x
anonymous 7 January 2006

hey this is Sam

I am currently using Logic Exrpess and I have been trying to "spread" out my mono guitar sound a little bit, (away from the center) so I can hear the vocals better.

I have been using a plugin called "sample delay" which allows me to delay one speaker longer than the other, (which makes it sound spread out more) although I guess its ment for when you have one side that for some reason is off timing and isn't syncrronizing.

Then I used panning (not the plugin ) to try to even my Left and Right out since the guitar sounds as if it were more towards one ear after using sample delay.

My problem is that its a pain to adjust the sample delay and paning at the same time, and it starts to sound more ambient and unnatural.

Since Amplitube 2 hasent come out yet, it seems like I'm screwed for the time being.

But is there any way to do this with another technique, or a different plugin I could use?

Thanks a lot for all the help.
-Sam

Topic Tags

Comments

anonymous Sat, 01/07/2006 - 16:45

Hey Sam,

The reason why it sounds to one side is because one side is reaching your ear first because it hasn't been delayed. Your brain interprets this as it being 'over there' even tho theres as much of it on the left as the right.

I consider the 'delay one side' technique a cheat and dont use it. Its not mono compatible. Try listening in mono... or just mix the two together and see how it sounds... crap right? This is important because a lot of tv's and radios are mono. Even if your song isn't for radio or little tv's its poor technique to use it (grasshopper). So where does this leave us? Well there are other techniques which work well and give you more creative control than just delay one side but first ask yourself whats so important about spreading it out not everything has to big and massive. If you want it out the way of the vocal just pan it a bit to the side. Sort of like that instrument is on that side of the stage.

But if you want to spread it out so it coming from both sides but not the middle you can: 1) Record the guitar part again and pan the two to opposite sides. 2) Pan the guitar a bit to the side and pan some reverb or delay (echos) to the other. Try small and big verbs. 3) Put quite a lot of verb of the guitar maybe a small one, and maybe just pan the two tiny amount apart. 3) You could try a stereo chorus effect or some other logic modulation plugin. 4) Eq both sides of the one guiatr part differently, probably with logic's stereo spread plugin. 5) Fast autopan is probably closest to what you were dealing with, don't think logic has one of them but there's probably a free one out there.

Hope that helps, you probably knew some of that already. Give my love to the big apple.

MadMax Sun, 01/08/2006 - 20:22

I've done this a couple of times and been happy with it... (Not for every song though...)

Either copy and paste a duplicate copy on another track OR record the same signal to two tracks. DO NOT Phase invert...

Send them fairly wide L&R. Slightly to agressively EQ each track opposite of the other (to taste). Use either a chorus and/or delay (dual mono if you've got it) and pan opposite of the original track. If it's working out, but just not quite enough... try inverting the phase of your effect.

e.g. Left Gut scooped out lows will have the delay chorus of the right Gut signal. The right Gut w/L delay/chorus.

Be judicious with EQ and effects. It can get pretty thick in there... double check phases by going mono.

Just my .02 FWIW

Max

x

User login