Izotope Ozone can do something like this with it's imager. You can adjust the width of 4 bands of frequencies...
It's also tighting up the bass in some undiscipled mixes ;)

I wonder how this would make the Phonitor react. If the difference would be so noticeable...
http://spl.info/en/products/headphone-amplifier/phonitor-2/overview.html

I have Ozone 6 but I have not tried messing with the imager as such, just stuck to the presets to date.
Hmmmm... now you have me thinking....

I use Samplitude, and it gives me the ability to right-click on any pan pot on any track, which opens a pan-edit window, that allows me to adjust the width of the track - from full stereo down to completely collapsed mono.
It also has a 3-band EQ ( low, mid, hi) which gives me the option to "mono" any track below whatever frequency I choose.

So, I wouldn't have a need for this plug; but I can see where it could be beneficial to those who may be using a DAW that doesn't have those particular features built-in.

As an example of application, I recently used this function to "narrow" a Wurli EP sample - it had a built-in tremolo/auto-pan effect as a part of the sample - which is authentic - Wurli's did have that sound to them originally - but, the extreme width of the tremolo/auto panning in this particular sample was really distracting, with the continual hard L-R oscillation...

I opened up the pan-edit function of the track, and not only was I able to adjust the width of that sample, (collapsing it by about half and preserving the tremolo of the sample without it panning as extreme as it was), I was also able to mono the sample below 150 Hz as well, while at the same time, preserving the original stereo spread of the mids and high's.

Having the ability to collapse - or at least narrow tracks, especially stereo tracks, is a lot more useful to me than going in the other direction and using stereo wideners/enhancers... which I avoid like the plague. ;)

You can do the same thing with a few basic daw plug ins and some routing. I bought it.. pretty cool and it's cheap.. It's easier than mucking around with all the plug ins and routing you'll need to do to achieve the same results.

That's cool that Samplitude has that feature built in.

Right, so the known deficiencies of headphones should dictate how we mix? No thanks. It makes more sense to include some sort of switchable cross-bleed simulation on devices normally used with headphones/earbuds. Fix the problem at its source, the playback system.

I'm hearing some weird artifacts on the guitar when he engages the plugin, mostly in the opposite channel. I bet the filters he's using are IIR rather than FIR and they're causing phase interactions between the left and right channels. It makes me wonder how things sound summed to mono.

There's a nice bit of freeware that seems to do much the same thing: http://www.toneprojects.com/products/plug-ins/basslane/

bouldersound, post: 433134, member: 38959 wrote: Right, so the known deficiencies of headphones should dictate how we mix? No thanks. It makes more sense to include some sort of switchable cross-bleed simulation on devices normally used with headphones/earbuds. Fix the problem at its source, the playback system.

Thats a very valid point right there, it shouldn't dictate how we mix and I agree with you there 100%...
although I can see how this is catering for the change in listening devices, but at the detrement of the audio quality???
-I like pcrecords post about using the imager inOzone to create the same the same effect.

This is what I found on another thread on another forum by the developer in response to a users question -

Q) - "I recently bought acon equalize, and was thinking I could get a similiar result by adding a side band and making it a hi pass filter. Is Mongoose doing something fundamentally different than this?"

And the response from the developer was -

A) - "Yes, you could get a similar effect. I'm obviously a biased source, but I'll try to give you objective differences.

Mongoose is basically that similar effect, but packaged in a way that makes it quick to navigate, and make adjustments to the settings with the low end in mind. Also, in my tests, Acon equalize uses 12X more CPU than mongoose and requires delay compensation. Obviously this is because Equalize is doing a lot of other stuff besides the mid/side operations."

What intrigues me most is the reference to delay compensation when referring to the alternate way of achieving the same effect without his plug-in.

Edit : - Thanks for the heads up on the Bassline plug-in Bouldersound. Iv'e downloaded it and shall give it a try.

I'll do a comparison of the mongoose and the free one

Chris, if its not asking too much, do you think you could post a sample of the results here so we can compare the two?
-I'd be very interested to here the results if you can do a test with the same piece of audio.

