Headphones Are Not Stereo (mid side phase trickery)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 сер 2021
- In which I talk about the way LCR mixes translate to headphones, warn of the potential dangers of mono-ing your low end without listening carefully to what that does, and show you some delightful ways to add depth to your mixes.
Belatedly realising my description should probably include phrases such as mid side stereo processing, sum and difference, stereo width, depth and dimension. Oh, and phase, phase rotation, all pass filters and delay.
Voxengo Sound Delay (free):
www.voxengo.com/product/sound...
TDR Slick EQ GE:
www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-vos-sli...
I recycled some graphics content from a Fabfilter series "How To Mix In Stereo Without Sucking In Mono"... I hope they don't mind. Here's a playlist:
• How To Mix In Stereo W...
Music is "All In Your Head" from my album "Impostor Syndrome", available in all the usual places. Bandcamp link:
dan-worrall.bandcamp.com/albu...
The guitar pad patch:
• My Secret Guitar Pad P...
If you like this type of content and you want to see it more often, consider signing up for Channel Membership: / @danworrall
Affiliate links: if you make a purchase using one of the links below I'll get a small commission. You won't pay any extra.
FabFilter Pro-Q3 (Gear4music)
tidd.ly/3t6cv0c
Video edited with VEGAS Pro 17:
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www.vegascreativesoftware.com... - Навчання та стиль
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](/img/n.gif)
As a young man I immersed myself in music, mixing and production. I'm now middle-aged and wish I'd undertaken something less complex like rocket science.
lol
I went from molecular pharmacology and medicinal chemistry to audio engineering and it's far more convoluted and mysterious.
In rocket science, fuel oxidizer, and a spark will always go "boom"
No joke, thousands of hours in audio production/recording/editing, hundreds in Kerbal Space Program, and the audio stuff is harder by far.
The reason why audio is harder is that we're dealing with something that is both tangible and intangible at the same time.
Rocket science, you can rely on hard numbers to produce a predictable result.
Audio, move the speaker slightly, and it messes up everything and you have to do everything again from the beginning.
This is absolutely wild and you're a great explainer.
Nice to seee you here Jeremy
Dan Worrall is tutorial perfection
Dude, he's amazing.
It’s not that ‘wild’ … practical if anything
He’s absolutely right, but he’s only proving a point, whilst missing the bigger picture:
The majority of people today listen to music with headphones. Only a tiny percentage of that majority listen on headphones that are worth a damn. I’ve been in the game for 25 years and mixed for several A-list artists, and I understand completely…
but if I were smart, I’d probably just save my money and time, and mix on Apple wired earbuds, because at the end of the day, that’s still what the majority of people use, and this fact and trend isn’t going anywhere.
The days of audiophiles with large, expensive gear, with large expensive speakers sitting on pyramid points with little slabs of slate under each point, are over. In 10 to 20 years, that generation will be dead, and so will the days of the home living room audiophile listener.
Don’t even get me started on car stereo systems 🙄 There isn’t a seat in the car that comes close to providing an accurate stereo image.
So if we were all smart, instead of being purists, we would mix on those Apple earbuds, and check our mix in the latest, highest selling, shitty economy car, and let the past go.
It’s the hard truth, but it’s the truth ✌🏻
The most simple but dramatically effective thing I've ever seen in music production so far is literally 1ms of delay. I'm floored.
What’s it doing to the mix exactly?
@@leaveitorsinkit242 I'll take a stab at it. The speed of sound is roughly 1ms per foot, so if you delay the sides by 1ms (millisecond), it will sound like it was recorded from 1 foot back from the mids. It helps give it some separation, specifically depth. It is essentially shifting the phase of the sides in comparison to the mids. Anytime you introduce a tiny delay, it shifts the phase slightly. You can drive yourself crazy messing with the phase correlation and making sure the phase is "perfect", but in reality you don't really want it to be "perfect", you just want it to sound good and make sure that it's not canceling the frequencies that you want of the instrument.(fully understanding phase cancelation is critical, and what I consider the quintessential intermediate mixing knowledge) If you mic up a drum kit with close mics, overheads and room mics. All of these mics will be getting the signal at slightly different times, and that is what we want, otherwise it would all sound like it was a bunch of mics the same distance away and wouldn't sound like a 3d space. It's the subtle phase differences that allow our ears to perceive the distance involved and therefore depth. Of course we take great care at the time of tracking to make sure the phase isnt causing cancelation, by slightly moving the mics closer or further away (inches of difference) until it sounds full and rich when listening to all the mics together. If you went through and manually lined up all the tracks where all the peaks and valleys were perfect, than the phase would be "perfect " but it wouldn't sound like it had the space that you were going for when you put up all those mics. It would actually ruin the effect. So knowing that, you can artificially recreate this effect by using short delays, like 30ms and below, remembering the 1ms=1ft rule. Those types of delays can help you shape the soundscape from front to back, along with many other things. But keep in mind that you will only hear the effect of the delay spatially if you are listening to the delayed track in reference to a same or similar un-delayed track (just like the sides are percieved against the mids in this track because a lot of the same information is in both the mids and sides). A delayed track on its own will only sound like it was played a little later, but heard with the same signal un-delayed, it starts to change the spatial relationship. There are also creative effects with short delays. Look up a video on the Hass effect, where you can actually make something sound like it's even further left or right than hard pan LR. That trick has been used in many famous productions and I feel like it will help you understand what this trick in the video is doing, just slightly more exaggerated with the Hass effect. Phsycoacoustics. Yay! Hope this helps, 🙏 👌 have a great time on your mixing journey.
@@aholder4471 just to confirm, if I went into audacity, and delayed the right side (assuming I planned both channels left and right) by 1ms, it would provide the Illusion that the soundstage is wider?
@@TimberWulfIsHere Yes, but he is using a middle/side feature of a plug in and delaying the sides by a ms in this video, not left and right. If you went in and delayed the right channel of the entire mix, it would honestly just mess your Soundstage up and probably not be what you're looking for. I would leave the delay of left vs right to individual instrument tracks, not the whole mix but hey, it can't hurt nothing to try it. That's the best and worst part of digital audio, you can try a bunch of stuff and not have to commit to anything.
@@aholder4471 I just played around with it, it actually does work, but i can also see what you mean; it does sound ever so slightly out of sync for some sounds at least.
Personally ive never understood this "no one listens in mono" argument. Even if your mix is never played back in mono, using M/S monitoring to shift density and dynamics makes a worlds difference in getting a mix that is perceivably "wide" but maintains depth and focus.
Michael Paul Stavrou agrees with you, and I agree with him.
earth to star trek bridge control: nobody cares, go home
People with functioning ears care.
exactly, but i do understand those who don't get mono mixing. Because the newer generation that do their work from home, only use stereo mix. and then its up to the one who makes the master of the song, to do the mono lvl'ing (as i would call it, when its only mixed in stereo speakers :) )
but then again many newer headphones that mainstream users buy are fake stereo where there is a driver that spread the sound between the 2 mono left right speaker so it sounds "true", and by true i mean massively coloured and therefore not the true mix you are hearing :)
There’s a part of me that realizes that this is incredibly insightful and important, and then there’s the part of me that doesn’t quite understand anything Dan talking about. I’ll have to watch again tomorrow.
Watch Dan's video about mid-side processing first and that should make it easier to wrap your head around.
You're not the only one
There's also me who doesn't know how most of this is done in Reaper
@@marcchurch1245 do you know the name of the video sir ?
@@gooda864 it's called Mid-Side Demystified. It is a Dan Worall video but it's not on his personal channel, it's on Fab Filter's channel.
Now we'll see 30 "next level" tutorials within the same month with this secet trick of the pros mid side delay trick.
Invade the channels and bring em here
Lmaoooo I literally had the same thought hahahahaha
oh god
Just when you think you understand something, Dan absolutely blows your mind and makes you realize how much is left to learn and discover in audio
And how much of it is right, if you add just a little phase shift. ;)
I'm a developer for FL studio mobile and this video inspired me to add m/s delays to it in my first week of working there - just thanks to this video.
Thanks Dan 🔻
Exit: talking about the spacer module in flm
👋
hey I started with mobile man that´s so cool
@@tysk_dt eyyyo xD
I’m always in awe of Dan’s ability to meld his technical and artistic talents into these intimidating displays of audio engineering skill. I’m an engineer and a musician, and to me it feels like he has the analytical capabilities of the most rigorous scientists combined with the empathy of the deepest creative. And then he’s generous enough to share lessons like this with us. I share this channel with anyone who will listen. Thanks Dan.
Agreed
Artistic talents?
talented artist
I so second that emotion!
And then to have a speaking voice like butter on top of all that!
I have over 10k in home theatre, studio, pro audio, and simple Bluetooth speakers everywhere in my house. My wife still listens to all her music on the phone.
Yup, this is relatable.
Convenience is usually what people will go for, I admit I'm guilty of doing that myself when I can't be bothered to plug it in to something :D
I hate when she plays music on her phone... All I hear is “chk, chk, chk...”
Each eardrum is a world...
@@whereismyleafage1887 not even mono.
I hope they never heard Led zeppelin on it :)
It is absolutely incredible the fact that you are handing out knowledge of this depth for free. This is specially great for vocals or any kind of non-digital instrument that one may record on studio. Amazing stuff man, keep it up.
Been watching different mixing, mastering and processing channels and none of them even mentioned that dilemma.
Glad I found out about you via FabFilter and I admit I stick to your content, because it's easily explained, well represented and good to recreate.
Thanks Dan, keep it up 😊
Damn this is incredible. Been chasing "depth" for the longest time, and I'm just blown away right now.
I just had that revelation, too. It's been depth I've been seeking. Mind blown.
@@FranklynMonk Yes. It's literally like Width got shifted 90 degrees.
There's another thing that's AMAZING about this technique that might not be so obvious at first: Mono-compatibility. Utilizing a mid/side channel delay will NOT affect the timbre OR level in mono playback at all (give or take a fraction of a ms of delay on whatever you apply the technique to). This is because when converting to mono, hard-panned material will not change in level, and the side channel will disappear completely. This is unlike an LR imaging technique like Hass delay or LR filtering, which will introduce a sort of flange/comb effect when you convert to mono. Genius!
Yes indeed! I was initially flabbergasted about how this doesn't screw with mono-compatibility at all.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around what I'm hearing exactly, and why. I mean I know what M/S processing is and how the encoder/decoder works (which is simple enough in itself), but I still find it generally quite counter intuitive how things behave sonically when processing them separately.
I suppose the M/S terminology is already confusing. Sum/Difference captures the meaning of the process more accurately imho.
But anyway, after playing around a bit with delaying the mid-channel, I wouldn't slap a mid-channel delay on the mix-bus at the end of a mix session as it screws around too drastically with some very specific mixing choices I made. But this technique certainly opens up some very intriguing possibilities when applied with focus and creativity! (as Dan demonstrated extremely well)
This is fascinating! As someone interested in composition and mixing, knowing these tricks (and pitfalls) seems very worthwhile.
Wow. One of the most educating and enjoyable videos I’ve watched in a while. The production quality is beyond this world!!!!! I’m not surprised that an audio engineer has that good of voiceover audio, I’m just flabbergasted by how much effort you put into your videos!
Wow, mind blown 🤯! If Dan did a mix of a song from scratch, showing his workflow, plugins and what he listens for, I would pay good money for that.
why there are millions of videos on youtube like that already
@@codesymphony Quality vs quantity my friend. Thousands of videos with half baked or outright incorrect information is no good.
