Dual-mono unlinked limiting and stereo wideners?

[Tafadzwa Twabam]

Is fully dual-mono unlinked limiting better than using stereo enhancers to achieve a fairly wide sound?

 

[Sadzandiuraye]

The issue of stereo width should be addressed during the audio mixing stage.

It's all about planning properly as opposed to trying to fix things later.

 

[Tanonoka]

In comparison, by using stereo width VST/AU/AAX plug-ins, the output audio will be much wider than if an audio mastering limiter is unlinked.

However,@Sadzandiuraye is right in saying that stereo enhancers (e.g. Waves Audio, Ltd. S1 Stereo Imager, iZotope, Inc. Ozone Imager, etc) are best left to mixing engineers and record producers.

Audio mastering shouldn't be creative. It should in many ways be aligned towards a corrective approach unless the aforementioned happens to be what is required and has been asked for. Doing otherwise will in most cases ruin a mix.

In addition, there's this widespread misconception that you should always use a mid-side equalizer to filter everything below either 50 Hz, 80 Hz, 130 Hz, or even 200 Hz with a high-pass filter or use iZotope, Inc. Ozone Imager plugin to narrow down your vertical signal.

People need to come to terms with reality and accept the fact that mono is dead. All the mono-compatibility talk about this and that needs to stop. Furthermore, if anyone is using a dynamic processor it sure must be unlinked completely and those are my thoughts on the subject matter.

 

[Queen]

@Tanonoka when a compressor or brickwall limiter is run in dual-mono mode or stereo unlinked mode, the stereo image will change. Some people don't like this. It's a matter of taste whilst some folks only unlink the transients part of it.

 

[Munyaradzi Mafaro]

@Tanonoka yeah I agree with you, fully unlinked limiting should be a standard.

@Queen most if not all audio maximizers sound so small and more mono when both the transient and sustain parameters are linked. On the other hand, dual-mono limiting not only does it get stupid loud but you also get blessed in abundance with a sense of a wide stereo field without the need to reach for any stereo enhancer plug-in at all.