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In making sound files, I want to label different variations of the same sound that have different levels of stereo enhancements, one for being when the effect sounds more mono-channel and the other for when the effect sounds very diffused on either side, and one for in between these two.

Is there a convention of terms to describe different levels of stereo enhancement? Like close, mid, far; or spread, centered, mono; or anything like that?

PixelLove3D
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  • In your own vocabulary i would add the phase term too. Very widespread mixes have content in the antiphase areas, so extreme spread should be close to 100% anti-phase, maybe some percentages? 80 stereo - 20 anti phase naming could help.. – frcake Apr 22 '19 at 11:47

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There are no standard conventions for this. You are free to use whatever labels you like. I would, however suggest that we continue to use the term "monophonic" for a stereo signal where the difference component is zero.

Mark
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Enhancement just adds to any existing stereo phase correlation. So you can’t measure how much a recording was enhanced unless you have a copy of the same recording before enhancement, but you can measure the absolute stereo spread of a recording using a stereo phase correlation meter.

See: https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-what-are-my-phase-correlation-meters-telling-me?amp

So in simple terms, a correlation meter reading of +1 means that it is receiving a (dual) mono signal, whereas a reading of zero means a fully wide stereo image. Normal stereo material will generally display a fluctuating reading between +1 and zero. If the reading trends towards the +1 end the image is getting narrower and heading towards mono, while trends towards zero indicate a much wider image.

Todd Wilcox
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