@@bluestringmusic Correct. I've seen hundreds of "tutorials" on music production to this day. Most of them hardly taught me anything. With this video however, I feel like I just went on an experimental trip. Tons of great information here, something many do not include into their videos. This is QUALITY demonstration, not some over-the-top animations, 10 second cuts of the work process or time-lapses. Some people also like to just slap bunch of filters on their mix, while they're convinced it's always the same process to mixing and then they call it a day. I wouldn't know delay made such a profound difference, or how the channels are encoded after panning hard left, right, mid. It feels good to hear a difference, but also UNDERSTAND why there is one.
This is a game changer! I've always hated hard panning my tracks because It felt unnatural, yet I always heard people talking about LCR mixing. This filled in that gap I had in my understanding and I'm excited to play with this new knowledge. Thanks a million!
Hi Dan! I keep coming back to your channel. This is supreme content. I am by no means as educated on the topic of sound as you are. But being able to learn why my mixing skills suck is kind of priceless. I have watched and listened to all of your videos on this channel (the fabfilter ones as well) And i got to say:
Everytime i consume your content i get amazed. Spot on. To the point. And most importantly why! Thank you for the awesomeness!
Dan, your advice continues to improve the quality of my own productions! You are a valuable asset to our community! After watching this video last night I realized that the pro-q instance I run in mastering sessions to high pass the sides was always in natural phase. This morning I switched it to linear phase and was really happy with the results! I never thought about it before watching your video. I owe you a beer some day!
This was exactly the knowledge-gap I needed plugged right now to take my mixes higher! Thank you Dan!
This is an absolutely brilliant video. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us, Dan!
Best UA-cam homepage recommendation I've gotten in months, how had I never come across this channel before?! Immediately subscribed, your content is just what I needed to nerd out on!
Thank you again, Dan. Really interesting ways to keep working on space in a mix. You also mentioned showing how you created the guitar part you are using-- count me in!
Have only recently found your videos. Earned an instant sub, absolutely loving your content. So much incredible information and importantly for me presented succinctly, no waffle. Eagerly looking forward to going through your back catalogue of videos to get caught up.
same! Love it when this happens.
That background track was really relaxing. I was almost meditating over the issue of video. good job 👌🧘♂️
Pink Floyd-ish ;)
it's tecnicly wrong to call it background track in this case lol
In The Air Tonight drum vibes.
Agreed
Absolutely blew my mind. You are a fantastic presenter and you paced this incredibly well. As I was going to share this with someone, I was shocked to realize that I was nearly at the end of the video. The flow of the video is smooth af.
Brilliant Dan. You always produce very different audio engineering videos, and even though I sometimes struggle to follow every bit of them - and come away feeling very stupid - I at least feel I'm learning something, and that I should be learning a bit more. I got that free Voxengo delay a while back. There was something I'd seen that persuaded me I needed to get it. I've never used it. But this has prompted me the think again
Fuck yeah Dan. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your sharing these pearls gleaned from years of deep diving. 🙏
Dan you are still my hero. After all these years, your videos (aka video production, speech speed, content, examples and so on) never fail to amaze me.
The hero we need, but maybe not the one we deserve.
❤️
Every video on this channel is in a whole other level. High quality information for free. Thanks!
That Reaper trick at the end with the allpass filter just confirms to me both the genius of your teachings, Dan, and the genius of Reaper as a DAW. I'm utterly impressed with that one!! Thank you :)
Dan is in a league of his own when it comes to getting technical while still making it engaging and easy to understand.
That all-pass filter technique went straight into buses of my template. Thanks again Dan for a neat trick!
which instruments do you use it on? I tried it on hard panned guitars, and this effect adds an unpleasant random panning effect plus to the depth. I mean real guitars, not that cloudy obscured background guitars Dan had in this mix :)
You don't have to modulate the all pass filter. Usually I wouldn't: this is more of a special effect.
@@DanWorrall oh thanks Dan!
Once again, you made a wonderful video, logical, meaningful, deep, well thought and executed. I truly wish I could observe you at work. Thank you Dan!
You just blew my mind! thank you so much, this is the piece that was missing in my mixes, thank you so very much! greatings from Quito-Ecuador
Great video Dan! I've heard things like this for a long time but never understood them.
