Make Your Mixes WIDER Without Stereo Width Plugins 

super interesting, but I was kind of disappointed that you didnt showcase what you were talking about. would've been cool to hear some samples.

True story: I was doing sound for a church that actually had a pretty awesome house system. Mind you this wasn't a huge sanctuary, so when I first started there I walked around to get an idea of what the worship team was mixed like at that point of me stepping in. Despite the fact that they had a fully stereo system (2.1), every channel on the mixer was panned straight up 12 o'clock dead center. This created a messy mix, undistinguished vocals, and phasing problems as I moved about the room. Before I changed one other thing, I started with the panning. I separated out the instruments *and* the vocals according to where they were located up on the platform which was fairly wide. I sonically located each & every mic and direct line into a stereo image that matched the visual picture from the platform. The one exception was the keyboard which was a stereo signal in the first place, so I panned it hard L/R. Also I panned the effects hard L/R because, you know- why wouldn't I? To make a long story short, despite the fact that I totally cleared up their muddy mix and fine-tuned everything into a very vivid audio experience, the worship team leader was aghast at what I had done with the panning, and he eventually "fixed" it by re-centering all the panning I had worked out so meticulously. We had words about it, and I eventually quit. I said, "You hired me to mix your p.a., but apparently you still want to do it yourself, so have at it."

I mostly agree, stereo widening plugins can introduce phasing issues, etc, but the solution isn't LCR panning. You can get a lot of width by having things panned throughout the stereo field, and it sounds more like a "real" space that the listener is immersed in. Why do you think there are so many degrees on the pan knobs, just for shits and giggles??

Stereo wideners are sick for ambient pads or heavy reverb leads that kinda float around the mix

Been saying it for years: contrasts make a great mix. One of the best projects I worked on this year was an album of LCR mixes.

Personally I like to put distorted guitars somewhere in between center and full pan so they get slightly mixed with each others and you get some of that interval consonance and dissonance. If they're hard panned to the sides, they sound very separate so unless they're identical compositions, they feel a bit loose. Of course if the spectrum is a bit crowded and say a rhythm and a lead are overlapping some and perhaps in a dissonant way that sounds bad, it's convenient to pan them further away to avoid the blend.

you are right on the money. i've used the waves spreader twice. the first time i took it off. the second time i took it off. width isn't a trick its a product of method and technique.

Exactly, and another trick I think works is to hard pan anything with higher frequencies out from the middle as well. Like claps, bells, over heads, finger snaps and etc. That normal tricks those listening ears as well. But like this brother said it's all about trucking the listeners ears and middle to panned left and right will because using space in between hard left to right and dead center basically lets u hear whats there so that brain won't even let you focus on left to right so 100 percent agreed. Thanks so much for this video 🎉🤟🏾🤙🏾👊🏾💪🏾

True, my mixes improved massively by going to the basics

LCR panning is the way to go. Mono-ish verses, ultra wide choruses. If you have similar parts, one played on acoustic, another on electric guitar, pan one to the left, another to right, backing vocals lcr, organ, piano and synths are stereo, but mono piano is interesting. No widening plugins are needed because they can mess up with the phase and mono compatibility of a mix

Jordan is the goat, he gives honest help and gives no bs tips and tool to get better mixes.

thanks man, this video changed my life

I'm so glad I finally heard someone say this. I've been producing for a little over 20 years and I've always gotten stems for mixing gigs and request from in house artists demanding the most arbitrary stereo field positionings for various elements with zero justification given. I'm a HUGE fan of LCR for that very reason - the lack of substantive arguments to the contrary.

Dude I'm senior sound masters engineer and want to congratulate you ! You nailed the topic❤!!

It’s like the master Dave Pensado said: if everything is in stereo you don’t have a wide mix, you have a big mono

I ain’t gonna lie, this is what I needed to hear.

The only reason I would use a stereo widener is for the specific effect, not the function it promises. For instance, I would use it on the double of a vocal to blend a different sound with the main vocal.

just a beginner in mixing here but never touched those stereo width plugins, thanks for the video...

Jordan, your "mythbusts" and your tips go beyond the metal genre. Always spot on! I'd love to see you mix something different. I bet you'd kick ass as well!

