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What is stereo widening?
Stereo widening (also known as stereo imaging) is the process of making a sound or overall mix more perceptually spacious (or ‘wide’) in the stereo field. Widening can be an essential part of creating an effective mix where each element has its space and stands out.
In the tutorial video above, we explore four popular music production techniques for increasing your music’s stereo width. Watch along to hear each technique in action, and read more about them below.
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4 key stereo widening techniques
1. The Haas effect
The Haas effect, also commonly known as the “precedence effect,” is a psychoacoustic property named after Dr. Helmut Haas. He discovered that two sounds need to be delayed by ~40 ms or more to be perceived separately. If they’re closer together in time, they’ll be perceived as one sound by most humans.
In music production, we can make use of this concept to widen our sounds. Split a signal across two tracks and pan one source all the way to the left and the other source all the way to the right. If you delay one of the sides by ~12 – 40 ms, it’ll create the illusion of a ‘wider’ sound.
Learn more about the Haas effect in our dedicated guide:
2. Mid-side EQ
Most modern digital equalizers now have mid-side EQ capabilities. If you’re interested in achieving a wider sound, it pays off to take the extra time to sculpt your tracks with some mid-side EQ.
With mid-side EQ, the mid channel contains all frequency information that’s identical on the left and right channels, while the side channel contains anything that differs across the two channels. One great technique is boosting the higher frequencies on the side channel, because our ears hear higher frequencies with greater spatial definition.
3. Panning automation
While this might be somewhat obvious, a wide sound field can be achieved by simply implementing the right kind of panning automation. It’s generally taboo to pan your kick and snare; however, getting creative with these and other percussive elements can sometimes really help add some width to your track.
Beyond leveling and panning, automation can be used for an incredibly wide array of creative applications—we explore the technique in more detail below:
4. Specialized stereo widening plugins
Last but not least, there are several third-party plugins worth mentioning that are great for widening your sound. Some of our favorites are iZotope’s Imager (available in their Ozone mastering suite) and Soundtoys’ MicroShift—you can hear both of these plugins in action in our video.
And there you have it! Do you have any favorite techniques or plugins for stereo widening that we missed? What other music production techniques would you like to see us explore next? Let us know in the comments section of the video, and subscribe to the Splice YouTube channel for more tips, tutorials, and insights.
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June 27, 2025
