Topic: Voxengo MSED workflow?

[bryonsos]

Just made my first M/S recording with my new Busman BSCS-L, and now I'm trying to process it with MSED in Audacity (1.3.13 beta for Mac). The recording used left = mid, right = side which seems to be what most folks do. I did a "quick and dirty" conversion using the MSED defaults, and it sounds pretty amazing IMHO, but I think I got lucky. Lucky because when I recorded, I had the level knobs set the same on my 661, and the card (mid) signal was a bit hotter than the 8 (side). I just let it roll, figuring I would fix it in post, and like I said, it came out sounding amazing. Now I'm trying to see if I can tweak it and make it even more amazing. My question is, since MSED for Mac doesn't seem to allow on the fly monitoring, do folks make short tracks to fiddle with to get good settings, and then apply them to the whole show, or am I missing something and you can adjust on the fly? Thanks in advance!

[page]

If you going to use Audacity, I really recommend doing the multi-channel volume controls method instead of the VST plugin so you can monitor the results as you adjust stuff.

1) Duplicate both tracks.
2) Run an invert on the second side channel.
3A) Pan each set of mid/side tracks to left and right (so 1 mid and 1 side tracks go left, the other mid and the inverted side go right) and use the pull down to set all 4 to mono (and let the pan settings control channel separation).
3B) Set each set of mid/side tracks to left/right in the channel pull down settings to isolate them. (an alternative to panning, same effect though)
4) adjust the gain on the side tracks while listening until you are happy.

For bonus points, since you've creates a left/right pair of mids and a left/right pair of sides, you can link those as stereo tracks so the gain changes on both sides at the same time.

[bryonsos]

Thanks Page! I was hoping to be a cheap and/or lazy bastard a bit longer, but I guess M/S is going to finally push me to Reaper. From what I gather, all workflows are simplified, and you can make all adjustments on the fly. Other Mac friendly DAW suggestions are welcome.

[DigiGal]

My question is, since MSED for Mac doesn't seem to allow on the fly monitoring, do folks make short tracks to fiddle with to get good settings, and then apply them to the whole show, or am I missing something and you can adjust on the fly? Thanks in advance!

I use MSED's VST plug-in with Audiofile Engineering's Wave Editor on a Mac and this setup provides real-time monitoring. 

Never used Audacity but Audacity could the reason why you don't have real-time monitoring. 

[page]

My question is, since MSED for Mac doesn't seem to allow on the fly monitoring, do folks make short tracks to fiddle with to get good settings, and then apply them to the whole show, or am I missing something and you can adjust on the fly? Thanks in advance!

I use MSED's VST plug-in with Audiofile Engineering's Wave Editor on a Mac and this setup provides real-time monitoring. 

Never used Audacity but Audacity could the reason why you don't have real-time monitoring.

bingo.

[bryonsos]

Yeah, I thought I read somewhere here that that is a serious shortcoming with Audacity, but up until now it didn't affect me. I haven't had to EQ much, I was only using it for fades, tracking and normalization.

Thanks DigiGal for the Wave Editor tip! Since Reaper is now $60 (used to be $40), the cost difference for WE is negligible. Seems to have great features etc. I may msg you with questions after I do some homework.

Cheers!