Awesome! I love how you point out that these things don't exist in a vacuum. We aren't JUST listening to a mix. We are listening to it AND responding to verbal relations that have been made between the mix and other things.

Man, I applied this to my guitar tracks that were panned L-100 L-70 R-70 R-100 and then rendered and referenced... Immediately better. Awesome.

Agreed. Space overall is, to me, what creates good mixes. Highs and lows, left and right even in rhythm and notes. However, this video helped me realize that I may be overdoing it when I have more instruments involved. In the past I have tried to give each one their own pan position when that may not be necessary.

Great video! I only use stereo widening plugins when I'm mastering for clients who can't go back and fix the mix. You're right! It's just a band-aid

LCR is something to consider, but not the *only* way. maybe you don't need a specific track to be the widest? maybe you have shakes, claves, hats, and other perc elements that need to go somewhere in between?

I do like to use Waves Stereo Width Enhancer on guitars just a touch. Like 1.15, but I do not rely on it to create width but just to enhance what's already there. I find also using mid-side eq on the master bus to help widen things up a touch.

I always used your tips, and WTF! It's give me a better result, and also, it's change my mindset about mixing itself! Thank's Jordan

Arrangement affects width too. Take two rhythm guitars panned L and R. If they are just playing the same thing, it won't add much width but if they're playing off each other the result will be nice and wide.

I'm going to try this on some recent mixes and A/B them. I don't use plugins, but I do have shit panned all over the place lol. Looking for that wall of guitars sound... I'm curious to see how this approach translates. Btw, third video of yours and I'm hitting the subscribe... Glad I found this channel! Cheers✌

Agree to an extent, but I find that panning guitars, especially rhythm guitars, more than 85% or mayyyybe 90% really tends to bring out any and all imperfections in the performance, while taking away that center that can add groove to a mix. I absolutely agree that takes should be as tight as possible, but unless you've got a robot on guitar and you go nuts with time stretching to make the panned takes perfect, I think you can run into trouble with full-on hard pans. Sticking between 75% and 90% has helped glue the multitrack takes together for me, while allowing for a wide sound. What do you think?

If folks think that doubling their own tracks is tedious and boring clearly do not have a passion for their hobby. Dont be lazy. A little bit of effort with produce MASSIVE results

Interesting idea regarding toms. I always pan them hard left and right cause I love the sound when the drummer goes round the kit.

He's right, the simpler the better like for instance my master engineer told me to turn up my vocal on a mix by 3db in the 7khz range, I concluded that that was just going to make the vocal more apparent and bright because it was setting a lil under the melodies, I simply turned the volume fader up by 3db, not touching the vocal eq, and achieved the same effect.

Been watching all the videos on RU-vid about this and this is by far the best explanation!

Maybe it's an amateur move to 'trick the ear' as you say but that's where we've arrived. The whole of mixing process wrt perceived loudness is an elaborate tricking of ears saga. I don't see anything wrong with using stereo width plugins as far as the result is as intended. These types of purist approaches followed by advice rooted in those approaches could really hurt a novice's process for months if not years.

Good advice. The more different in tone two parts are the wider they will become. The more common the two parts are the more they want to sum to the center. For example, two gtr performances recorded with the exact same chain (panned left and right) will not sound as wide as two different gtr tones panned left and right.

I beg to differ... The perception of width is obtained by having differences of what is being played between the 2 channels. If you play the exact same source panned 100% left and 100% right what you get is a louder mono mix. Now, you if you introduce differences in EQ, time phase... or even different dynamics to each channel, then you get a wider stereo image.

I agree that you can achieve wide mixes without widening plugin but you have to consider that mixers like Andrew Scheps have a widening plugin on the mixbus and other mixers like Michael Brauer have it on a part of the mix. It's not a beginner attitude but a matter of good taste in things

The Dan Worall videos about LCR mixing and stereo width are awesome too. A little bit nerdy though.

I always use pan 100% but with a pair of mics reproducing the binaural perception like ORTF technique. Latter I saw a doc about Bruce Swedien THE engineer behind all Michel Jackson / Quince Jones albums and noticed he did the same with lots of stereo captures on this iconic productions. You maybe will like to check ou this approach.

