Stereo widening - mid/side EQ or stereo enhancers?

[Temps]

I'm happier than ever with the tonal balance & qualities of everything in my mix, but now I want to work on getting it to sound wider. It feels like I'm only using maybe 80% of the range of my speakrs - my guitars never sound as "far apart" as a pro release right now. I usually just double track with guitars panned 100L/100R.

I've been trying a few different things.

Guitars:

I have Izotope Ozone 5 so I was using the stereo imager on there to push the guitars further apart, but it seems that even a modest level of this plugin will cause phasing problems that are not apparent on all systems. It's a multiband widener, so I usually widen progressively more as frequencies increase. Should I widen the entire guitars except the lows <150hz, which are mostly highpassed anyawy?

So I switched from using stereo imaging to using mid/side EQ instead. I run the same EQ notches on both mid & side channels and only change where I'm filtering. The sides I filter the lows out much higher than I do on the mids, and the mids are lowpassed at 9khz and the sides at 12khz so that the air gets pushed more to the outside. The effect is not as pronounced as I would like, but if I try to get any more extreme with boosts to the side EQs the guitar tone starts to sound weird again.

Master:
This one I do not use stereo wideners at all, and just use mid-side EQs with a shelf boost to the lows on the mid channel, low pass at 15khz on the mids. Then the sides shelf boost to the highs with the low pass around 16.5khz. Then I high pass at about 120hz to center the bass.


Are there some other plugins I should look into? My roomie uses Shredspread, which is a widener specifically for guitars that sounds really good. Is there a way I could dial in Ozone to get that same kind of effect, or is Shredspread just magic?

 

[Deadstar]

I usually use to spread the stereo image while mastering. One trick i've learned is using nebula CLC PAN program by AlexB which, if driven in the right way, gives you an instant wider stereo image. Also,when mixing, if you are dealing with for instance with 2 pairs of guitar tracks (Lead and Rhythm) in a crowded chorus you can send 1 pair to a bus, insert ozone to swap L/R channels, phase reverse it, blend to taste.

 

[tempe]

Try using dual mono compression on your rhythm guitars, something like an LA3A works very nicely for this. Apart from that once you have the mid-range of your mix absolutely nailed the guitars will just seem wider.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

For guitars :
Bx_Shredspread

 

[nezvers]

As I learned from ERMZ Systematic Mixing Guide, don't use same compressor on both guitars (linked L and R channels), I like to use VOS ferric on both guitars with SC filter to max (for some more life) and bit of saturation will give extra separation to them + edge to cut through the mix.

 

[smy1]

Another important trick to make guitars sound wider is to have them be the only thing in the mix that is panned 100/100. If everything else is inside of that, the guitars will sound very wide.

Also: EQ them all differently, just a bit and they'll seem wider.

 

[ArthurD]

MIX with -3db pan law.
EQ guitars.
Pretty much that

 

[Clark Kent]

I do it with my EQ in the mastering process mostly because I need to know what's happening.. there's nothing more annoying than to have a plugin that sounds good but you don't know why. I use the Fabfilter Pro-Q. The difference is very subtle and sometimes I think I don't need it but when I don't use it I feel like my mixes lose a certain depth.

So I boost the lows for the middle and boost the highs for the side and since it's in the mastering phase it's very small... like 1-2dB which is actually huge.

 

[StefTD]

especially for guitars I really like to eq them a bit differently like smy1 already mentioned.
I always had a problem with "narrow" sounding mixes, didn't matter if I used real amps or
amp sims.
Started changing the eq on one guitar track a little bit and it widened the whole mix by
itself, for example, I got two guitar tracks recorded with the exact same setup.
Recorded both of the tracks tight and by myself, so they're going to sound pretty similar,
hard pan them and than I am going to add an eq to both tracks, lo and hi pass them, but
one of them at like 80hz hi pass and 10khz lo pass and the other track with 100hz hi and
11khz lo.
Maybe I set a few different cuts, the serious and overall stuff goes to both tracks, but some
things may change, like a cut with a wide q about 1db, nothing heavy, but it changes the
perceived width of the whole mix alot.

Guitars are the only tracks that I hardpan, the rest of the width is due to mastering.