How to use a STEREO WIDENER plugin on metal guitars - tutorial

Learn how to create wider guitars in a metal mix in this tutorial.

Joel shows a few different wants to create wider guitars: using a widener plugin such as Waves S1 Stereo Imager or JST Sidewinder and doing it manually by duplicating and shifting the phase. And a little bonus EQ trick :)

This tutorial uses Cubase, but the same method will work in any DAW - just look up how to time shift your tracks as Joel does with slip editing.

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[fahadhc]

Here's a tip guys:
Automate the stereo width plugin in large sections of the song such as choruses, bridges or whatever.
basically you'll get a wider and bigger effect in the chorus.. where as your verse (or other parts) will sound normal in comparison..
Learnt this from Graham from the recording revolution.

[benjaminmagambo]

The manual trick is more accurate and produces a better result ! I love it ! Thank you for sharing Joel !

[nick]

The manual technique shown in this was massively useful to me, sounds great.

[goatsurgeon]

YES OH YES OH THANK YOU YES
EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED
I don’t have enough atmosphere from my guitars and I don’t want to quad track! For punch, yeah, but not to fill the mix!
It's better to have a widening effect than to have 4, 6, or 8 tracks with all the frequencies stacking like nuts. If you have a left and a right, and they feel far off, this is the trick you need, I think.

[BoyOfLol]

I learned something today! It's getting harder for me to find something new to learn but you guys keep doing it. Thanks!

[Melvin]

Absolutely the best video I've seen on widening. Great advice, practical, thorough, and good perspective

[infernalstygian]

i use 2 extra channels for guitars using widening; one with a delay on, set to monitor the original guitar group or bus with it set to 2.54ms, feedback 60, 35 wet, and filtered to around 1k and then compress this and put this at about 1.25 widened, then make a 100% wet reverb return channel compressed and widened to 1.3 and then add in sends from the original left and right double tracked guitars and the monitored delay channel to taste.

[DacianGradaMusic]

used a plugin like that on a few stereo sources (ie: a stereo guitar lead or something) for that extra wideness, but this "manual" mode seems to work really well on double tracked guitars, thanks a lot for this! :)

[AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE]

The manual technique sounds great! Thanks for the tip.

[Tragikofficial]

Good video! I learned something new today. I'm gunna try the manual trick later today.

[rk]

Damn I feel like this was the missing key to getting a more polished guitar sound on my recordings! Thank you!

[georgepelekoudis]

Nice! Thanks! I've got Dr. MS, but will try the manual method. It looks like there's better control, and less artifacts.

[ddsrecording]

Don't forget about bx_shredspread for width on guitars (and smoothing out those super distorted guitars which can get a little britte in the top end)

[ShinigamYpn]

How about quad tracking, having 2 panned hard, other 2 panned 95%, then you move those two guitars "behind" (by 15-30ms) as shown in manual trick (but only if tight performance), and then EQ those two guitars differently. Boost high end on left guitar, boost Mids on right guitar, balance the gain stage. I believe it would achieve an even wider image, due to differences in EQ and how our ear perceive sounds (each ear perceive different frequencies). Plus you won't get phasing issues. So in the end, it confuses the brain into thinking it's wider. Disclaimer, I'm not an audio eng, but I'm interested in what results would this technique achieve.

[roxnroll]

Awesome video! Question: I got confused, and would love to know how they relate:
1:26 - "Put out of phase material in the opposite speaker
"
11:19 - "Some tradeoffs... More "Phasey"
Which one is correct, and if they're both correct, how do they relate?

[Jaepo]

Wow thanks so much for sharing! Definitely got my mix sounding a lot better!

[AgorizTribe]

Can you use CENTER from waves to achive the same effect?

[MisterTrayser]

I have a question. There is a very good trick to make a guitar stereo by
recording the same riff two times and panning the two tracks to left
and right. But whats a good practice to archive the same result with vst
sample libraries? For example, Strummed Acoustic library for Kontakt.
If you make two independent channels of same vst and play same notes on
them, they will sound exactly the same as there won't be natural
randomness.

[ICKY]

is there a better way to make a single mono guitar track sound stereo and full and wide? i ask because i do a lot of just recording random quick sketches where ill come up with something on the spot and record it. so it can be challenging to remember what i just played in order to record it twice. id love a way to make rhythm guitar sound good without having to record it twice. ive played around with fl studios "stereo enhancer" that delays one channel a few milliseconds, but it never sounds as good as two tracks.

[whome]

I have a question!
If I track a rock song should I record the lead twice aswell if they are doing octaves and not a solo