Good video! I agree with many of your points. I did notice however notice that when you were talking about ineffective width plugins, you showed Waves S1 as an example. The only reason I bring this up is that I used to think this plugin didn't work, but I discovered the track already has to have stereo information going into it for the best effect. Try waves doubler 2 with the Pensado vocal direct preset going into S1 with the Pensado 3D width preset and you have some nice width. Maybe the modulation won't work for every situation but it's subtle enough to not be too obvious. Further tweaking can help too. The Haas effect is another way to get width without plugins. Hard pan 2 tracks and delay one side by 10-15 ms. 14 is my personal starting point :)

In my old bands we worked hard on the arrangements and rehearsed loads before recording. One of the bands had an awesome drummer. Helps a lot with a great mix.

coming for recording guitar. I'm still figuring stuff out, but the reason i am looking at stereo plugins and stereo methods is because even with hard panning and double tracking, the rythem guitar still seems locked into a certain sound and it cant break out of that sound with out sacrificing the tone of the guitar. No amount of mixing makes it sound like a wide sound that fills up the spectrum with out drowning everything. I can get great clean wide sound with no distortion, but distorted guitar, it would be nice to have a fully in-depth tutorial of how to mix mono recorded distorted guitars to get a nice rich distortion sound that doesn't drown out everything in the mix. Seems you have 2 options... youcan have a great sounding guitar with 0 room for anything on top, or have a bad sounding guitar to make room for what ever else you have on top of it. Maybe i need to look into more compression methods. If i can compress a certain spectrum range, that might work...

02:25 Pizza L, R? Spaghetti 57? Jordan are you trying to record food? In this case I would definitely recommend panning. One for each pizza xD

This is gold. Worked great for me. Thank you much!

Please tell me if this is silly. For the static/rough mix, I sometimes set my LR elements anywhere from 75 to 89 on the panorama and treat that like it’s hard panned. I do this so there’s room to grow when a big chorus or otherwise climactic bit of the song comes up, and automate those pans to then go to 100. By contrast, seems like the mix just got bigger/wider when that last chorus hit.

I used to be in d category of using an imager but with time I realized panning with hass effects works well for me. Great video 👍

I have found that widening plugins end up making the instrument sound thin and won't translate outside the studio. And when you check it mono the sounds almost disappears. I just happened to watch a Chris Lord-Alge Mix With The Masters video in which he said that widening has to sound good in mono also. Those widening plugins don't achieve that imho.

Excellent points r.e. the (ab)use of stereo widening plugins, especially across the entire stereo mix, and of achieving width by contrast to narrow, and of timing tightness as a strong part of getting side information sound & feel wide. However, you forgot highpassing and using high frequency signals for width; plus that idea of LCR panning being a "rule" is TOTALLY off the mark and misleading. As someone doing this for decades and way back in the day, let me specify that LCR was born out of necessity, because some early consoles only offered that as "panning" i.e. stereo placement option, by switches, not by a pot. And even back then, we would circumvent this by using fader levels sending into a LR group or pair of tracks to create different perceived panning positions, like for example with drum toms (which are btw totally unrealistic and weird sounding if panned hard LCR), or with backing vocals. The stereo field is there to be used, countless great albums attest to that. FYI get yourself a physical copy of Paul McCartney's "Press To Play" album and check out the mixing diagram drawings in the liner notes, might open a window or two. As with everything in music, there are NO rules, except the laws of physics. You touched on some of these, and very correctly so, but also (perhaps unwantingly) contributed to spreading some of that bogus "rules of" type dogma which is all too present on the web today, and confuses many young engineers & musicmakers. Not your best idea or video, IMHO.

Maybe a good video would be to demonstrate the artifacts that one can get from width plugins.

