You may think THIS is a stereo shaper.

BUT, you’re wrong! - It’s not…

At least - not anymore than these 👇.

Now, I used to suck at wrapping my head around this - and YouTube isn’t exactly plentiful with free resources that give comprehensive explanations in simple terms.

I learned most of this on the fly as I executive produced some of the biggest songs in my catalog - like these 👇

And the ONE SIMPLE TRUTH I’ve learned is that a good mix comes down to ONE THING.

The quality of your stereo image.

Today I’ll FINALLY demystify the concept for you, and explain how it will transform your beats into head-turning bangers - all while proving that THIS:

isn’t a stereo shaper.

 Section 1: What is Stereo Imaging?

But more on that later - First, we need to completely flip the way you think about stereo imaging.

Because it doesn’t exist and is only real in concept.

Another way of saying this is that stereo imaging is a figment of our imagination.

We imagine the sound to be between the speakers.

But, in truth, it’s the same sound is coming out of both speakers.

It seems like sound goes above and below the speakers, like it can exist behind them or right in our faces - 

BUT, it’s all just an auditory illusion.

For example, panning doesn’t move sound from one ear to another through your head - that’s impossible because your head and your brain are right there!

No, it’s hallucination, a sort of genjustu the engineer puts you in.

It gets even crazier when you realize this means that an altered physical or mental state can lead to a human not hearing stereo anymore.

There’s even studies on humans who can’t, as well as detailed scientific explanations why this happens.

Naturally, you may wonder, “Then what am I actually hearing if there’s no stereo image?”

In the simplest terms possible, you are experiencing one of two things.

Either;

1. You are feeling the music, and/or
2. You’re imagining a visual representation of what you hear.

For case #1: I mean that you LITERALLY feel the sound, because sound is vibration.

For case #2: Again, this is an illusion, and your ability to visualize depends mostly on how creative your imagination is.

The important take away is that all of this is only possible when sound is input or output by two channels.

Think;

• 2 speakers (or one speaker with 2 channels/tweeters).
• 2 mics (or one mic with 2 channels/diagrams).
• ⭐️ 2 ears (I did a little pop quiz about this one - As a collective, y’all failed miserably; But that’s why we’re doing this lesson together now 😂). 

Main point: You need 2 channels - that’s how it happens, that’s the only way.

🔑 So, the first big step is accepting that stereo image is a figment of your imagination made possible because you have two ears (or audio channels) built into your head.

Section 2: The Parameters (Boundaries) Of The Stereo Image.

Half the battle is just knowing what stereo image even is.

So... so-far-so-good! 👍

However, knowing what it is and knowing how to use it are not the same.

It’s kinda like how just knowing that energy exists doesn’t mean that Mr. Satan can suddenly do a Kamehameha.

But just like his fellow humans Krillin, Yamcha, and Master Roshi, it’s something he COULD learn to do with training.

Similarly, you become a “Super Sayian” with stereo imaging once you figure there’s only 3 types of controls that determine its parameters.

1. Tools that manipulate Volume,
2. Tools that manipulate panning, and
3. Tools that manipulate frequency.

There’s technically a 4th category for FX which I could split up into many ‘sub categories of FX’, but it’s good enough to say that all of them are just delay with extra steps.

More on that in a second, because we’ve still got to finish establishing our parameters.

One last note: Don’t forget that the actual sound is only coming out of the speakers and towards you; everything else about the sounds is something you are imagining and which you can manipulate in your mix.

Okay! - Panning is the most intuitive place to start.

This creates movement left and right, and thus our axis of width (the panning axis).

This happens by adjust the ratio of power an audio signal is sending to each channel; the 'imbalance' is what simulates the sensation of panning.

One of the simplest ways to control this in FL Studio is with the built in pan controls on each channel and track insert.

But you can also use something like Fruity PanOMatic.

The next simplest axis to explain is depth (or the volume axis).

If you’re watching a 3D movie, this would be the visual sensation of seeing deeper past the flat image on the screen or feeling like things are coming out of it towards you.

In auditory sensation, this is the feeling of sound being further away from you,

or right in your face.

This is the only one you’d be able to sense with just one ear.

And you wouldn’t perceive it so much as depth, as instead more like an increase/decrease in the presence or power of the sound with no directional sense (unless you could sense its vibrations well enough, of course).

The most intuitive way to control this is with volume knobs and faders.

But dynamic tools like;

• compressors,
• limiters,
• transient shapers, and
• saturators
• also fall into this category.

also fall into this category.

Our axis of height (or the frequency axis) is where we venture into metaphysical sensations and visualizations.

Kinda.

Here’s what I mean:

You know how we describe these frequencies as “low”,

and these as “high”?

And have you noticed that you kind of feel bass rumbling from the floor up into your body through your feet, while typically feeling treble in or at the top of your head?

So we can say that higher frequencies are upwards and the lower are downward.

There is a VAST range of ways to manipulate frequency.

