stereo / mono

[Jay Pace]

aloha

How do you use stereo? I tend not to.

On the understanding that if your tracks works well in mono its balanced well, mixed right and sounds good when its ultimately played out in mono on a rig.

My concern with stereo is that it can complicate your mix and balance, and when you switch back to mono your well balanced mix isn't well balanced anymore.

"kisses" by audion sounds notably bad when you mix it in your bedroom. The whole track is pretty much in mono, and it jars on a stereo home setup.
Then you hear it in a club and the filthy hoover noise tears the room apart, and wipes the floor with all the clever lush spacious stuff.

All the old detroit tracks seem to make minimal use of stereo, its only really present on the reverbs. And they still kill in clubs.

So... if you do use stereo, how do you use it and to what effect.

[stjohn]

i usually have the main elements mono... kicks, central hats, subs, driving perx.. but then buttter up with some stereo stuff..

[dirty_bass]

If I use stereo, I use width effecting, rather than panning.
I hate working in mono.
It`s bad enough having to compromise for vinyl, let alone the additional compromise for stereo.
But it`s something you have to do. If clubs were more competent and ran stereo, life would be gravey, but as we all know, that is very very rare.

[Barely Human]

I always utilise stereo, but like DB, i usually use width that dramatic pans. I find it usefull for placing more elements in the mix which may conflict on freqs.

[Jay Pace]

Interesting - any pointers on width and widening?
I know almost nothing about this at all.

VSTs?

[Barely Human]

Er, if you can relate to the box idea for freqs spacing, then using stereo can add an extra dimension so that you have depth. This means that you can place a sound, which lets say is in the freq range 5000 - 6000, and another sound around the same feqs but at a different width. You can do this to many elements, but i always leave my bass and kick in mono.

I like the psp plugins personally, but it deppends on what effect im after.

[rhythmtech]

Interesting - any pointers on width and widening?
I know almost nothing about this at all.

VSTs?

wide boy.. it was a free plug-in but not available anymore..

im uploading it now for you

[rhythmtech]

www.chrome-metronome.net/rhythmtechnologies/Wide_Boy.dll

[Jay Pace]

Legend barry!

I get how widening gives you more space. I just don't get what widening involves.. what happens to the sound when you widen it?

If you balance a mix using widening will it not sound muddy when you revert back to mono?

[rhythmtech]

Legend barry!

I get how widening gives you more space. I just don't get what widening involves.. what happens to the sound when you widen it?

If you balance a mix using widening will it not sound muddy when you revert back to mono?

it creates a slight delay between each channel (which you can control) .. it only really fools your ears more than anything.. dont go too wide though or you'll lose a lot on the mix down.. i usually stop around 60% or so..

also it doesnt work on mono tracks.

[Jay Pace]

When you widen though, will your mix not sound dodgy in mono when you lose the space widening made available?

[rhythmtech]

When you widen though, will your mix not sound dodgy in mono when you lose the space widening made available?

no.. because you're not actually widening.. like i said.. i puts a slight delay on 1 channell to fool your ears into thinking its wider.. similiar to a chorus effect only without the modulation.

but why do you have your mixes in mono anyway?

[Jay Pace]

no.. because you're not actually widening.. like i said.. i puts a slight delay on 1 channell to fool your ears into thinking its wider.. similiar to a chorus effect only without the modulation.

but why do you have your mixes in mono anyway?

What I'm thinking is....

Your tracks end up being played through mono rigs.
All the stereo spacing achieved by widening is lost when the signal is converted into mono and driven out a mono rig.

So if your mix is balanced using widening rather than eq balancing the two instruments sharing the same frequency range which are seperated through widening will end up occupying the same space once your track gets played out in mono, and this could lead to a muddy cluttered mix.

So whilst widening gives things room to breath it only works if you hear it in stereo, and the moment you revert back to mono your mix ends up sounding cluttered.

This is my mistrust of stereo - I don't want to create the "illusion" of space only to find that my mix ends up sounding muddy when run in mono out of a club PA system.

