# Waves S1 Imager alternative?



## creativeforge (Nov 16, 2021)

I like the "tilting" feature in S1 Imager, and wonder of there's an alternative out there. Nothing complicated, hopefully affordable. NGL-Stereoizer was already tested and found lacking. 

Any suggestion? 

Thanks!

Andre

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(I used Waves S1 Imager on a song, but for some reason the plugin shows as VST3 only, and that's choking my DAW (Mixcraft 8). I wasted another 2 hours trying to makes Waves Central install its update, so I could update my Waves plugins (Win 7), but I give up. I now can't stand Waves).


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## cedricm (Nov 16, 2021)

Nugen Stereoizer Elements
or, less affordable:
Nugen Stereoizer

I have the latter, it's much more powerful than Waves S1 in my opinion.

You can make your own by downloading the trial versions.


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## creativeforge (Nov 16, 2021)

Ah, thanks! And there is this. Free.  I'll have to play with it now and see how far I go









Ozone Imager 2


Ozone Imager 2, Free Stereo Width plugin, Download Ozone Imager 2 plugin, Free iZotope vst plugins




www.pluginboutique.com


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## José Herring (Nov 16, 2021)

The Ozone Imager works wonders


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## Dietz (Nov 16, 2021)

creativeforge said:


> Ah, thanks! And there is this. Free.  I'll have to play with it now and see how far I go
> 
> 
> 
> ...





José Herring said:


> The Ozone Imager works wonders



But does it really "tilt" like Waves' S1 or Vienna Suite's Power Pan Pro? AFAIK the Ozone Imager "only" controls and manipulates stereo width, not panning.


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## cedricm (Nov 16, 2021)

Dietz said:


> But does it really "tilt" like Waves' S1 or Vienna Suite's Power Pan Pro? AFAIK the Ozone Imager "only" controls and manipulates stereo width, not panning.


There's also Stereoplacer / Stereoplacer Elements from Nugen for panning, but this should be a much less occuring need - unless you're mixing for clients.

Note: I'm not affiliated with NUGEN Audio, and in fact, I dearly wished their softwares were cheaper.
But I do like their products.


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## José Herring (Nov 16, 2021)

Dietz said:


> But does it really "tilt" like Waves' S1 or Vienna Suite's Power Pan Pro? AFAIK the Ozone Imager "only" controls and manipulates stereo width, not panning.


I'm a big fan of VEPro's power panner. If S1 can do something like that then I'm interested. The only advantage that I like with Ozone9 Imager is that it's multiband. So sometimes I like to use it to increase the width of the bass to make it less directional for orchestral music. And sometimes to spread the "air" above 8k. Other than that I really don't touch it much.


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## Dietz (Nov 16, 2021)

Might it be that there is a bit of misunderstanding floating around what Waves's S1 (and VS Pro's Imager, at that) is able to do. The really, really cool thing about this plug-in is that you can use it to pan a stereo signal without making it narrower.

... maybe this little scribble get's the idea across:




​Yes, this can result in significant amounts of out-of-phase content, but in most cases this is perfectly acceptable. In that way, stereo signals can be panned without significantly losing their original spatial impression.


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## re-peat (Nov 16, 2021)

It meters, it pans, it ms-decodes and -encodes, it widens, it narrows, it trims, it tilts, it fades and it mutes. And it’s free. It’s Hofa4U’s "Meter, Fader & MS-Pan" plugin.
(There are a couple of other *Hofa freebies* that are worth looking at.)

And there’s Flux’s *StereoTool*. Which is also free. And amazingly capable.

And if you create an account with DMG Audio, you get their *TrackControl* plugin for free. Useful for many things a.o. stereo- or m/s-panning and width control.

And this is *Integraudio's 2021 overview* of what they consider the 10 best picks when it comes to stereo imaging plugins. Haven't read it all myself, but you might find something useful in there.

_


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## PeterN (Nov 16, 2021)

creativeforge said:


> I like the "tilting" feature in S1 Imager, and wonder of there's an alternative out there. Nothing complicated, hopefully affordable. NGL-Stereoizer was already tested and found lacking.
> 
> Any suggestion?
> 
> ...


Free widening plugin.









Wider


Wider is a unique stereo “mono-compatible” plugin. Any signal that has been extended will always remain in phase, even if summed to mono.




polyversemusic.com


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## creativeforge (Nov 16, 2021)

Thank you everyone! Many interestinug


José Herring said:


> I'm a big fan of VEPro's power panner. If S1 can do something like that then I'm interested. The only advantage that I like with Ozone9 Imager is that it's multiband. So sometimes I like to use it to increase the width of the bass to make it less directional for orchestral music. And sometimes to spread the "air" above 8k. Other than that I really don't touch it much.


This is what S1 Imager looks like. I have two tracks of "strings" and after dipping the bass to avoid clipping, I still felt it was too muddy and clashing with the piano track. The result of using regular panning didn't sound right. 

I then tried NGL-Stereoizer, but that did not sound natural enough to my ears. 

S1 Imager widens the signal but more importantly made a noticeable difference when I used the "tilting" - Assymetry and Rotation. 

LEFT:
▼






RIGHT:
▼






After hours of trying a number of things, I loaded Reaper which scanned all my VSTs. And I could see VSTs that were not loading in Mixcraft anymore. So I started Mixcraft again and surprise - S1 was there again. Go figure!



PeterN said:


> Free widening plugin.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





re-peat said:


> It meters, it pans, it ms-decodes and -encodes, it widens, it narrows, it trims, it tilts, it fades and it mutes. And it’s free. It’s Hofa4U’s "Meter, Fader & MS-Pan" plugin.
> (There are a couple of other *Hofa freebies* that are worth looking at.)
> 
> And there’s Flux’s *StereoTool*. Which is also free. And amazingly capable.
> ...



I'm going through the other suggestions here, thanks for these, guys! Always curious discovering new (to me) developers and their creations. 

Cheers,

Andre


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