What most people get WRONG about MIXING in MID SIDE (M/S)

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Mixing with Mid Side (MS) processing is a very powerful technique that can make or break your music. Many tutorials show how mid side can be used to specifically adjust elements that are just on the sides or just in the middle of a mix, but it that really the case?

This video explains what Mid Side encoding actually is and clears up one of the biggest misconceptions that so many people have, but just don't realize.

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⌚TIMESTAMPS⌚
00:00 - Mid Side (M/S) Misunderstanding
00:13 - What most people get wrong about Mid Side processing
00:50 - How Mid Side Encoding Works
02:38 - What Mid and Side encoding sounds like in a stereo file audio file
04:41 - How mid/side processing can impact your music

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6 minutes to explain what I've been looking at for hours lol. Well done!

somethingsomething

I'm so glad I've now heard someone confirm this. As every time I read someone's explanation of M/S it has never ever made sense to me. I mean I understand what they are saying, but when I try to work out what would be happening in M/S encoding and decoding, what they say isn' t the results that I come to in my workings out.

This explains exactly why. They are explaining the process results incorrectly! Only the stuff that cancels out completely when doing L+R will not be in the mid. But things panned hard left, or hard right (just as an example) will still be there.

DaftFader

Listening to this guy worth your time i swear, his content is a game changer.

zachpitt

I use M/S for one thing only, which effectively widens the mix without changing anything else.

I send kick, bass, snare, and lead or vocal (whatever is center-panned) directly to the output. Everything else (all elements that have some width or are panned off center, plus the reverb sends), those all go through a bus. On that bus are two EQs in a row. The first EQ is Mid only, and it scoops 6 dB at 1310 Hz with a Q of 0.12. The second EQ is Side only, and boosts 6 dB at 1310 Hz/ 0.12 Q. So the side EQ is sonically the reverse of the mid EQ with regards to frequency. They cancel each other's change to the spectrum out, meaning no change to freq response.

But what they do is open up the center at ~400 Hz to 2K Hz which is where the bulk of the lead, the snare, the higher harmonics of the bass and the kick (such as the beater) live, subtly to allow the center-panned instruments to have less competition for the center. It increases the wideness of the mix without changing the levels at all, of anything. If you were to collapse everything to mono, it would sound exactly the same with the EQ's in or with them bypassed.

So simply put, it scoops the middle and moves what is there that are 'accompanying' instruments more to the sides. The things this lowers in the center are restored by the second EQ, but they are restored more to the L and R. Since the amount scooped out is restored, yet restored more on the sides than to the middle, this makes all accompanying instruments a bit wider, but the overall volume of everything remains unchanged. And this makes the full mix wider while opening up that center for the lead, snare, kick, and bass.

You can open the center up even a bit more by placing a compressor on that same bus with a sidechain input of the lead, and another for any solo instruments, which then duck the accompanying instruments subtly (you won't hear pumping) about 5 dB. That allows the lead and solo instruments to sit better in the mix without having to be turned up quite so far, bc they then have less competition whenever they play a note.

It's okay to be skeptical of this, except for one thing—it works.

tomlewis

We could say the "MID" is the sum of both channels and the difference between both channels is what is left on the "SIDE" information,

djgabrielferretti

All jokes aside though, I'm really glad you made this video. Mid/side processing can be very powerful in mastering, but it can also very quickly destroy a mix.

rocketman

I understand what you are teaching. I don’t understand how knowing this information is relevant for mixing strategy.

Itsallawesome

Thank you for putting fact to what I already suspected.
I've just started dabbling in "sum-indifference" processing. And right away I noticed I was hearing the split channels in the middle mix faintly. Thus.... not a true channel separation.

randylodder

It's not by 0.5, it's by 0.707. 😉 Just messing around with ya, lol. Dunno if you saw Matthew's comment on Facebook about it recently, they are a much smarter person than I am. 🤣

For reference (courtesy of Matthew), the technical equation for mid/side is:

M = (L+R)*√2/2 and S = (L-R) * √2/2.

rocketman

Thanks for explaining this well Bobby 🍻

diffph

I would like to hear your thoughts on mono-compatibility considerations in stereo mastering. To the point you made towards the end of your video, regarding the collapse of the stereo image with too much EQ boost on the mid channel, balancing mono-compatibility while maintaining stereo depth sounds challenging. Thoughts?

rickrose

I've been trying to explain this to people but the wrong understanding is ingrained. If the DSP was available to create 3 channels, pure mid, left side, and right side, it would be great. Simple to recreate the LR pair as well. I don't know of a method either in the time or frequency domains to do this. Thanks for this video.

mageprometheus

“From now on, call it sum and difference”

Noted. Good stuff to know! 📝

MerajTypeBeat

i would add that the reason some of the “sides” end up in the mids in a very noticeable amount is usually ‘cause these elements are hard-panned left or right.
so if you typically rely on M/S processing during the mastering stage and prefer to stick to this approach it would make sense to avoid panning anything hard L/R during the production/mixing stages unless you absolutely have to sonically (and if you have a control over those stages of course)
that’s also why M/S processing mostly only makes things more confusing and unpredictable on LCR type of mixes

kowloonbroadcast