Wide Stereo Oscillators [Research]

Have an urge to learn, or a calling to teach? Want to share some useful Youtube videos? Do it here!
Post Reply
RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

21 Feb 2021

I'm not sure how much this subject was researched, or experimented with, but I haven't really come across it yet.

The idea is simple. You take an analog oscillator, and offset the phase of one of the stereo channels (maybe invert as necessary). This way, you can easily set how wide you want it to be between mono and completely out of phase.

So far, this is still nothing special. - Until you think about the fact, that you have a perfectly controllable stereo wave cycle (regarding wideness). This is something that you can't necessarily easily set up (at least not this accurately), once you designed a complex sound.

All in all, you set your desired stereo wideness with this simple method, and THEN continue designing the sound.

As you might already know, with the help of FM, you can create Noise. And if everything is true, with the above method, you might be able to create stereo noise, where the left and right channel have near perfectly equal volume all the way.

Btw, when I played around with just a sawtooth wave and such offsetting, the result was also a very interesting effect, where lower notes seemed to go to the left, while higher ones went to the right. Yet the volume was equal on both channels, of course. Yes, it's a bit of a HAAS effect, but way more fascinating.

Or is this something that's already made use of?

User avatar
aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

21 Feb 2021

RobC wrote:
21 Feb 2021
I'm not sure how much this subject was researched, or experimented with, but I haven't really come across it yet.

The idea is simple. You take an analog oscillator, and offset the phase of one of the stereo channels (maybe invert as necessary). This way, you can easily set how wide you want it to be between mono and completely out of phase.

So far, this is still nothing special. - Until you think about the fact, that you have a perfectly controllable stereo wave cycle (regarding wideness). This is something that you can't necessarily easily set up (at least not this accurately), once you designed a complex sound.

All in all, you set your desired stereo wideness with this simple method, and THEN continue designing the sound.

As you might already know, with the help of FM, you can create Noise. And if everything is true, with the above method, you might be able to create stereo noise, where the left and right channel have near perfectly equal volume all the way.

Btw, when I played around with just a sawtooth wave and such offsetting, the result was also a very interesting effect, where lower notes seemed to go to the left, while higher ones went to the right. Yet the volume was equal on both channels, of course. Yes, it's a bit of a HAAS effect, but way more fascinating.

Or is this something that's already made use of?

It's something that's widely used :thumbs_up:

User avatar
Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

21 Feb 2021

I experimented in combination with a gonjo meter and tried to create something that is even spreaded in the stereo, but failed. Yes, experiment quite a lot with it.
Reason12, Win10

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

21 Feb 2021

aeox wrote:
21 Feb 2021
It's something that's widely used :thumbs_up:
Which synthesizers do exactly what I described? I missed them, it seems.
Loque wrote:
21 Feb 2021
I experimented in combination with a gonjo meter and tried to create something that is even spreaded in the stereo, but failed. Yes, experiment quite a lot with it.


Here's a Saw cycle I experimented with.
Put it in an NNXT for example. Make sure it loops.

User avatar
aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

21 Feb 2021

RobC wrote:
21 Feb 2021
aeox wrote:
21 Feb 2021
It's something that's widely used :thumbs_up:
Which synthesizers do exactly what I described? I missed them, it seems.
Loque wrote:
21 Feb 2021
I experimented in combination with a gonjo meter and tried to create something that is even spreaded in the stereo, but failed. Yes, experiment quite a lot with it.


Here's a Saw cycle I experimented with.
Put it in an NNXT for example. Make sure it loops.
I don't know the internal workings of all synths out there, but the widening effect you mentioned is used a lot in sound design.

I'm sure there must've been someone out there who experimented with this in oscillators. Chances are, you've heard it and you never knew it.

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

21 Feb 2021

aeox wrote:
21 Feb 2021
I don't know the internal workings of all synths out there, but the widening effect you mentioned is used a lot in sound design.

