I recently learned that we cannot have another track or bus as insert (for technical reasons). This prevents using a second track to make some MS encoding, then go to hardware to handle some MS, then come back and decode the MS.
This means that the only way to have some inserts be MS is to either have some hardware to encode/decode, or to put a “ACE StereoRouting” plugin before and after each insert on each track (doable but a bit annoying because they end up being everywhere).
So what I am suggesting is an MS Insert which already includes the encoding before, and decoding after.
MS inserts are extremely useful, very often used with EQs where you typically cut the bass and boost the mid-highs on the side channel, and boost the bass and cut the mid-highs on the mid channel. It widens the image nicely while avoiding phase issues.
Personally, any EQ I would make on a stereo track or bus would be M/S, I don’t see the point of an L/R thing for dual-channel EQ.
This leads us to something else… Any PLUGIN put into a stereo track should also have the ability to be put as M/S rather than L/R. Like a “mode” for it, just like there is a “Bypass” there should be an “M/S”. It could be a round button next to the “Enable/Disable” button, it would put the plugin or insert as M/S or L/R “mode”.
Any dual-channel EQ should even default as M/S mode when inserted, because EQ-ing L/R makes little sense, but EQ-ing M/S makes so much sense.
As a side note, having the ability to use another audio track or bus as an insert would be fantastic, but my understanding is that it would require to completely change the way audio is processed. Keep in mind that this limitation of “track cannot be insert of another track” is coder-friendly stuff, not user-friendly. Most users (musicians) will have no idea that a track or bus cannot be an insert of another.
Bypass is usually provided by the pluigin (not Ardour). Ardour just asks plugins to bypass themselves since the correct way to do so click-free depends on the plugin and has to be implemented there.
Following that logic, it’ll be up to the plugin(s) to provide M/S processing where it makes sense, and some do have that feature.
Also as you have mentioned, Ardour already comes with a “to-m/s” and “from-m/s” plugin that you can add before and after an external insert or any series of plugins which makes this explicit.
I can imagine a feature to add additional controls to a send, like there already is gain and polarity (also available to send/return pair for external hardware inserts), but pre-processing data to be sent to a plugin is best done by adding another plugin.
@x42 : Here you’re talking from coder-experience, not user-experience If the user makes music they have no idea (and don’t care) who handles the bypass, it’s just a button they click.
You are mistaken, and please stick to arguments and no make assumptions about persons in the future.
bypass/enable is only exposed for convenience.
Ardour won’t provide additional DSP (just like there is no dry/wet control for each plugin) where the same functionality can be provided by a processor.
So Ardour could only provide a M/S plugin for plugins that have this feature and also provide sufficient meta-data to identify the corresponding control.
@florianb you probably already know it, but the LSP Plugins Suite have a M/S version for every plugin in (where it makes sense). The UI might look a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get familiar with it they’re really useful and great sounding.
Yeah, FabFilter packs also do (I use their EQ which is amazing) but imagine if you could do that with anything, and in particular an insert… Now you’re whole rack of external hardware becomes M/S with the click of a button.
You can already do it with just a few more clicks using to-ms and from-ms plugins before and after any stereo processor (including inserts) as Robin pointed out, that’s nothing compared to how long it’ll take to setup the hardware properly anyway.
For an “insert” (send/return to external device) I can see that it can be handy to directly have this built-in for convenience (even though 2 plugins before/after the insert can achieve the same).
As for plugins: For the vast majority of mid-side use-cases the plugin needs to have separate controls for the mid and side-channel. Most stereo plugins are however not dual-mono, and even non LTI plugins (e.g. compressor or limiter) will perform the same operation on both channels (note that loudness (RMS) remains unaffected under M/S transformation).
f.i. with a compressor the same gain reduction is applied to both mid and side channels, which has the same effect as applying that gain to left and right.
If the user makes music they have no idea (and don’t care) who handles the bypass, it’s just a button they click.