in.)
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Old 07-21-2015, 09:35 AM   #7
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Re-reading your post, it seems you may be confused about what the "side" channels are -- the second "side" is created by taking the figure-8 mic and reversing the polarity. So, by just taking one of the sides and not both, you're not "losing" any information: the other side is just a carbon copy of the first, but with opposite phase. Thus, mixing them together just nulls to nothing, and there is no use trying to do so. In a M/S recording, there is really just a single "side" channel, not two. If you want a stereo image, you must use the mid in conjunction with the side.

That said, you can alter the balance between the mid and the side signal, so if there is really no drum sound in the mid channel (which would be surprising, honestly), you can use less of the mid, i.e. proportionally more of the side, and it may be enough to give a stereo sense and still have enough of the drums present.

But any time you balance more to the "side" signal, you're increasing the degree to which your signal is out of phase. If you only use the side, you get a weird out-of-phase effect, so this may not be a great idea. If I was desperate for stereo width in this situation, I'd probably use only the side channel, not decode M/S, run it up the middle, and toss some room ambiance reverb on it: not ideal, obviously, but probably a more solid result, IMO.
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