DMG Dualism

[Compyfox]

You can't use . or ,
If you enter something like 4,5 or 4.5, it jumps to 4.0 - just tested that.


Not too sure on the Mid or Side analysis. M+S or L+R is different than either M or S.

[se729]

Also pan law settings to set the plugin to the same pan law as the DAW. Otherwise what you see and hear may not match.

I remember it having PAN LAW settings in the Preferences.

Aha, it does offer pan law adjustment! My mistake. I didn't look deep enough, I guess.

Plus, the different analyzer views can't be tilted to the standard +4,5dB. Only 4 or 5 but not 4,5. No decimals allowed.

Isn't the standard tilt 3dB?
But yes, I agree - decimal values are not possible - but if you mouse drag and then double click on a value to enter numeric values... it does show decimals.

Oh, you're right. It does show decimals, but only when I double click to open it for keyboard input. If I type it in, It'll be rounded off to 4 or 5. But If I drag&slide over that box just a tad with the mouse, then the decimals do change, but you can't see the change until you doubleclick the box to open it for keyboard input. How strange. That ought to be a small thing to fix.

btw, my impression is that 0 tilt and 4,5 tilt is the most common. I've come to see it as standard. Wouldn't bet my life on it though.

thx for comments

[se729]

Sum of L/R +*IS*+ Mid. By definition. Side is L-R too. By definition, so you can always select sum or difference of LR.
Default is Mid to give you L+R, because that's the obvious choice.

Maybe this is on the limit of my tech knowhow, but I thought L+R excluded the sides from showing, hence the 'Mid' as opposed to 'Side' definitions. The Mid shows the center excluding the sides, and the Side shows everything but the center.

I just panned a mono sound 100% left, and put it through the Dualism spectrogram using the "Mid" input. It does show up in the spectrum via the "Mid" input. I didn't expect it to, since it's as far from the center as can be. But ... great that it does.

Still makes one wonder: if the sides show up on the spectrum using the "mid" input like this, will the "side" input show the mid (centre) signal too? And if so, why the separate definitions of Mid and Side
(Pardon any shortcomings in signal knowhow)

thx for clarifications and responses.

[DaveGamble]

Heya,

A completely hard-panned signal will show up the same in Mid and in Side (since if Mid=L+R, Side=L-R, and R=0, then Mid=L and Side=L).

To get something to disappear from the Mid, it needs to be antiphase - i.e. panned PAST 100% left such that L=-R. Likewise, to have something disappear from Side, it needs to be panned centrally.

A hard-panned signal is represented equally in Mid and Side. For intuition as to why this is true, consider that your speakers are (roughly) at 45 degrees from the Mid line (looking directly forwards between the speakers). A Side signal describes what's happening either side of your ears - at a full 90 degrees from the Mid line (facing each ear). Hopefully that helps you picture the scenario.
Remember with an MS pair, one mic faces forwards, and one is at 90 degrees to it.

These definitions come out of the maths for where your speakers actually are. In practice, it's extremely common to compromise on the exact angles of the speakers (and hence the stereo image) to improve flatness of frequency response. I think this is the right compromise to make if a compromise needs to be made!

Consider headphones - there, the drivers really are at 90 degrees from the Mid line. And hence, stereo imaging is spread wider!

Again, hope this helps. Happy to explain further

Dave.

Edit to clarify: Angles given are looking down from a spot above your head, and are angles that can be drawn with lines on the floor.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Mid and Side is a mic technique, and should only really be used as such, despite the fact that it's come to be used for what would MUCH better be described as Sum and Difference processing. L + R is the Sum, L - R is the difference. Neither L, R, Sum or Difference contains only what is in the middle of a standard L/R stereo signal.

Edit: Dave beat me to it with a much better explanation! I really wish the convention in signal processing would be label it S & D (sum and difference), instead of M & S, but it's the same old same old with a guitar's tremolo etc...

[DaveGamble]

Mid and Side is a mic technique, and should only really be used as such, despite the fact that it's come to be used for what would MUCH better be described as Sum and Difference processing. L + R is the Sum, L - R is the difference.

Agreed. When I say Mid and Side in the context of processing, I am describing Sum and Difference. However, common usage of terms does (and must) evolve, and the phrase "Sum and Difference" is synonymous with the phrase "Mid and Side" used outside of microphone positioning.

Neither L, R, Sum or Difference contains only what is in the middle of a standard L/R stereo signal.

Ah, well, it depends what you imagine is meant by "middle". If you put a single mono mic equidistant from L and R speakers and record, you will get the sum. Easy to test. Simply a consequence of the superposition of the signals. Your measurement will naturally be affected by room acoustics and any slight difference in distance, but if you do this in an anechoic chamber, you'll see phase cancellation between that signal and the Sum signal from one speaker. But really we're not making any assertion beyond the statement that wave interference is additive, which is a very safe assertion to make! (otherwise, they wouldn't be waves!)

On the other hand, if you're looking for an arbitrary psychoacoustic model of "middle" - i.e. what the auditory cortex decides is centrally located, post separation of signals, then you're talking about a strange thing indeed (which relies upon source separation in a deep way, and can also be quite readily fooled).
That's really not as simple as adding two signals, and is the consequence of a few billion years of evolution

Dave.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Thanks Dave, that makes total sense. Just wish people would use S & D terminology instead of M & S to describe the signal processing side of things, as it is a much clearer definition of what is going on, and would prevent more people wondering why the M signal, for example, does not usually contain what the ear hears as what's slap bang in the middle of a regular L/R mix.

[DaveGamble]

Yeah. I guess the point is that Left isn't actually to your left, it's in front of you, to the left.

(Edit: unless you're wearing headphones, obviously, like I said before. But in general, a pair of speakers is assumed. I wonder whether there are any headphones that deliberately narrow the stereo field to simulate speakers. I'd be ready to bet that the Focusrite VRM box does this, because Ben is very clever.)

[Hermetech Mastering]

I wonder whether there are any headphones that deliberately narrow the stereo field to simulate speakers.

There are various crossfeed circuit designs that mix a little of each signal into the other with a very slight delay and some LPFing to emulate a speaker sound in headphones. I've recently been shooting a few out in Foobar2000 with a pair of HD600s. More inbfo here:

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-onlin ... ssfeed.htm

http://bs2b.sourceforge.net/

Also, apparently some headphones (including the HD600s) are deliberately voiced to sound more like speakers (Diffuse Field Equalised - not exactly sure what it means but a good start for a Google search!)

[Compyfox]

And this is exactly why we add panning, delay and reverb with appropriate early reflection settings to our productions.

[se729]

Mid and Side is a mic technique, and should only really be used as such, despite the fact that it's come to be used for what would MUCH better be described as Sum and Difference processing. L + R is the Sum, L - R is the difference. Neither L, R, Sum or Difference contains only what is in the middle of a standard L/R stereo signal.

Yes! That's what I'm onto, that's why I went wrong above^. I kindof knew something was both right and wrong at the same time here

M/S micing technique is about using different polarities to be able to control width and extract different parts of the sound. Furthermore, monitoring plugins - for example Brainworx BX Control and similar tools - offers you to solo the 'side' or the 'mid'. And when doing so, it uses phase polarity to cancel out 'the center' and 'the sides' from the signal. That's one more confusing factor that got to me.

When I cancel out all of the above, what Dave wrote and what I got wrong becomes perfectly ... centered Thx for clearing this up, and I suspect one or two other readers here might have gotten a hair wiser about this too. Dualism just seems to get better and better the more I ask

[wesleyt]

I love watching the phase meter. It reminds me of a fish I once had--a black ghost knife. It swam beautifully with its one main fin in sinuous motion.

Dualism is a wonderful tool crafted with great care, with a seemingly infinite number of uses.

[Krzysztof Oktalski]

Just wish I had an on/off button for each of them, instead of having to mute the whole plug.

You do, just click the filter names and it'll toggle them on and off!

[se729]

Just wish I had an on/off button for each of them, instead of having to mute the whole plug.

You do, just click the filter names and it'll toggle them on and off!

Ohh! You hide the goodies Excellent. Just realized that some other controls got features more or less similar to that as well. Thx

[antithesist]

Man, I love this!

I was actually against us getting it, even at our nice loyalty/intro discount.

But, I'm really glad we did now.

Anyway... just sayin'.

Oh, it looks like DMG has a bunch of new updates available for everything except Dualism.