I'm sure there must've been someone out there who experimented with this in oscillators. Chances are, you've heard it and you never knew it.
Ah, okay that's true; but when it comes to sound design for selling, they have to consider mono compatibility, and predictability. This has some surprising effects, and sounds quite different in mono, each due to their respective reasons. As such, while indeed there are widening effects used, I didn't come across exactly ones like this, personally.

Whether I 'reinvent the wheel' or not, it's still fascinating; though I'm not sure if I'd use it for my own projects.

User avatar
deeplink
Competition Winner
Posts: 1073
Joined: 08 Jul 2020
Location: Dubai / Cape Town
Contact:

09 Mar 2021

Thor has directions to set this up on the back of the device
Get more Combinators at the deeplink website

User avatar
orthodox
RE Developer
Posts: 2286
Joined: 22 Jan 2015
Location: 55°09'24.5"N 37°27'41.4"E

09 Mar 2021

RobC wrote:
21 Feb 2021
The idea is simple. You take an analog oscillator, and offset the phase of one of the stereo channels (maybe invert as necessary). This way, you can easily set how wide you want it to be between mono and completely out of phase.
Phase shifting/inversion, short delays and frequency-based panning were widely used in the early days of stereo to remaster mono records. Now these techniques are considered to sound too unnatural and are called 'pseudo-stereo', as opposed to 'true stereo', which can be obtained with effects like detuning, lfo-driven filters or phasers, or just using different oscillators/effects on the channels.

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

11 Mar 2021

deeplink wrote:
09 Mar 2021
Thor has directions to set this up on the back of the device
I just checked, but what I described, has a bit more to it.
orthodox wrote:
09 Mar 2021
Phase shifting/inversion, short delays and frequency-based panning were widely used in the early days of stereo to remaster mono records. Now these techniques are considered to sound too unnatural and are called 'pseudo-stereo', as opposed to 'true stereo', which can be obtained with effects like detuning, lfo-driven filters or phasers, or just using different oscillators/effects on the channels.
The really interesting thing about what I described is, that it kind of creates a stereo separation, which is a bit different with each note. The notes seem to move left with lower, and right with higher keys ~ kind of like a piano, or maybe organ.

As for the old stereo effects, I learned a simpler term that just calls it dual-mono effects.

Anyway, what people seem to be missing is, that this way, the stereo image can be controlled more precisely. I think, it could me more useful for creating rather ambient stereo effects (similar to reverb).
And many modern songs widen their stereo images in extreme ways, so that seems to be the current use of pseudo-stereo effects.

But eeh, now that I think of it, that screws too much with the true stereo image, once everything is positioned. Still, fun to experiment and research.

User avatar
selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

11 Mar 2021

There are other ways to make “wide” oscillators that are perfectly mono compatible, such as alternating the odd/even harmonics in the L/R speakers (surprisingly easy to set up). Or try detuning L/R oscillators linearly instead of exponentially so the beat frequency doesn’t change with pitch. Or use frequency rate modulation to pan an oscillator, using the same or different oscillator (not free running). Or use a key tracking crossover filter to split the spectrum of an oscillator L/R. Give me a minute and I’ll try to think up some more! 🤓
Selig Audio, LLC

User avatar
deeplink
Competition Winner
Posts: 1073
Joined: 08 Jul 2020
Location: Dubai / Cape Town
Contact:

11 Mar 2021

selig wrote:
11 Mar 2021
There are other ways to make “wide” oscillators that are perfectly mono compatible, such as alternating the odd/even harmonics in the L/R speakers (surprisingly easy to set up). Or try detuning L/R oscillators linearly instead of exponentially so the beat frequency doesn’t change with pitch. Or use frequency rate modulation to pan an oscillator, using the same or different oscillator (not free running). Or use a key tracking crossover filter to split the spectrum of an oscillator L/R. Give me a minute and I’ll try to think up some more! 🤓
How do I save a post?
Get more Combinators at the deeplink website

