How Does Mid/Side Work?

Here we explain about Mid/Side Processing. It’s very useful knowledge and can be used to increase your sound with different tricks from this idea

Mid/Side Processing derived from a technique invented by Alan Blumlein where two different microphones are used (one in the centre and the other one in the figure of 8 at a 90 degree angle) to capture the sound with a high degree of stereo separation. M/S processing uses a similar concept and it’s used in mixing and mastering. The Mid information is whatever comes from centre of your stereo image, as it’s played at same time and equal level time on both speakers… in other words mono. The Side information is what is not played by both speakers at the same time or at the same level. Dividing audio into these 2 different components (also known as Sum and Difference) allows us to process the sound to great effect and control the width of the mix in great depth.

If you make the side information louder, then your mix will sound wider. You can brighten up the Side to give a greater sense of space and “air” to your track. To increase the presence of the vocals you can turn up the 1k to 3k of the Mid information. You can also increase the low end in the Mid as a very effective way to make your bass fuller.

There are many EQs that have M/S capability like Eiosis AirEQ or even some stock plugins within your favourite DAW.

I invite you to mess with them. See what sounds best. See what works for you and what doesn’t! It’s a good idea to double check your Mid/Side processing by pressing the mono button on your monitor control to avoid phase issues.

You can use M/S for compression. For example, if you have backing vocals, you can compress the Mid to keep them out the way of the Lead Vocals, and allow the Side to come up louder to “embrace” the Lead Vocals.

Mid/Side saturation is another interesting trick where you can get little bit more character Mid and leave the Side untouched. Again, with all these techniques, be careful because you can change the sound balance quite dramatically. Hitting the Bypass button often in the process will give you a better perspective on your action.

I hope we made you a little bit more curious about M/S techniques. I invite you to google and wikipedia it, so that you can take advantage of this very interesting and effective technique.

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