I have been making music in DAWs for 20 years, since I was 12.
This video finally explained to me and made me understand, what the hell a sound engineer's job is, and why it's different and separate from what I've been doing.
AMAZING video. A hard-panned channel not being solely on the Side blew my mind.
If I ever do an LCR mix or want to add depth to a song I'll come back to this.
Mind is blown... Fantastic stuff, Dan. I will need a couple of days to realize such potential.
You've just explained something I do without knowing why I was doing it. 😂
Thank you
Fantastically explained, i've noticed that on a lot of vintage songs the panning is hard left and right. More modern songs tend to use the special stereo headphone sound
It's called anti-phase
Thanks Dan :-) Possibly the only audio educational channel on youtube worth watching. I've been making music digitally for 20+ years and have a masters in the subject and taught at degree level, yet I'm learning things here!!
I kinda love these pedantic video titles; because though occasionally they are just click-bait and I get fleeced, sometimes they are videos like this one, which I wouldn't normally think to click on, much less search for. What's more is actually being something I could directly try out myself in my sound software without requiring a complicated setup. Great video!
This feels like a different tier, like being a sorcerer or a magícían.
Can't wait to know what you do to your guitars.
Thank you. Amazing and amazed 🍀
he went all in and it's for a greater good
Yes! Depth, not width - totally agree. Thanks Dan, brilliant as ever :)
You have really upped the ante here! All I can say is wow. The best "tinkerer" ever. Your last trick is just like what we do with voltage control circuits in synths to shape the sound. Cheers
This has been one of the most informative audio discussion videos that I have seen that will help me improve my mix. Thank you Dan.
Fantastic video! I actually used this very same technique to make a mono-to-stereo, fully monocompatible processor (i made a reaktor ensemble). It injects mono signal into the side and delays it by an amount chosen by the user (small amounts btw).
I discovered that this works very well also on stereo tracks, not only mono ones!
By watching this video i realized that dalaying the mid channel is SO COOL! Also the all-pass is a very great idea!
I sould modify my ensemble to make it a powerhouse filled with Dan’s knowledge 😀
Dan, your videos are so informative. Here's a like. Cheers.
Genius. You are so thorough and creative mixed together in concrete useful results.
I was completely blown away by this, now my mixes sound rich and deep, thanks a lot man
I've learned to watch all of Dan's videos regardless of if I think I care about the topic... (what do I care about LCR mixing?) -- I always end up learning a ton of fascinating general audio art and science. Thanks Dan.
Seriously! I learn more in a video where Dan looks at a specific plug-in that I’m never going to use than I do from any other UA-cam tutorials.
@@TjMoon91 Dude I got a masters degree in Music Production at Berklee College and we didn't even scratch the surface of this kinda stuff Dan explains so eloquently. Could've saved me a boatload of cash!
Such a coincidence, that last night I watched his first video about LCR mixing and now I see this in my recommendations, noticing it's from 4 hours ago.
I guess it's a sign for me to subscribe.
Very enlightening indeed. Thanks so much for putting this together Dan.
This blew my mind, thanks for all you do Dan.
This is the first time I've been truly blown away by an audio trick. That last Reaper trick breathes so much life into the mix while listening on headphones. I'm actually speechless. Not typeless, obviously, but speechless.
If I watch more than one of Dan’s tutorials in a row I need to have a nap for my brain to recover. Amazing content. I think I am done with all other tutorial channels.
Thank you for your great delivery and intelligence. Keep these videos coming!
Hi Dan, love this video. And the video title is an huge understatement. There is so much in this video.
Fantastic presentation. I mix in mono first, then add stereo and/or evolving depth after...this depends on the song. Then I go back and check it on mono again. This is why I do not mix on headphones. It's not to say you can't, but you won't really know what you've got until you listen to it in a room with two speakers facing you. I still mix on headphones just to listen for details in the mix that I want to either include our exclude, but when I'm getting close to a final master, I use several monitors.
It's been a while since I've actually learnt something new from a tutorial, but man this was informative.
right?