I’m conflicted here, Jordan! Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I greatly respect yours, but I think it’s a little shortsighted to dig on wideners. At the end of the day, they are just tools and if they don’t work for you, that’s cool. I say this whilst simultaneously agreeing that your assertions about contrast are really at the heart of what wideness really is. You can’t have wide without narrow, light without dark etc. But having spent time studying with industry heavies like Andrew Scheps and working with others like Alex Ghenea, Joe Zook, Mike Fraser, I can tell you that there are many people who both mix LCR and use wideners with great results. I have found ways to make a width process work for me but that doesn’t come from a lack of understanding of what they do, or of critical listening. Again, they’re just tools. They merely give us access to that which we wouldn’t otherwise have without them.

you explaining has got to be the greatest thing ever. Become a professor or something lmao

What I like to do in rock mixes is to have the clean guitars during the verses 50%LR and the crunchy rythm guitars during the choruses 100% LR. If there's a quiet part before the last chorus and I'm in control of the arrangement, I like to only have one guitar in the middle and even cut out the bass to make it as small and narrow as possible. Makes the choruses sound huge.

Great advice here - glad I found your video! I'll be recording my acoustic Gypsy Swing trio this year and have been considering using "LCR" mixing (I didn't realize it had a name). I wasn't sure if I was crazy, but most of my favorite sounding mixes (wider sounding too) are from old jazz records that I have and I noticed that the instruments were either L, C, or R. I thought it would be cool to do this as it would also match our positions live from the listeners POV: (L) Rhythm Guitar - (C) Upright Bass - (R) Lead Guitar. I also want to center the bass in case we can afford to press vinyl at some point. Validation... Thanks!

I think panning in a mix is a matter of taste and it's a skill and a point of view/listening. If you hard pan everything that's doubled tracked like guitars, overheads, chorus voices, etc the result is a messed up stereo image. Of course the right volume counts a lot, but still, I use panning in a different aproach besides the "widening" stereo image. There's a famous hardware unit so called Aural Exciter, really effective on pan widening. This units were rented by big studios in the 80's at 20$ per hour! And it really makes a difference. Mixing engineers were using them for vocal chorus, guitars and drums, mainly. That's why so many big hit records had that huge wide stereo sound. Anyway, I like to use panning for different aproaches and "colors". Like a painter puts his objects, people, animals and stuff at different places in his painting.

i go full mono and get mixes that sound sound wider then the best stereo songs. theres alot of tricks but usually if you can get volume without increasing the volume then that makes things sound big

Great point - recently found your channel and finding it really helpful

This might sound all good on speakers, but for headphone playback hard panning can sound a bit weird. Manipulating the phase can produce the effect as if our head is filtering out part of the stereo image.

I'm not a pro and I do like the result of adding some both stereo widening to the mix and something like Izotope vocal doubler (free) on chorus vocals and select dry parts. My concern with full L/R panned is that once played as mono those get reduced by 50% volume - they disappear. So I pan maybe 30% - still perceived as stereo - but only 15% volume loss when converted to mono. (Checking in mono has also revealed problems with stereo enhancers and doublers - so I always check result in mono.)

Only one minute into this video and I’m excited to hear the remedy

I like rhythm guitars slightly left or right in the verses. Same with vocals. Slightly off center and it gives a sense of space in a different way. I dont play metal and it generally a bit more atmospheric which may be the main difference. Other than that i tend to agree

Well this helped a lot made my House mix sound clear and full

This tip might work when you have decent amount of layers to work with. Let say you have a simple setup like a guitar, piano, shaker and vocals. I don't think panning hard left and right is a good idea.

Sorry for the longer post...just supporting the above I hope. Great core info...but having a listen to fave reference tracks like 'In Your Eyes' is spaced arrangement, instruments, spectral AND pan but what is missing here is the use of binaural reference...especially in cans..LCR is great for minimal element rock/pop etc absolutely...but start painting and its just 3 monos really. To really learn from a different perspective...have a look at a good HDR photo, you see focus depth contrast but you don't get the luxury of 3d which is what a good mix is (very generally of course). What you DO get with audio is the L&R sublties that standard pan can't give ie millisecond and eq differences BETWEEN L&R; a pan knob is a level modulation only. Changing from mono close micing to stereo techniques is the key to getting wide instruments in context (or applying faux treatment of the above). LCR is an art form unto itself and well worth the study...but its like an eq with a couple of preset positions...BUT its great info because it reinforces REFERENCE The worst thing about widening plugs is definitely translation...just hit the mono button and you get it straight away. We are all learning this road...even the pros...they have just made their workflows solid and can shape around the edges as they go with new ideas but I encourage everyone to just keep pushing everything and study it...widening plugs make eg Brauer based mixing a nice little touch but bear in mind too...just some MS/S only high eq will tweak directional/location to human hearing cues. Keep in mind, 'magic IS in the midrange', build that picture first, then keep pushing in to the lows/tops when mixing else you go around and around in a continuous circle; spatialising should be some icing at the end Try using this or a simliar type (dearVR micro is the newer version) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C_onYCgzzL4.html BUT obviously stick to the core message of this vid...contrast...not on everything...use HRTF blending Interesting LCR hybrid is to populate a binaural panner across L CL C CR R as presets Add a standard panner plug along with it but mute it. Subgroup or just single place each element to one of these...especially for acoustic/ambient...and only use reflections for subgroups with transients. Try ABing with turning panner off and standard pan on and see what I mean...keep checking mono :-) Peace