-Maybe a before sample without & an after for each plug-in?(y)

Sure any preference to the type . of . material? Like.panned guitars or a full mix ? What would be the best thing for you to be able to hear what you need?

I think anything that gives a good comparison of the two, maybe I'll leave that to your better judgement, Chris.(y)

Sean G, post: 433113, member: 49362 wrote: It states the following ..."it takes the low frequencies and collapses them down to mono, allowing us to open up opportunities to pan our tracks that we couldn't do before because of all the different listening environments".

90% of the time I put the bass freq in mono somewhere in the neighborhood of 200hz , apply a M/S HPF EQ on the side. Works like a charm. Its a way to achieve tight bass and clear wide imaging. I check the balances in mono to make sure it's translating as expected for both mono and stereo.

Sequoia 13 does all this on the mastering section really well.

It would also be interesting and useful to do the comparison with pink noise. I'd do it two ways, one using the same pink noise for both channels and one using different (or well offset in time) pink noise for each channel. Summed mono versions of each would also be helpful.

One thing to note is the free version installs in the 32 bit vst folder in windows. Let's see if it works alright.

Yeah,. I couldn't get the free one to install properly, I can usually get cubase to find stray plug ins for some reason this one can't with the plug in finder/catalog thingy.

Bouldersound. How do you want the pink noise done? I have 15 db pink noise turned into a wave,.. What do I do with it?
Take the same pink and put it on 2 tracks and pan hard left and right? Then use the plug in before and after? Or do you have something else in mind?

Then the same thing but offset one of the pink noises?

As far a s summed mono do you want the daw to do a mono downmix?

Ok I got the basslane plug working.

Ok here we go... Tests were done with the frequency cut off at 299 as that's what entering 300 in text box of the mongoose gave me. The Mongoose had a default of the mono bass being at -3 db. The bass lane didn't have that option.

Original file
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

Mongoose with no widening applied
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…
Bass Lane with no widening applied
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

Mongoose with 130% spread applied
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…
Bass Lane with 130% spread applied
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

The other thing that was a variable is that the bass lane had no numbers for the widening. So I had to guess.. I didn't use any widening for the hard left ad right examples, just the same cutoffs.

Hard left and right Mongoose
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

Hard left and right Bass Lane
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

Hard left and right nothing on it
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

In the wrong hands, M/S processing can become really wrong, but when you understand its uses, its really useful.
Here is an excellent plugin as is Dan's demonstration:

And this as well.

I used to use all this gear and more then discovered everything sounded even better ITB when I moved to a 2 DAW mixing solution. The M/S on the second DAW is very cool.

imho

I'm now thinking 300 cutoff might be too high.. Not sure what i was thinking at 300 haha.

To me I like the Mongoose better. It might be because of the -3 db option though.

That fab filter vid is awesome!!!!

Listening on HD280 Pro headphones. The Mongoose with no widening more accurately retains the overall tonal balance while the Basslane seems to emphasize the bass. With widening Mongoose seems to lose the bass a little and Basslane suffers a loss of HF clarity. Neither one is an improvement over the original file to my ear. I hear smeared imaging and it sounds gimmicky. Maybe it's more useful on mixes with extreme panning, but that may make it a solution in search of a problem.

Thanks Chris (Audiokid)
- that M/S Demistified video just gave me a very helpful "Aha !" moment(y)

Thanks Chris Perra for taking the time to run a comparison and post the results(y)

bouldersound, post: 433157, member: 38959 wrote: I hear smeared imaging and it sounds gimmicky. Maybe it's more useful on mixes with extreme panning, but that may make it a solution in search of a problem.

I think I may just stick to using Ozone 6 and using the advice in those videos above as opposed to adding another plug to the chain

On the hard left/right stuff both plugins make it less jarring in headphones. I can't listen out loud at the moment but when I can I'll compare. Otherwise similar results to the full mix.