As Always… Boggling… but Clear and DEEPLY HELPFUL. THANK YOU.
Love this so much! Beautifully done.
dear lord ...
the depth of this man's knowledge in all aspects of sonic production is apparently unfathomable ...
I am officially hooked ...
Please, do a video on that ambient guitar effect! Sounds awesome
I love airwindows
I zoomed in and it said RealVerb
@@nexusobserve well i just made a wild guess and i'm pretty sure it would yield in a similiar sound
No Airwindows. No phaser. Guess again ;)
@@DanWorrall my first guess would've beena spring reverb
I think this is by far the sickest shit you've shown so far. That's so interesting. The change in sound is dramatic and for the better in most cases you showed. Absolutely amazing. I have to try this!
Great video my man.
Awesome
Haven't seen much great videos on production like this before
Unbelievably good video
Sometimes listening to Dan is like listening to a warlock explain the dark arts. That delay effect is so drastic and sounds so good yet so easy to achieve, souls must have been bargained with to learn the trick! 🤯
I don’t even hear what’s going on sonically. Like… how’re all his hard panned elements “chasing” each other in the 3-D spectrum?
@@leaveitorsinkit242 watch it on a good pair of headphones
Yes, I would love to hear how you make those guitar sounds. Love the informative content!
The next dimension in mixing (which some people are already working with) is random (and other forms of algorithmic) movement. This is brilliant material, and while it is something I've thought about, I haven't had the time to come up with some practical applications at the mix level - only instrument and effect params - this is a great spring board of ideas around creative phase randomization. Excellent channel - and as others have noted, you have a great style and voice for explaining the steps and concepts. (Haas-n-pepper?)
04:37 - Ooh, interesting use of EQ phase-shifting. I kinda knew this was going to happen before you did it. Your explanations and examples are so much better than mine. Love your vids.
When I mix to stereo (I'm moving more toward surround) I feel that it's absolutely necessary to have motion. Some parts can just sit where I place them in the field but other parts really need to travel. I've noticed that some note sequences gain emphasis through motion, like as if our hunter instincts are trying to pin down their location. While other parts can be de-emphasized by scattering them. Some notes need to start in one place and reach completion in another. I frequently automate 'Wider' to send particular parts out or in. I seldom use algorithms, like LFO's, to produce motion but perhaps I'll begin more to follow your example at the end of this video to give static parts more of a living pulse.
I certainly agree with your contention about headphones with the addendum that it's utterly impossible to keep our heads absolutely motionless unless one were to painfully clamp one's head into a fixed position. Perhaps this is another reason why headphones contribute so much to ear fatigue.
I like to watch people's heads move as they listen to my work.
I've been looking now for a few years for the answer to this 'thing' that pro mixes/masters seem to do differently when I A/B reference tracks. They've always been able to acheive a kind of 3D feeling to the instrument positioning weather it be on headphones or speakers, but also not lose anything when listening in mono like on a google home speaker. I put it down to expensive hardware that the pros use that I could never imagine affording in a thousand lifetimes.
Turns out I was wrong, THIS is it. This is what I've been searching for, this is the answer. By god, thank you so much for this. This is the best 16 minutes I've ever spent looking to further my knowledge in audio production, I am extremely grateful for your time and effort in sharing this.
Easy sub, gonna grab a drink before I binge everything you've uploaded.
The most beautiful imaging tutorial I've ever seen. Thanks Mr. Worrall.
I use Melda's MUtility for this kind of stuff, because it's able to do a lot of things besides what's on this video, while still remaining free; do haas, do invert stereo, mid delays etc.
If you don't mind me asking, how do you delay only the mid channel with MUtility? Can't figure it out :/
Thanks for the tip! I realize I already have Mutility, but have never even taken a look at it.
this is insane. I’d kill to have a tenth of this mans knowledge
Thanks! That 0.3ms mid delay is the best tip I've come across in several years. I have a couple songs I like that were mixed LCR (which I don't like). I pulled one up in my DAW and delayed the mid by 0.3ms and now it sounds much nicer across the stereo field. :)
Thank you, you are my new favorite music production channel.
