How Do You Widen A Stereo Mix?
Here are two great quotes from the upcoming book by Mixerman, Zen and the Art of Mixing (coming this Fall on Hal Leonard), which offer some sage guidance on mixing and the stereo image…
“It’s also not uncommon to have tracks delivered with stereo guitars, pianos, keyboards, etc. You are not committed to any stereo recording treatment. Filling the mix with stereo parts only serves to create a mess of instruments coming from no particular place.
“Mixes with multiple mono sources split across the stereo field are far more focused and interesting than mixes that combine many stereo sources. This may seem like a personal preference, but it’s not. This is about framing a strong track, and your track can be weakened considerably by the excessive use of overly symmetrical faux stereo instrumentation.”
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Totally agree that several LR tracks may remove the focus, but stereo recordings definitely sound much better!
Here’s a good trick: use a combined panner to narrow-down wide-spread stereo tracks and position them in the stereo field. Almost like panning a mono track, but it’s not mono and it sounds great!
If your DAW does not offer a combined panner, render the stereo track into 2 mono tracks and pan each one of them. If the sound collapses, it was not properly recorded to begin with… cheers!
Mixerman is spot on with this one. This is one of the best techniques for widening a mix.