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anonymous 30 September 2004

so i was reading an article on how to make a stereo track (of whatever) sound like it's coming from outside the speakers. Here is what i did(on PT):

1)recorded violas on a stereo track.
2)inserted a SEND from this stereo track to a mono aux.
3)turned the fader up on the stereo send and the mono aux.
4)"outputed" the mono aux to another mono aux with a 1 eq band plugin (I assume anything can be used) only to be able to use the phase on it. Inverted phase and turned the fader up.

Since i haven't witnessed anyone doing this or heard it before, I don't know if i did it right. YES, it does sound like the stereo track is pushed apart from the middle, sort of like leaving a hole dead center. But it feels more like changing tone or frequency more than pushing the sound outside the speakers.

Can anybody relate to this? Did i do this correctly?

Juan

Comments

ghellquist Sun, 10/03/2004 - 00:20

Two interesting things to check out:

First an article on "sampling" a room. Some of the sound files are revealing to say the least.

http://noisevault.com/articles/am1.html

October number of Sound-on-Sound (the thick British music technology magazine) has an article called "Bilocation: Binaural Recording and 5.1 sound". To put is short, it almost gets me into buying 5.1 speakers, may still.

Gunnar Hellquist

anonymous Sun, 10/03/2004 - 02:46

I don't recognise what you are doing but it sounds like you're trying to convert normal stereo into its mid+side components.

Try this;

1, Get stereo track on two mixer channels
2, Take a mono aux send from both sides of the stereo material
3, Return the aux send to 1mixer channel, This is your mid component .
4, Now send the stereo material to 2 group outputs
5, Combine the 2 group outputs and return to 1 mixer input. This
is your side component. Please note this will require a special
lead with 2 mono jacks goinjg to 1 stereo jack, it also requires
that your mixer has balanced line inputs.
6, Remove original stereo material from left/right routing.
7, To hear the effect bring up mid fader 1st, then as you bring the side fader up you will hear the stereo image widen.

I hope I have managed to explain this properly and best of luck trying it out.

Enjoy!!!!

Liam.

KurtFoster Sun, 10/03/2004 - 11:31

Playing with phase can be fun .. but there are things to be careful of .. first listening to out of phase matierial can fatigue the listener very quickly .. It gives me a headach after just a few minutes .. it throws my ears out of whack.

Second, out of phase matierial can cancel itself out when collapsed to mono .. look out for this ... you can not control what the circumstances will be when your songs are played back once they are out in the world ..

I get sounds to appear outside the speakers all the time without resorting to futzing with the phase. Good mic placments, recording in true stereo (not "stereoizing" a mono track), proper speaker placement all can help.

You really should try to keep all elements in a mix in phase with each other IMO.

redrabbit Tue, 10/12/2004 - 23:48

I heard a dance remix last week that used that whacked out phase technique on some vocals and it threw me. I was looking around the room for some other source of that sound, thinking I was not alone. Kurt is right, while I was slightly amused, it soon became annoying. It's funny how the mind reacts to unfamiliar, unstandard situations.

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