Thank you.... I was noticing how live your mixing environment is... 😳

this is great advice, but just like the toms and seeking a "realistic image", sometimes I want a "realistic image" for a band set up in my soundstage. Most people don't really care about this because they aren't listening through playback gear capable of, or properly delivering a detailed 3D image. To your point, making it more highly contrasted will likely be more effective with the public at large.

What I have found... Is that you can use stereo delay plugins to help widen your mixes... As well as reverb. We can also look at using the Haas Effect technique on certain elements in mixes...

this dude just randomly shows up on my feed with the information I need without me having to type a word on the searcher its like I'm meant for this or RU-vid just reading my mind wtf! LOL great content ima kill it with this info

I love Lcr!

Two similar guitars panned fully left right will ends up in the mid section. But, two different guitar sounds, even with slight changes, will make your ears, (we only have two) recognise a difference in sound and where it's located and that gives a wider sound. That also can be achieved by having one guitar delayed some milliseconds. Drums is interesting. A lot work with digital plugins or drum machines and one trick to make them sound more alive is to copy them so you have two extra tracks with the whole kit and then balance the drums from their supposed distance to the overhead mics, and then only use a wet signal with a room reverb that suits the song. Makes a big difference compared to only adding reverb. I agree, stereo spread plugins are just spreading frequencies around and the only thing you mostly compared with is your own mix. So it sounds a little "wider" but does that make a good mix? Of course not! Thanks for sharing :)

I presume when you said hard-pan the piano, you meant mono piano. I've heard mixes which were predominantly stereo keyboards/synths panned full-width and piled on top of each other. That's the quickest way to lose width in a mix. The more full-width elements there are, the narrower the mix will become - almost a "wide mono" because the body of those sounds is up the middle. The only keyboards/synths I'd pan full-width in a busy mix are spacious, ambient sounds. But as you say, there must be contrast. The rest of the mix should be narrow; a solid core for the wide synth/effect to wrap around. I use 5-point rather than LCR. When I want a piano or similar to be stereo, I pan it just 1 point apart or occasionally 2 points. Even for solo piano I still wouldn't go full-width with it because that's the performer's POV, not a listener's.

There are so many kinds of width plug-ins. So many different ways of doing it. I completely disagree that it's a band-aid approach in all cases. The way you're talking about them- yes, totally. Abusing them, throwing your mixes out of phase, yes. Avoid that. But in experimental music I use all kinds of widening processes...whether it's an extremely short wide reverb, something like Matthew Lane's DrMS (which is a total fucking monster and can be used soooo subtly), or something as simple as turning up the sides on a stereo signal. (Though that last one is often where people really go wrong.) I actually agree with you for the most part in this video but it's waaaaay too gray of an issue IMO! Micro-panning is also really good for ultra dense, weird music. It's very important actually. But when you're mixing stuff like metalcore, pop punk, even pop, I would say you are mostly right about not micro-panning. I only do this with things like certain synths, certain FX, certain decorative or background vocal parts, lots of layered guitar parts, elaborate percussion sections, etc.

Another thing that creates wideness, is having contrasting parts hard panned. If you double your guitar track note for note (especially on the same guitar) it will be different, but it will still sound very similar in the L and R speakers. But, if the parts are different parts, the ear will notice it much more and you experience the widening effect more. It's an old school example, but recently I went back and listened to old Zepplin recordings and Jimmy Page routinely played different parts with different guitar tones in the L and R speakers simultaneously. It really achieved the width listening experience very well.

