Topics / Bitwig Studio / Bitwig Grid / Bitwig Grid Modules / Grid Mix Modules / Stereo Width

Stereo Width

Bitwig Platform

Stereo Width module panel in Bitwig Grid
Stereo Width in Bitwig Grid 6.0.6.

A mid/side-style width control that leaves mono content centered and scales the channel difference.

What it does

Stereo Width separates a stereo pair conceptually into its common center component and its left/right difference, then changes only the difference. At 100% the signal is unchanged; reducing Width moves it toward mono, while larger values exaggerate the existing stereo difference.

Controls and ports

Control Label Official description
width Width Relative width of the incoming signal ('100 %' represents no change)

Practical uses

  • Narrow bass or a wide effect return before mixing it with a stable center signal.
  • Increase the separation of an already-stereo oscillator, chorus, reverb, or voice-stack layer.
  • Modulate Width subtly for animated stereo motion without directly changing the mid component.

Things to know

  • Width cannot create useful stereo difference from a perfectly mono input because its side component is zero.
  • At 0% the result is mono; at 100% it is unchanged.
  • Negative values, if reachable through modulation, reverse the side orientation by swapping the left/right difference around the unchanged mid.
  • Very large width can increase peaks and worsen mono cancellation, because the side component is amplified rather than decorrelated.

Technical details

A high-confidence Nitro implementation candidate supports the technical summary, but the visible-module mapping remains inferred.

The exact mix/stereo_width helper first halves the input, then computes x1 = 0.5*in*(1+w) and x2 = 0.5*in*(1-w), swaps the channels of x2, and adds them. Equivalently, with M=(L+R)/2 and S=(L-R)/2, the output is L'=M+wS and R'=M-wS. Therefore w=0 is mono, w=1 is identity, and the mid component is invariant for every width value.

Nitro port Type
in InputAudioPortType
w InputAudioPortType
out OutputAudioPortType

Open questions

  • Measure the visible and modulatable Width range, display mapping, parameter smoothing, and output headroom.
  • Verify behavior for mono cables, anti-phase stereo, negative values, and values above 100%.
  • Confirm whether the visible wrapper feeds the displayed ratio directly to w.

Version and sources

Checked against Bitwig Studio 6.0.6. This page combines Bitwig's module metadata, the existing Grid course and guides, and Nitro analysis where the mapping is strong enough to support a technical statement.

Return to Bitwig Grid Modules or the Grid Modules course lesson.

Also matches: Bitwig Stereo Width module, Bitwig Grid Stereo Width, Stereo Width Grid module