You many know this is my favorite mixing concept, so I could geek out for days here.

But - suffice to say that equalizers are usually the go-to tool for manipulation along the frequency axis.

So… what about other FX like phasing, flanging, delay, and reverb?

Well - here’s where we get into why THIS isn’t a stereo shaper.

Every type of control or VST I haven’t mentioned until this point either;

1. Is a manifestation of something we’ve already mentioned, or
2. Falls into the 4th category of FX.

We’ve already talked above about how anything that controls/manipulates the dynamic range falls under volume control [axis of depth].

Things like compressors, limiters, and transient shapers.

FX like distortion and saturation are just waveshapping which is kind of like combining dynamic range and frequency content manipulation.

We’ll do a newsletter on it - don’t worry.

But delay is where it gets interesting because it stores a sound on a chip and then plays it back whenever you like.

When it plays back is determined by whatever you set your release to which is usually measured in milliseconds.

That’s what causes the echo - the delayed appearance or manifestation of the playback.

From delay, you basically get every other FX;

1. Feedback —> Feeding the delay signal back into the input.
2. Flanging —> Short, clock-automated delays.
3. Chorus —> Just Flanging with tighter parameters on the clock.
4. Phasing —> Just chorus with an insanely tight clock parameter that only sweeps between 0 and 1 ms.
5. Reverb —> Made of of thousands and thousands of delays bouncing off of the walls of a simulated room at different times, places, and angles and then all washing together.

Are you still with me? 😂

Fortunately OR unfortunately, that’s about as much as I can talk about those without this become a a whole letter about FX.

But let me know down below if that’s something you’d like to see because I’m definitely with it!

For now, the only thing you need to know is that delay and all of its manifestations are used to create an effect of widening or phattening the sound.

Since it’s literally adding new sounds and new manipulation parameters, it’s going to affect the stereo image in all three dimensions - again, a letter for another day.

Now that you understand the dimensions and parameter definitions of the stereo image, you can navigate it to create immersive music that captivates listeners.

And now we can talk about why THIS isn’t a stereo shaper...

Because now you understand that it just pans identical and inverted signals away from and toward each other.

That’s what’s happening with all these sliders here.

The ‘phase control is literally just a function of EQ.

A delay does… delay things.

We just finished talking about that.

I mean, you can still call this and tools like it a stereo shaper.

I’m certainly not going to stop.

But depth of understanding made them FAR more useful to me than ever before, so I hope it’s the same for you.

Section 3: How to mix in stereo.

HOWEVER… You can’t just go changing these parameters willy-nilly.

It helps to know where to put each thing in the stereo image

It may seem like this involves guesswork, but there’s actually a way to set these parameters to make your music sound more professional.

It involves the transparency concept we’ve discussed over the last few videos.

Transparency means making your music sound “natural”…

But we haven’t actually discussed what defines “natural.”

It’s determined by your genre.

So basically, there’s a specific way to mix hip hop and a specific way to mix opera music.

Both of them are transparent to their respective genres.

But if you mix an opera track like it’s hip hop, you’ll end up with a non-transparent mix regardless of whether you used the technically sound mix practices.

And vice versa… you get me?

So your mixing has to be technically sound and CONTEXTUALLY RELEVANT.

Since my audience makes trap hip hop, and since I have nearly 17 million views across 2000 videos and 4 channels in this genre, I’m going to talk about making the best use of the stereo image for trap and hip hop in this video here.

Maybe if y’all go crazy with the support for the video I’ll consider doing a piece where we cover other genres - but, honestly, don’t hold your breath 😅.

Anyway - here's a quick TL;DR if you'd rather keep reading.

A good Hip Hop mix starts with the Big 3, which describes the 3 elements of your mix which should be the most present.

In order of most present to least, it goes;

1. The low end (kick, bass, 808),
2. The main snare or clap, and
3. The lead vocal - but if you’re making an instrumental, the lead melody(ies) would take this spot.

Making them ‘present’ isn’t as simple as just making them loud, because they have to fit together while allowing space for the complimenting sounds.

 From here, you can be creative with how you use the stereo field to fit in the rest of the sounds.

A good rule of thumb for beginners is to keep most of your drums down the middle in mono and to simulate orchestral arrangements when panning the instruments.

The volumes and frequency distributions are tougher to explain without an example, so check out the video if you need context.

So - what if you want to break the rules?

Do it!

That’s actually the entire point.

You can’t innovate until you understand the basics.

If you use these guidelines as the outline for your mixes, you’ll rarely end up with something that sounds bad.

Then, over time, you’ll find your own mixing style as you introduce your character and personality into the process.

 If you want that professional-grade ‘wall-of-sound’ quality in your beats, having an immersive stereo image is KEY 🔑.

The thing that sucks is that you can do all of this and still end up with pretty weak sounding beats.

You need to correctly manage your stereo image AND dynamic range.

We just covered stereo image here, so go here next to learn how dynamic range manipulation will make your beats hit harder than ever before.