Mid-Side Meets the CTC-1

I've often said it's more fun to ask what if I ? than how do I? What-if is about trying something new, while how do I is about re-creating something that already exists. Well, I couldn't help but wonder what if you combined the CTC-1 with mid-side processing, and sprinkled on a little of that CTC-1 magic? Let's find out. (For more information on mid-side processing, check out my blog post Mid-Side Processing Made Easy. Also, note that only Studio One Professional allows using Mix Engine FX.)

One stumbling block is that the CTC-1 is designed to be inserted in a bus, and the Mid-Side Transform FX chain won't allow inserting Mix Engine FX. Fortunately, there's a simple workaround (see Fig. 1).

Copy the stereo track you want to process, so you have two tracks with the same stereo audio. One will provide the Mid audio, and the other, the Sides audio.

Insert an MS-Transform FX Chain into each track (you'll find this FX Chain in the Browser's Mixing folder, under FX Chains)

Create a bus for each track.

Assign each track output to its own bus (not the main out). However, the bus outputs should go to the Main out.

Add a CTC-1 Mix Engine FX in each bus.

Figure 1: Setup for adding mid-side processing with the CTC-1 to a mixed stereo file.

To dedicate one bus to the mid audio, and the other to the sides, open up the Splitters in the MS-Transform FX Chains.

Mute the sides output for the Mid track (top of Fig. 2, outlined in orange). Then, mute the mid output for the Sides track (bottom of Fig. 2, also outlined in orange).

Figure 2: One bus is Mid only, the other is Sides only.

Now you can add the desired amount of CTC-1 goodness to the mids and sides. And of course, you can vary the bus levels to choose the desired proportion of mid and sides audio.

Audition Time!

The following example is an excerpt from the original file, without the CTC-1.

PreSonus 1 Without CTC 1

Next up, CTC-1 with the Custom option on the Mid, and the Tube option on the Sides. Fig. 3 shows their settings-a fair amount of Character, and a little bit of Drive.

Figure 3: CTC-1 settings for the audio example.

PreSonus 2 With CTC 1 Mid Custom Sides Tube

If you didn't hear much difference, trying playing Audio Example 1 again after playing Audio Example 2. Sometimes it's easier to tell when something's missing, compared to when something's been added.

The more you know about the CTC-1, the more effectively you can use it. The bottom line is I now know the answer to my what if question: get some buses into the picture, and the CTC-1 can be hella good for processing mid and sides!

LINK:	https://blog.presonus.com/index.php/2021/04/09/mid-side-meets-ctc-1/...
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