DP's Spatial Maximizer and applied Mid/Side concepts...

[daniel.sneed]

Just my 2 cents about stereo field:
- any sound panned hard left or right, will be present in center too, according to the mixer panning law.
- pan laws vary between mixers, and of course, daws. It goes from -3dB center to -6dB center. It's a quite long story about panning coherent and incoherent sounds. AFAICR, DP pan law is -4dB center, but not sure about that.
- personally, I'd like to see a preference about panning law in DP.

[FMiguelez]

Just my 2 cents about stereo field:
- any sound panned hard left or right, will be present in center too, according to the mixer panning law.

Could you elaborate on this, please?
It don't see why that would be the case. Why would a hard panned mono signal be also present in the center? If it did, then it wouldn't be hard panned by definition, yes?

- pan laws vary between mixers, and of course, daws. It goes from -3dB center to -6dB center. It's a quite long story about panning coherent and incoherent sounds. AFAICR, DP pan law is -4dB center, but not sure about that.
- personally, I'd like to see a preference about panning law in DP.

But how does the pan law affect this mysterious Spatial Maximizer plug-in behaviour? Are they related?
I thought the pan law was implemented as a way to keep the apparent loudness level even as you pan a mono signal around, so it doesn't change levels too much when hard-panned vs panned center.

But I'm not an engineer, so I could definitely be wrong

[stubbsonic]

Revisiting this, with a Mid-Side mic, the mid capsule does capture side material. And when combined with the +Side and the -Side, phase cancellations create the directionality of the matrixed signal.

So, perhaps the MID channel could include the phase-"encoded" side signal-- a positive phase for left (which will cancel on the right) and a negative phase for right which will cancel on the left.

But then processes that are done on the mid will affect cancellation on the L/R. (Perhaps that also explains the immediate loss of width that the plugin inflicts.

[daniel.sneed]

FM, I think we're on to something.

In real acoustic world hard panned left is around 60° from hard panned right, so in center, there IS definitely something.
In a mixer, or daw, you're right ( ! ), there should be none. (yes, I'm left...)

You are right when you wright pan laws are build *to keep the apparent loudness level even as you pan a mono signal around*. OK.
But the problem is, in real life, there are many usages of a panpot in a mixer: if left and right signals are coherent the best amount of reduction in center is around -6dB, while it's around -3dB for incoherent signals.
Any mixer, or daw, company has to pick one of those two values, or somewhere in between them.
That's where a preference in DP would be handsome.

[stubbsonic]

As I understand it, a signal that is hard panned is absent from the opposite side. (i.e., not in the center, at all).

I thought that the pan law stuff had to do with compensating for the increase in level that happens when signals are panned center, and hard panned things were quieter because they didn't have the combined presence of both speakers. Or am I mixed up? (Pan not intended).

[stubbsonic]

Here's a useful quote from JustMastering by Rob Stewart:

"Mid/Side" offers another perspective on Stereo. The term "Mid/Side" comes from Mid/Side recordings (more on that later), and the term is the cause some misunderstanding. When thinking about the terms "mid" and "side", one might think that the mid channel is everything that is in the middle of the sound field, but that is not true. The mid channel is actually the sum of the left and right channels together (L+R). For example, assume you have stereo track of a flute playing in the left channel, and a bass guitar playing in the right channel. If you add them together to create the "mid" channel, you will end up with a mono file that contains both the flute and the bass guitar (i.e. the sum of the two), even though neither instrument played in the middle of the sound field.

The side channel is often thought of as everything that can be heard to one side or the other of a stereo recording, but that is also not true. The side channel is simply the difference between the left and right channels (L-R). Using our flute and bass example above, the side version of this will also be a mono file which contains the flute and the bass.

In this example, if both the mid and the side end up sounding very similar, why do we get “Stereo” when we play the Left and Right channels together? This is where things get interesting, and it has to do with something called “correlation”.

[FMiguelez]

FM, I think we're on to something.

In real acoustic world hard panned left is around 60° from hard panned right, so in center, there IS definitely something.
In a mixer, or daw, you're right ( ! ), there should be none. (yes, I'm left...)

Thanks, Daniel.
I thought I knew the basics of M/S, but apparently I don't really understand the details.

But you guys have been quite helpful with all your comments. I bet we'll get to the bottom of this soon.

As I understand it, a signal that is hard panned is absent from the opposite side. (i.e., not in the center, at all).

Same here. But to tell you the truth, now I think there are some details in the M/S concept that still elude me. I may be not getting something right.

I just tried the same test I did with a Melda plugin to access the Mid and Side, and I hear stuff in the Mid part, just like with DP's Spatial Maximizer. Hmmmm.... Mysterious...

So, unless DP's SM, Ozone, and Melda plug-ins are all wonky in this respect, I must have a misconception about what to expect and how they really work.
I don't know what to think anymore.

Hopefully Phil will chime in soon. I'm really looking forward to read this thoughts on this.
Tension level> #11 so far

[FMiguelez]

Here's a useful quote from JustMastering by Rob Stewart:

Aha! Thank you for that, Stubbs.

So, if I'm reading that right, then what we discovered seems normal then?

But what about the channel bleed you found?

Thank you for that info, BTW!

[stubbsonic]

Yea, that doesn't explain the track bleed.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Another bug successfully crushed.

[FMiguelez]

Another bug successfully crushed.

Ha!
Yeah, I´ll probably need to change the thread title... again... For the 2nd time...

Let´s see if someone else chimes in and explains what´s going on and what´s supposed to happen and why.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Here's a thought...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5ejvH_n4wk

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Tubes, within tubes, within tubes...

[Phil O]

Hey, I haven't forgotten about you FM. I just got out of the studio and I got a call for some fill in work tonight. So I'm off again.

I'll try to get back to you tomorrow. Gotta run.

Phil

[FMiguelez]

Hey, I haven't forgotten about you FM. I just got out of the studio and I got a call for some fill in work tonight. So I'm off again.

I'll try to get back to you tomorrow. Gotta run.

Phil

Thanks for checking back, Phil.

Don't worry. Please do it whenever you have the time.
Looking forward to it, though


Hopefully the Imodium wasn't necessary...