Category Archives: Tech

The theory behind getting Reason to generate true stereo lies in understanding how 2-channel stereo works. It’s actually really simple. All you have to know is that the illusion of stereo occurs when there’s a difference between what you hear in your right ear and what you hear in your left ear. The first way to think about pulling this off is to simply take a stereo track and split the left and right channels into their own mono tracks in the mixer AND then setting the pan knobs all the way to the left or right respectively.

Of course; visually this makes all the sense in the world but from a sonics stand point, it doesn’t really deliver difference between the sounds in your right and left ear. You are still hearing the sound simultaneously in both ears. To really bring the stereo out, you have to set up an effect where you only hear the sound in one ear at a time while still hearing the sound in both ears. I sound like an oxymoron right now but it will all come together shortly. Here’s where the trick comes in: What you have to do is run the machine or at least half of it to a Digital Delay Line. What you do is take the left channel (L or R will work the same) and run it to the DDL effect machine. Then you take the output of that effect channel and merge it back with the right channel in the mixer. This does two things: (1) It separates the two channels and (2) It sets up a situation where the sound first goes to the Right ear as a solo sound, and then goes to the Left ear after a delay. At this point if you test it out the sound, you’ll notice it sounds pretty weird. First you hear something on the Right, then you hear it on the Left with the delayed repeating effect on it. Don’t worry, that just means you have it wired correctly. All you have to do now is tweak the effect so that the delay effect is much shorter. So first you flip the DDL around and bring the Steps all the way down to 1. Then change the Units to MS and set it to any number between 10 and 25. All this does is shorten the Delay effect to mere milliseconds. Now when you listen to the sound you’ll notice the traditional delay effect is virtually gone and what you’re left with is a sound that feels like its recorded with about 4 or 5 mics/takes. This effect basically fools the ear into hearing both channels simultaneously when in actuality the sounds is bouncing back and forth between both channels so fast that the ear can’t hear the difference.

Almost everybody uses this effect from Dre to Dilla. It really sounds great when you use it on Hook/Chorus vocals or adlibs. I know 50’s engineer goes crazy with it on his vocals. There’s a lot you can do with it when you play with wetness and use multiple recordings to really make your sounds big. Try it out and let me know how it works for you. I’ve made a Combinator patch available for download — I know it’s kind of a confusing concept.

Download: