Raising Jake Studios True Mid/Side

Description

True Mid/Side extracts the true phantom center and true STEREO side signals from a stereo mix. What do we mean by “True” Mid/Side? Traditional “Mid/Side” processing is often a misnomer for what is technically “sum and difference” processing. In this traditional approach the “Mid” output is simply the mono sum of left and right (L+R) while the “side” output is the mono difference of left and right (L-R).

Any signals panned hard left or hard right – which are actually pure “side” signals – will appear in both the Mid and Side outputs. Meanwhile, the “Side” output is a mono mix containing both the left and right sides. This is not how we hear stereo!“True Mid/Side” actually separates the phantom center (what we hear in the middle of a stereo mix) from the stereo side signals. The stereo Side signals are separated to their respective Left and Right sides.

All three resultant signals (Left-Center-Right) can be controlled independently. Signals panned to the center of the stereo mix (the “Phantom Center”) emerge ONLY in the Middle/Center output while signals hard-panned Left/Right in the stereo mix emerge ONLY in the Side outputs (and on the same side they appear in the stereo mix). True Mid/Side can be used to extract and render Middle/Center and Side stems from a stereo track or bus and can also be used in effects inserts and sends in your DAW during mixing and mastering for the ultimate stereo field FX and control.

Overview

All outputs are directly usable – latency compensate and linear phase – and do not require re-encoding back to stereo. Also included is a “Spread” control that allows selection of the depth of the separation algorithm while multiple output pins are provided for DAWs that can support plugins with multiple I/O pins. What is “Power Mono” mode? A “mono” mix of a stereo track is typically just the left and right sides added together (also known as the “Mid” channel in traditional Mid/Side processing).

This simple mix process changes the balance of the mix where center-panned sounds increase in level while ambience and other side-panned signals become reduced in level. So what we hear in the “mono mix” is not the same as what we hear in stereo.True Mid/Side’s “Power Mono” mode produces a mono mix using true power summing that more accurately captures the balance and ambience of the source stereo mix.

No matter where a sound is pan in the stereo mix it emerges in “Power Mono” at the same level (-3dB pan law). This process produces a significantly more accurate mono mix that retains the original source mix balance.“Power Mono” mode can be very useful when monitoring a mix in mono or to export high quality mono tracks for post production or other uses.