2:55We want you to show us HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING!
👍 yes 👏
No cap + the guitar effect
I personally love the un naturalness of hard panning headphones. I mean it’s easy to go over board but it’s also easy to make something sound really interesting.
Done as an effect, it’s fine. But the problem is most stereo mixing comes down to a choice of what equipment to cater to. When it’s done poorly, it’s really jarring to me. Loads of old stereo stuff clearly wasn’t made for headphones. I wish there was a quick correction for it at the music player level.
@@CosmicHippopotamus old stereo stuff from the 60s for example where the drums are hard left, bass hard right, only vocals centered or whatever. really jarring
This is an absolute golden nugget of knowledge if I ever saw one. Thank you for the effort to create this tutorial! On a side note: for some reason the demo track with shifting delays back and forth gave me slight nausea not unlike that experienced after a prolonged VR session. I might have to lookup into that a bit more
I love the background beat you made to demonstrate this. Subbed.
The most natural trick I personally use is utilizing some Early Reflections. It somehow emulates the natural room and brings the hard panned elements into a real space.
I also tend to give the other elements of the mix the same Early Reflections so that the whole mix sounds more cohesive. Amazing video BTW Dan!
I am the same, I like having a small space reverb with mainly ER (like a studio convolution or something) and feed everything to it to fill in the distance between instruments.
i've been doing all sorts of ITD and HRTF panning in my work for some time and i'm happy to see something along the same lines here - f the phase police indeed, 2-channel audio is a playground
I started to understand this more having recently used Boz Digital Labs Pan Knob with both the delay and X-over pan functions enabled. Brilliant plug-in. Had no idea why it was doing what it was doing and it kind of led me to this video. Thanks as always Dan. Such a good explanation
Wow, Wow and WOW again! This explains a lot. Now because of you I got some new tricks to use! Thanks Dan! 🎯
I definitely hope you show the guitar effect!
Quick Tip: If you are trying to do the Voxengo Sound delay phase in Abelton Live, don't pan the whole track, put in a utility before the delay and pan that. The pan on the actual track will affect all of the audio in the effect chain, and it won't work.
Absolutely beautiful song and amazing tutorial, thank you!
The most interesting audio tutorial I've seen in a year. Bravo!
Was that the last time you watched a Dan Worrall video?
You've just blown my mind a little. I was listening to some nu metal today of course in headphones and felt the LCR mixing really made it feel small, I think my problem was mainly that a lot of it (depending on the band) had very little ambience and therefore not much in between LCR so the vocals and snare seemed to have no width and be in the middle of my face and then guitars and cymbals were next to my ears as if the band had members in 3 groups rather than laid out next to each other. It does make it in your face but way too distracting for me, on speakers I don't hear it like this because the room ambience and phase fx. Some kind of trick like this (plus maybe some ambience) would of made it way better. I am assuming MS 'tricks' are part of what makes binaural emulation software (like Abbey Road NX) work the way it does. I always wonder too if we like crosstalk in analog gear for the very same reason, it adds depth because signals aren;t fully separated and potentially can add phase changes relative to mid and side.
I love this stuff! Dan’s great, and if we all just appreciated having the input of an experienced sound engineer for free or very little money, there is no argument. And if Dan did not have a point of view of one flavour or another, it would make him rudderless just like it would make anyone rudderless. Once you have a POV you can begin to work from there, and even account for your own bias in having it. I have come to the conclusion about binaural, that it’s superior to stereo, and in fact, is what early on people may have expected or wanted, stereo to be? That’s just my POV.
I was listening to the increasingly great-sounding (I’m older) Tangerine Dream, and some Edgar Froese, and the ability to completely send a source sound to only one ear, means the stereo effect can be more radical? So this TD track, has a shimmering guitar chord that seems to be roaming R to L so much, it’s effect is it is rotating around your head, I realise. This is pretty good for the 1970’s or 1980’s. It doesn’t quite sound like it’s at the back of your head, it’s more like it goes around behind a barrier that’s behind you, but it’s awfully good.
