Stereo width can be a real struggle.
Our panners only go to 100, yet somehow the mixes we love seem to sound wider than even our sources panned hard right and left. So how do you pan wider than our DAW’s panners allow? Well, we at Mixdown have a few tricks up our sleeve. A lot of this is psychoacoustics, and gives the impression of a wider stereo spread than is actually happening. At a glance: we’ll discuss automation, subtle modulation and some plugin delay tricks!
Pitching effects
Much like when you double track a guitar or vocal, the effect is the result of the difference between the two recordings, tracks, sources—however you want to phrase it. Simply duplicating a track will make it 3dB louder, but double tracking something makes it bigger, more forward and more defined (if recorded well) without explicitly being louder.
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The same goes for the left and right stereo field. Double-tracking is a common technique for guitars, recording the same rhythms on the left and right. Subtle changes between the left and right help our brains to identify and delineate the different sides, so this can be a great way to further trick us into thinking something is wider. Remember, the more similar something is, the more it’ll feel like it’s collapsing into mono in the middle of our mix.
While you don’t need to go too hard, above 5 or 6 cents is where it starts to become audible, a little pitch shift in one side of stereo instruments can give the impression of width. If pitch shifting on the track itself isn’t your bag, you can try subtle pitch shifting on the reverbs and delays on instruments, the subtle blend of these giving the guitars, for example, the impression that they’re in a room that is wider than other things the stereo field.
Psychoacoustics
While we’re on the subject of giving listeners an impression, let’s circle back to psychoacoustics. Psychoacoustics are the psychology of how we interpret sound, as opposed to literally what we’re hearing.
The fact that consoles, DAWs and mixers all only have hard right and left panners is evidence of this at play. You literally cannot pan harder than 100 right or left, yet some mixes sound much wider than others.
Things like cleaning up the centre of your stereo image can help things to feel wider, the difference between left, centre and right becoming much more obvious without a muddy mess in the middle. Alternatively, leaving space on the sides for a few, wide instruments can give space to breathe and give the impression of width. Trying panning the entire drum buss closer to the centre, say 60%, and see what happens to the guitars, horns or background vocals that are left hard right and left.
Speaking of panning, starting with a more mono mix and expanding it as things ramp up into a chorus can give the impression of a wider mix. Keeping things at a threshold of about 80% panned either side can help things to feel like they’re exploding into the chorus when the pan is automated to 100%. Our brains and ears will quickly get used to the 80% panning feeling ‘normal’ for an intro and/or verse, and when it moves out to 100%, the stereo feels wider than ever. Inhumanely wide, yet we’ve never gone past 100%!
Opposite panning reverbs
One tip that combines psychoacoustics and our understanding of differentiating the opposite sides, flipping the panning on reverbs can be a great way to create some different between the two sides. Take some backing vocals for example, that might be sent to a stereo reverb. The right side of the vocals are sent to the right of the reverb, and is returning on the right of a console channel or auxiliary fader in your DAW. The effected sound is on the same side as the dry source, but what happens if you pan the right return to the left and left return to the right? A big difference in the left and right, that’s what! This trick works great on guitars, horns and about anything using a stereo reverb.
Modulated delays
Pushing this idea further from reverbs into delays, a surefire way to again create some difference between the left and right is to use modulation. This is pretty common, so much so that a lot of plugins will have modulation controls built in, helping to separate the delays a little from the original source. The modulation combines subtle, sometimes dynamic pitch shifting, so modulation on your delays (or verbs!) can help to make your time-based effects feel wider and more expansive than usual. Tucked in behind the sound source and all of a sudden you’ve got a supremely wide source happening!
While each of these tips and tricks are great in their own right, it’s really the sum of them all that’ll help you achieve the best results. No one ‘trick’ will get you super wide mixes, but a combination of four or five across multiple sources? Now we’re talking. As always, the name of the game is helping (see; tricking) our brains into hearing differences between left and right, without blatantly using different sound sources to do so.
With heavy-handed effects like pitch-shifting, play it safe, but have fun and happy panning!
Bob Clearmountain is a master of the stereo field, so much so that he’s become a master of 5.1 and Dolby Atmos mixing. Learn a few more tricks from him here.
