i did a test. the mids only show mid side's mids rather than sum. even though mids are suppose to be summed lmao (at least according to many plugin's definition). Boosting the side channels up by 24 DB has no change in the metering, where other summed VU change accordingly. on left or right mode, it does reflect the change. a proper summed mode would be great!
I think you’re misunderstanding how the math works. To compute the Mid signal it’s (left+right)/2 and the Side is (left-right)/2. Because of this, all sound that is out of phase disappears when computing the Mid, and conversely, all in-phase sound is removed when computing the side.
I believe an LRmax would probably do what you expect! And I got that implemented today, I’m going to test and make sure it’s useful before shipping it.