I also used earbuds to listen to a Robin Trower track (‘What lies beneath’ I think), and in this binaural mode of listening, I can picture with a lot of precision, the exact location in 3D space where the different instruments are appearing to emanate from. This really doesn’t happen with a pair of stereo speakers - you’d need a surround-sound system with a curved array rather like pixels of a modern computer screen/TV. Earbuds are a lot cheaper?! Anyway, these are my modest thoughts on the matter.
I have one poser for you Dan - it MUST in theory be possible to make that TD track guitar that seems to rotate around me in binaural listening, actually sound like it’s going behind me? It must be possible to fake it, with only two devices attached to me, because I only have two ears, yet, I can tell in reality, when something is behind me. Is it too subtle an effect for us to capture without some AI system processing the sound, and simulating the effect of our ACTUAL ears, being hit from behind the ear instead of in front? Here’s my wacky theory - that it has not been done before now suggests to me it involves an effect that simple headphones or stereo earbuds cannot simulate, and that could possibly be moving air, hitting the minute hairs on the ear surface, and your brain by this method, knows the sound is from behind. Over a period of years, your brain will learn, what certain common sounds, sound like, from every possible angle.
This database you possess, is much more complete however, for everyday sounds eg a motor vehicle, than say a guitar chord. So, making a motor vehicle sound, and getting it to sound as if it’s coming from behind the listener, must be easier, than trying to get a guitar chord to sound as if it’s doing exactly the same motion relative to our heads/ears? I maintain, that if some algorithm could be built (or generated, hence I said AI), to process sounds to make them appear to come from behind us, then it could presumably be tweaked to accommodate for our individual head dimensions and hair even, to really fool us.
But, if the surface of the ear is involved, and the hairs, the brain won’t be fooled by earbuds alone - it will need a vacuous pair of headphones if not a ‘head-dome’ so that these sounds can in effecto of course, REALLY be made to come from behind us. As I say it would best be effected by a few dozen very small speakers spread across like pixels are, entirely ‘coating’ the inside of the ‘head-dome’, but this would be sort of cheating…because you’ve REALLY made the sound emanate from behind the ear! Surround sound also cheats, because again, it simply makes the sound come from behind you and therefore, is the same phenomenon in reality as a ‘real’ sound in the real world.
I just wonder if it’s not possible to fake a fully rotating sound around your head, for this reason? In other words, why does my brain simply and clearly assume and arrange, stereo sounds, to be at a 180 degree arc in FRONT of me, as they seem to be, when using either binaural or stereo sources to listen to? There is some phenomenon at work, that means my brain doesn’t accidentally suddenly think the sound at say 1 o’clock to the right in front of me, isn’t at 5 o’clock behind me instead? I suppose you could do a test, by blowing air gently and silently at your ears, while listening to a track or sound, and see if your brain suddenly decided to treat the source as behind you not in front?
Anyway, I’m waxing on. Thanks Dan for another enlightening video and tutorial on audio science. I’m off to get our cooling fan, and put my earbuds in, and see if Robin or the TD track, can be made to seem to be behind me, if my ears sense moving air from that direction!
I don't know about creating a 360 degree environment in processing, interesting idea. But binaural recording achieves what you describe. You might already be familiar, but it uses microphones positioned inside the ears of a fake human head. Check out virtual barbershop for an example.
Super interesting explanation! Big ups Dan.
Wonderfully explained! A lot of things I hadn't realised about mixing down. Thanks!
Good knowledge
Is this similar to how the 'Width Rotation' parameter works in the JS Stereo Widen plugin? I always thought it had something to do with reversing polarity and gradually flipping left/right channels
Wow Dan, I totally love your videos. These tutorials are honestly mind blowing! As a new audio engineer I can only look up and aspire to be as good as you one day!
Kind regards from Austria :)
This is really fascinating. This track is really good, too. Makes everything seem profound