[rhythmtech]

to be honest ive never really noticed any muddiness playing out on any rig.. none that makes any differance really..

best bet is to constantly switch between mono/stereo when doing the mix if its something you're concerned about..

whatever the limitations of mono it still somewhat picks up on panning as balance, so i wouldnt be worrying about it.

[stjohn]

heres something i stumbled along the way... it does mental stereo stuff for me....

1. set up 2 send/return tracks..

2. put a plug in that can invert phase on return 1 (utility in ableton) and invert the Left signals phase..

3 put something like the Waves Ultrapitch shift on the 2nd return track. this will add some weird detune .. (voice of zardoz is a good preset)

4 enable the send B of return track 1... so it will actually send a full signal to the ultrapitch as well as the master.

5 on your vst or audio track put up send A to full... u might notice this works as turning the ultrapitch on or off without actually have to power on or off anything and can make smooth transitions (u will have to have both Left and right phases inverted for it to work fully )

6. to finally get some weird stereo going on... pan the audio channel to about 9 oclock left. and voila... the mixture of detune of phase inversion makes some crazy spreads...

hope this makes sense...if not i can go through it..because trust me it can beef up pads, voices, and if you can manage the delay even beats..

sorry i dont know a 3rd party plug in that can invert phase of a single left or right channel... maybe you know Loopdon?

[stjohn]

i did a quick example from a track im wokring on now.....only very slight... i can do something more drastic if anyone wants..

before

www.chrome-metronome.net/test1.mp3


after
www.chrome-metronome.net/test1b.mp3


the after leans slightly to the right but that was on purpose:)

anyway the magic is you can use pretty much every plug in to create weird stereo effects, which i dont hi nk ive heard before... particularly with stuff like GRM toolz delay / shuffle... madshifta, everything

[loopdon]

heres something i stumbled along the way... it does mental stereo stuff for me....

1. set up 2 send/return tracks..

2. put a plug in that can invert phase on return 1 (utility in ableton) and invert the Left signals phase..

3 put something like the Waves Ultrapitch shift on the 2nd return track. this will add some weird detune .. (voice of zardoz is a good preset)

4 enable the send B of return track 1... so it will actually send a full signal to the ultrapitch as well as the master.

5 on your vst or audio track put up send A to full... u might notice this works as turning the ultrapitch on or off without actually have to power on or off anything and can make smooth transitions (u will have to have both Left and right phases inverted for it to work fully )

6. to finally get some weird stereo going on... pan the audio channel to about 9 oclock left. and voila... the mixture of detune of phase inversion makes some crazy spreads...

hope this makes sense...if not i can go through it..because trust me it can beef up pads, voices, and if you can manage the delay even beats..

sorry i dont know a 3rd party plug in that can invert phase of a single left or right channel... maybe you know Loopdon?

I know that Waves Q10 (and possibly some other waves ones) are capable of this. It's the + and - buttons.



This free solution might do as well:



"I'm build vst plugin for mixdown check when my's project complete . It's simple vst but you can useful for more. Like to converse stereo to mono or inverse phase for pad /strings or soundFX to wide image each track. If you would like to test.

L+R : Stereo track to mono
R/L : Alternate spk. channel (2ch.only)
L-R : Inverse R Channel 180'
R-L : Inverse L Channel 180'

*vst 2.3*

wasan2k@yahoo.com "

DL:

http://www.4shared.com/file/20805126...nal_Check.html

Or RS PHASE VST v1.0



"Inverts the phase of either left or right channel."

from

http://www.retrosampling.se/vst.htm

[rhythmtech]

When you widen though, will your mix not sound dodgy in mono when you lose the space widening made available?

and you dont use it over the whole mix.. just on parts

i like to use it on supporting synths and glitchy percussion... takes it away from the main parts and gives everything more room to breathe

[massplanck]

what about doubling up instruments/synths/hats and panning each to the left and right?

Bigger sound with a bit of space.

Probably a bad idea if im doing it!

[stjohn]

what about doubling up instruments/synths/hats and panning each to the left and right?

Bigger sound with a bit of space.

Probably a bad idea if im doing it!

:) i do it to... maybe detune one of the slightly, works well!