No examples?

Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind is a great example of this concept in action.

Killer video sir!

Will give this a try, thank you very much.

if everything is big, nothing is big. if everything is wide, nothing is wide. LCR defeats the purpose of trying to make things wide, does it not? if your guitars, overheads, and any other possible stereo instrument/bus is out as wide as possible, aren't THEY competing for space? personally i find it wonky in headphones above all else.

I'll give it a go but, I've found that if I hard pan my guitars, they tend to get very quiet when mono. Typically I pan them at 75 and use a little s1 which seems to keep things more consistent.

Best explanation ever thanku

The best way to do it is mid/side processing. But only high quality hardware/software can make it sound good. I use a mid side compressor the widen my mix on the master bus. Sound wide and very dense.

Yup, i agree 100%

makes so much sense

Going to try this, thanks man

great stuff . Thank You

Pan for reality, as in where they are on stage, then allow yourself for creatively using space.You can EQ the guitars and keyboards out of the way of the mono space too. LCR is just one of the options.

Recent thought process (a realisation, or I spend too much time alone lol?): used to think panning could create space so sounds of similar freq aren't on top of each other. Seemed to make sense, until reading about mixing in mono. Then realised it's more just an illusion (?) Yes, it can make sounds appear like they're occupying a different space, but in reality they're still in the same part of the spectrum. Summing everything mono reveals that as it seems to collapse sounds back on top of each other, so to speak.

Have you had any issues with reverb and LCR panning? I noticed that two of the reverb plugins I have, have zero output to the opposite speaker when I have a (soloed) guitar panned all of the way to one side (which is unnatural as a room would reflect a little opposite the source). The Inspirata reverb plugin didn't do this, but the Sunset Sound and Abbey Road Plates did. I figured out on the SS that if I turn the "width" knob to "0", I hear a little reverb in the opposite speaker and it sounds like it should - seems totally counterintuitive. I discovered that the Abbey Road Plates has a "crosstalk" lever that does the same. I didn't realize it was happening until I soloed a channel... I thought something was wrong with the plugin at first.

Love your explanations and tricks!!!!! efective. You are one of my best trick Prof! 👏🏼🥰🎊💕🌟

Okay, but Infected Mushroom's Wider plugin is actually fantastic. I use it sparingly. Never on the mix bus, just on a track here or there to create a special effect. But it really does make it sound wider.

Most widening plugins compensate for phase issues quite well. Also the use case for stereo widening plugins are cases where you do NOT have the luxury of having to different copies of the signal. If you only have one mono stem of a guitar you will have to pull some "amateur tricks" if you want it to be wide.

great video

What about the brass in a funky song? For example, there is a trumpet, a sax, and a trombone. I can't send them to the 100% side, because they'll fight the guitars. Is it a good idea to put them at 50%? Thanks for answer.

Disagree to some degree. SSL consoles are wider than other consoles and phasing plugins (wideners) are using phycoacoustics to help with in the box limitations

Uuhm.. about the panning! Drums and Percussion should be panned, like Snare -3 to left, Hihats -3 to the right, the Rimshot -2 left, Cymbals -2 right etc. Not in that order tho but you get what I am satisfying I think.

So true, all of the wideners i tried never push mixes width, they are just hacks to ruin mixes by introducing chorusiness / phaseiness

Are those types of plugins actually intended to be used as a way to widen your whole mix though? I agree that the amateur mind set would be to throw those things on your stereo buss and expect your mix to be wider/better but I don’t think the plugins themselves are even made for that. I use them fairly often but more so as either A) an effect or B) a way to layer together vocals like doubles. I’ve also occasionally used them on certain synth elements. I think it depends more on the mindset of the person rather than the tool itself.

Was expecting a demos on this issue couldn’t figure out the review..

finally true channel igot now... gbu, thats understandable.. only experienced guys will get itt..

You don't t look so old but please review old mixers panorama selector! Well could be also about song composition and orchestrations!

This was really helpful, Thank You!!