Phantom Center is a stereo imager plugin that works by extracting the phantom center from a stereo signal.
Contrary to your usual mid/side processor, the sides components tend here to be decorrelated (with mid/side they would be negatively correlated). For example, hard panned signals don't leak into the center or into the other side.
The HPF and LPF parameters control the cutoff frequencies of the filters applied to the extracted phantom center. What's outside this frequency range is redirected to the side channels.
It's also possible to get separated LCR channels if you want to process them individually (see the user guide). Note that the extraction algorithm is more on the aggressive side and wasn't specifically designed for "upmixing". However, just splitting and recombining is lossless.
Contrary to your usual mid/side processor, the sides components tend here to be decorrelated (with mid/side they would be negatively correlated). For example, hard panned signals don't leak into the center or into the other side.
The HPF and LPF parameters control the cutoff frequencies of the filters applied to the extracted phantom center. What's outside this frequency range is redirected to the side channels.
It's also possible to get separated LCR channels if you want to process them individually (see the user guide). Note that the extraction algorithm is more on the aggressive side and wasn't specifically designed for "upmixing". However, just splitting and recombining is lossless.
Downloads
Win 32 VST
(3.8 Mb)
Win 64 VST
(3.8 Mb)
Win AAX
(3.8 Mb)
Mac OSX VST
(10.8 Mb)
Mac OSX AU
(10.8 Mb)
Mac AAX
(10.8 Mb)
Linux
(0 Mb)
(5 / 5)
A really perculiar effect. Up until this point I could not get a consistent feeling from it, which means: Whenever I try it on a new signal expecting it to do something that I heard from it before, it does something new. Sometimes that's cool and sometimes not. It's an adventurous plugin
(5 / 5)
The demo sounds well. But I want to understand it better. Why do you call the center of a stereo signal "phantom center" and not simply "center"? How does the decorrelation work? You say: "What's outside this frequency range is redirected to the side channels." How? You say: "the extraction algorithm is more on the aggressive side" What does it mean, in special "aggressive"? Thank you for answering.
Is this could be an answer to your questions ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_center