Fix the Stereo Image Using an Advanced Mixing Technique Called Mid-Side EQ

Mid-side EQ is an advanced audio technique that can significantly improve your mix. The stereo image is the perceived spatial location of sound sources reproduced on a stereo system. Without a strong stereo image, a mix can struggle to achieve the expansive and immersive qualities stereo systems can produce. Mid-Side EQ can help with this. It's not just about going as wide and stereo as possible. It's just as essential to balance and control the stereo wideness of some aspects in the mix to get a decent and cohesive result. This will be our subject for this tutorial. We will show you how to balance the stereo image of elements in the mix with Mid-Side EQ. As usual, we will start by listening to a previously made sequence in our SoundBridge: DAW.

~Full Mix - Without Shaker

As we can hear, the whole mix sounds decent, but it lacks some complexity in the rhythm. Therefore, we have added a shaker loop. We can listen to it in the audio example below, together with other elements of the whole mix.

~Full Mix - With Shaker Loop (Unprocessed)

We can notice the shaker loop has an extensive stereo image that doesn't fit very well with the overall sound image. Certainly, one of the things we can do in order to fix that is to decrease the stereo image of the shaker loop. A common approach would be using a stereo imager plugin capable of narrowing the entire stereo image narrower or wider. A much better and more precise technique would be using an EQ with Mid/Side processing capability.

An EQ capable of Mid-Side processing splits a stereo signal into 'Mid' and 'Side' channels. The Mid is all the mono information. Everything is identical in a stereo signal's left and suitable media. The Side channel is the opposite. It contains any information that is different between the stereo signal's left and right channels. For the sake of this tutorial, we have chosen the Fab Filter Pro 2 equalizer. However, there are many other alternatives on the market to choose from.

Mid-Side EQ with Fab Filter Pro 2

Let's start by placing an instance of Fab Filter Pro 2 on our shaker loop. We need to double-click on the yellow horizontal line to engage the EQ. This will make a starting point on the frequency range we can process. After that, we will attenuate the high-frequency part of the spectrum, where most of the shaker loop sound is concentrated. Now, in the tab below, which contains control parameters for the selected frequency range, we notice a section with three available processing modes. Those modes are Mid, Stereo, and Side. We can limit the processing of the selected frequency band to just the Side signal by choosing the third mode. Comparing the pictures below, you will notice that after engaging the "Side" mode, the previous green range got a blue limit line with a small "S" close to the green dot.

Let's hear the difference between the unprocessed and processed shaker loops.

~Shaker Loop - Unprocessed

~Shaker Loop - Processed With Mid-Side EQ

We advise you to check the difference by using a pair of stereo headphones or studio monitors. We have narrowed the stereo image on the mid-high and high-frequency spectrum using this Mid-Side technique, while the mid-frequency range preserved its original stereo width. Finally, let's hear the full mix first with the unprocessed shaker loop and then our processing with the Fab Filter Pro 2.

~Full Mix - With Shaker Loop (Unprocessed)

~Full Mix - With Shaker Loop (Processed With Fab Filter 2)