I hear a lot of people complain about why they can't get the same massive sound from reason as other DAWs. Every one goes straight to the complaint about the lack of VST support. I agree there are some great VSTs that can give you larger that life sound, and you can't use them in reason with out bottoming out your CPU. But that doesn't mean you can't get larger than life Masters out of reason. I have spent a lot of time picking apart Something Called Mid/Side mastering and I have built a version out of REs that will give you that Head engulfing stereo width.
First off ill share a little info about what this is. You are basically Combining your left and right channels into a mono or mid and a Side channel. The Mid basically becomes mono, while the Side combine produces phase cancellation, but where the left and right have phase variance you will be left with a side signal that will account for your panning. You then process these signals with Eq and Compression then Decode the process returning your Left and right channels. The benefits of this process is an incredibly large stereo scope with perceived depth of field, and your mix will translate beautifully into mono systems.
Encoding process is as this MID = L + R, Side = L + (R inverted)
Where the Decoding process is as this Left = M + S, Right = Mid + (Side inverted)
This is how its built.
First and most important - I'm using the Quadelectra Audioworx Stereo spliter which is built for Mid/side. There is a free one but this RE is important for 2 reasons. One you can solo your mid or your side. And you can add delay to your side Channel. Delay is important because when sound travels it doesn't reach each ear at the same time especially when coming from the Side. For the average head it takes .024 seconds to go from one ear to another.
Now your mid and sides then run into Separate EQs and compressors, Before being run back into the Stereo splitter.
What you need for this build is 2 digital EQs, 2 compressors(any slow compressor), and if your not using fet compressors 2 saturators will be necessary. I have built a version with all Stock REs as seen below.
This is what the MID routing looks like.
And The Side routing.
Your Mid EQ settings are going to be a Boost in the bottom range and cut in the Highs it looks like this.
Your Side EQ will have the low pass cut and a boost in the High range. THis drives a distinction between the Mid and Side signals when they are recombined.
The Compressors are a bit tricky.
For the Mid Comp you Want to turn off Side channel. Input Gain for Mid and Side is the same At 0db, ratio is 1.4 to 1.6 depending on how busy your mix is. I find EDM is great at 1.6. You then Adjust your threshold for 1db of reduction. Attack is Slow i turned it down all the way. Release for Mid and Side will match at 250 to 350, you want these to be the same. To set output gain you bypass the compressor and listen, when you turn on your compressor there should be no boost or reduction, the gain should be exactly the same.
For the Side Comp you turn off your mid channel.
Ratio 1.2 to 1.3 depending on style rock seems nice up at 1.3 where EDM is nice at 1.2. Adjust threshold for 1db reduction. Attack for the side is faster i have it set at 70ms. bypass and listen when you turn on your compressor you want to have slight boost to the signal over your input gain. I usually do 3db to 4db increase.
Last is saturation. If your using Softubes FET you don't need this, but seeing as this is a stock build this is what about what it should look like. Mid should be neutral with subtle saturation efffect. Saide should be High and subtle as well.
From here you out put from the Splitter to a line mixer hard panned.
Out from line mixer into another compressor, i use a faster attack release here as your mid and side did all of the slow work. 1db of reduction.
An Audiomatic for color EDM is great with subtle bottom end.
And last your limiter, raise input gain until you get 1db of reduction. if you have done your mix properly you should have left your self around -4db peak in headroom. you should be making this up now with your input gain. Fast attack, Slow release. raise output gain to get 1db of clip. Soft clip on and adjust until clip goes away.
Now one last bit of info. Pre mid side your using an EQ and if you choose 4 band Compression. You should have a compressor here regardless. but now you are reducing the DB reduction because of the mid/side and the final compressor. I usually put my mid/side in its own combinator so i can do bypass tests during mixing.
You can experiment with replacing these modules with other RE versions. i have had some pretty nice results except with the replacing the EQs with Softubes tridents for some reason they squashed the signal into mono, i found its just better to say with digital EQs. IF you use a FET compressors you don't need the saturators as they will automatically add saturation.
IF you follow this guide line you have effectively created something comparable to Ozone 5 or 6. Except customizable, and capable of running(if you have a fast system) while you are running your mixing deck. for the reason i dont use mastering EQ i just do run separate buses for each instrument and do cuts and boost here.
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