User avatar
Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

20 Mar 2021

selig wrote:
11 Mar 2021
There are other ways to make “wide” oscillators that are perfectly mono compatible, such as alternating the odd/even harmonics in the L/R speakers (surprisingly easy to set up). Or try detuning L/R oscillators linearly instead of exponentially so the beat frequency doesn’t change with pitch. Or use frequency rate modulation to pan an oscillator, using the same or different oscillator (not free running). Or use a key tracking crossover filter to split the spectrum of an oscillator L/R. Give me a minute and I’ll try to think up some more! 🤓
Alternating even/odd harmonics? How do you set this up?
Reason12, Win10

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

21 Mar 2021

selig wrote:
11 Mar 2021
There are other ways to make “wide” oscillators that are perfectly mono compatible, such as alternating the odd/even harmonics in the L/R speakers (surprisingly easy to set up). Or try detuning L/R oscillators linearly instead of exponentially so the beat frequency doesn’t change with pitch. Or use frequency rate modulation to pan an oscillator, using the same or different oscillator (not free running). Or use a key tracking crossover filter to split the spectrum of an oscillator L/R. Give me a minute and I’ll try to think up some more! 🤓
Admittedly, while my effect has partial-sized preciseness, with extreme wideness, it clearly has a bit of deformation going on, when checking in mono - it's acceptable though!

Interesting you mention that odd/even harmonics effect, since that IS something I plan on using (more or less). Yet again, differently though. The plan is to isolate the fundamental frequencies for one channel (the range being determined by all of the notes played - so if notes are played between C3 and C4, then I'd isolate between about 130.81 Hz and 261.63 Hz), and everything else (rejecting the fundamental frequency band/range) goes to the other channel.

Wouldn't a true linear detuning need granular synthesis? That processing adds artifacts ~ however, I used to do something like that. I took a static synth sample; duplicated for each channel. Stretched one and shrunk the other. The result was a non-muddy, very clean and wide reverby effect.

We talked once about panning at frequency rate ~ a really cool effect, but for better mono compatibility, I felt, one of the channels needs to be a bit delayed.

Key tracking is yet again something that I need to consider.

I think, it's really good to think and try these effects, even if we don't plan on using them. We can never know what we may come up with!
Loque wrote:
20 Mar 2021
Alternating even/odd harmonics? How do you set this up?
My best bet would be how one of his RE's work (if I remember right). I think an EQ follows notes. Once you have the fundamental frequency, you can calculate all the harmonics. Then it's only a matter of equalizing each channel differently. While all of these jump to the respective frequencies with each note played.

User avatar
eXode
Posts: 838
Joined: 11 Feb 2015

21 Mar 2021

selig wrote:
11 Mar 2021
There are other ways to make “wide” oscillators that are perfectly mono compatible, such as alternating the odd/even harmonics in the L/R speakers (surprisingly easy to set up). 🤓
The problem with using odd/even harmonic approach though is that it changes the perception of the sound because when doing that with i.e. a sawtooth you will end up two squares basically (even one tuned one octave higher), and similarly a square (50% pulse) wave is made up with only odd harmonics so then you'd end up with sound in one channel and silence in the other... :)

You can actually test this pretty easily in Parsec by using the ALL spread mode and maxing the spread amount. Check the Saw->Square in 0% (Saw) and 100% (Square) setting respectively.

I'm not a big fan of this approach personally, because of the way it alters the timbre of the sound. It might work better for complex waveforms/audio than pure waveforms though.
Last edited by eXode on 21 Mar 2021, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
eXode
Posts: 838
Joined: 11 Feb 2015

21 Mar 2021

Loque wrote:
20 Mar 2021
Alternating even/odd harmonics? How do you set this up?
You could do this on any audio using two BV512 vocoders, one for left and one for right. Then you simply set all even bars to 0 on the left channel, and all odd bars to 0 on the right channel. Here's a simple combi I threw together just now. =)

Effect - Mono to Odd-Even Split.zip
(720 Bytes) Downloaded 49 times

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests