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stereo vs. mono

Hola ppl,
I remember reading here once that basslines should be mono. Those of you with the knowledge/experience, what else should be mono and stereo?
synths, drums' stuff, weird sounds, etc..

thanks

Kick should be mono. A lot of people will say that percussion should be mono to but I normally just have them all in stereo as that's how they come.

main theme (for example melody, pad) should be centerd also imo.

Don't mistake mono/stereo for panning. Kick can be stereo (I even say it should be) but IMO bass MUST have stereo data. A mono bassline could be great for some kind of electro or similar, but for trance, basses should be full of stereo: chorus, phasers, delays, reverbs... Don't put a naked bass in the middle, dress it with some fx.

WHA??

What purpose would it serve to have a kick in mono only??

I have my snars and voclas in mono, lol

hhhmmm... mixed opinions
Apparently its a choice of taste.

quote:

Posted by: Digital Aura What purpose would it serve to have a kick in mono only??

Good question.

What I thought was that everything stereo would over crowd the mix or make it sound muddy or something like that. I've read some tutorials and never seen this topic. Guess there's no rule then...???

when i started producing trance, I used a sample library with mono kicks, snares, hh. When I changed it for a stereo drums library my rhythms got more life, better sounding. Kicks cant be panned but it can be mixed with a litte room reverb (to make it sound less dry but more pumpy and warm).

Re: WHA??

quote:

Originally posted by Digital Aura What purpose would it serve to have a kick in mono only??

Because it must be in the middle of the stereo picture (ie. panned center). All of my kicks are mono. If you were to make a vynil out of a track with panned kick, you will be very surprised when playing that piece of vynil on a party ....

when cutting a vinyl, if you have out of phase stuff going on in the bass (generally under approximately 200 hz) the grooves are going to be cut in such a way that when played back, the needle will literally jump out of the groove and this is a BAD thing.

soo... the whole thing about mono bass doesnt mean your actually bass patch should be totally mono.. it just means when you are making something and it is going to be considered to but pressed to vinyl, great care should be taken to make sure the sub bass frequencies are not going out of phase (meaning that they should stick very much to being MONO, but they can be a little bit stereo)...

what this means is... for your bass sound, the higher frequencies can have all sorts of stereo effects on them (chorus, reverb, delay, etc.), you just have to keep a check on those sub frequencies .

there are useful phase analysis tools that will show you a graph of the phase vs. frequency and analyzing the audio with a tool such as that is a good way to see if you have too much out of phase sub bass

hope that helps,
-rob

there's a plugin, dynason, that spread the phase of low-freqs to adapt it for vinyls. it don't make a great difference in sound.

But you are forgetting a very important thing about panning. Kicks shouldnt be panned because:
1. Ear is little sensitive to low-freq phase differences so the only way to pan sounds is by level differences. If you do that, and use a compressor, you'll notice that the whole stereo image will be jumping everytime kick sounds.
2. Very Bass freqs (kick, not the bass) should be only present at the beat moment or concrete instants, leaving the rest of the time sounding mid-hi freqs. A constant subbass freq (like kick with delays or dense reverb) can muddy the mix.

id always say pan ya percussion around a bit

and if ya can, get 2 909 hats that sound slightly different and pan one to the left and one to the right and it kinda makes a chorus effect on it

Its all about trying not to blow peeps speakers (and the vinyl skipping stuff). Put this way, I know of some1 who released a track with a low kick drum panned just off center and his forum got a few posts about his track blowing some poor peeps woofer :O

Mind u it was one of the lowest kicks i ever heard

centred sub + kick, most other things have pan on them, even some kick samples i have tail off in the midrange towards one channel

just think of your track as a room atmosphere, then you can see where you must or want to place everything...im making this short but it wouldn't make sense to have the kicks on each end of the room becasue thats where you want to place other stuff like hats, fx, maybe a pad, ect..and yes for vynal you must take care with your bass..this is becaus ethe needlw or stylus moves left to right when reading low freaquencies and well stereo is just not good. This all depends on the frequency as well.

Limit Out!

Also since the bass frequencies require more power to output, you'll want to be using the power of both speakers for your bass, not just one.

Let me see if I understand it right. There's a difference between recording a signal as a mixed stereo signal or recording two individual mono (read: discrete Left and Right) tracks. for certain applications that could actually work better than blended stereo track. It also offers certain flexibility in working with the sound. Nonetheless, I don't think there's a definitive "yes" or "no" answer to your question. You can't say that it's wrong to do something in one way or the other. It either works or doesn't work in a track. That's all. The only way to tell is to experiment and listen.

Don't be afraid to be wrong. The worst thing that will happen is you will build some experience - and that is an accomplishment in itself.

This mono vs stereo topic is really confussing.

First of all, to be honest, I don't know how really mono works. I know that mono stands for monophonic which means that the sound is only playing in one channel. So does that mean that its only playing either in left channel or right channel? But when you play back a mono sample it doesn't play in one channel, it plays in both (left and right). You can even pan a mono sound. Then, how is this mono? It acts now as stereo, playing in both left and right channels.

Can somebody please do a "mono and stereo explanation for dummies" like myself?

Also, some people say that when switching from mono to all stereo drum/percussion samples, they have noticed big improvement in quality of their mixes. Others say that it doesn't matter. I would really like to know whats better so I know which samples to purchase.

quote:

Originally posted by superddman This mono vs stereo topic is really confussing. First of all, to be honest, I don't know how really mono works. I know that mono stands for monophonic which means that the sound is only playing in one channel. So does that mean that its only playing either in left channel or right channel? But when you play back a mono sample it doesn't play in one channel, it plays in both (left and right). You can even pan a mono sound. Then, how is this mono? It acts now as stereo, playing in both left and right channels. Can somebody please do a "mono and stereo explanation for dummies" like myself? Also, some people say that when switching from mono to all stereo drum/percussion samples, they have noticed big improvement in quality of their mixes. Others say that it doesn't matter. I would really like to know whats better so I know which samples to purchase.

Yeah, now i'm also confused

Does mono mean 'centered' or is it just panned one way??

And in producing, is it better to have all instruments double, and pan one left and one right??

quote:

Originally posted by superddman Can somebody please do a "mono and stereo explanation for dummies" like myself?

Mono is a single channel and stero is double channel. Both play through both left and right channels of the speakers, but mono will play the same sound in both speakers, where as in stero you can have different sounds coming from the left or right speaker by panning for example.

quote:

Originally posted by TranceMuzik02 Mono is a single channel and stero is double channel. Both play through both left and right channels of the speakers, but mono will play the same sound in both speakers, where as in stero you can have different sounds coming from the left or right speaker by panning for example.

Oh, that explains it more. So a stereo file has extra data included that tells the player which sounds go where? Where as, a mono file has no such data and one sound is routed equally to left and right speaker?

So thats why a stereo file has more depth because different sounds play in different channels.

Therefore, wouldn't be better to use all stereo samples for drums/percussion? Or only use mono for the kick?

ok... let's make clear one thing...

Once upon a time... the first machines that played sound (gramophones and that kind of stuff) only reproduced one channel recordings... why? Because inventions work like that, from simpler things to more complex. So firstly people only demanded to hear sound... then people became more sybaritic and inventors try to offer more things to the people.
Initially, since common humans have 2 ears they thought that 2 microphones will be enough. During a lot of years people lived happily... but some day, pro-audio gurus (and movies majors) agreed that 2-channel audio was not enough for common people and then... that's another story!

So one thing is stereo recording and other stereo reproduction. Stereo players can reproduce both stereo and mono recordings with no loss of quality. Mono players can reproduce both stereo and mono recordings because stereo systems (in FM radio, turntables, casette,...) was designed in a backward compatibility way so older mono systems can 'understand' the mono info embedded on the newer stereo tracks (in the same way as black and white TV can receive colour signal). BUT that doesn't mean that mono can reproduce stereo recordings but only 'extract' mono recording.
How can be done? For example, in turntables L and R channels are recorded as L+R in the same way mono recordings were registered. And the L-R info is recorded in a subtle way that doesn't interfere with the mono player. So a mono player when it's reproducing a stereo recording is actually playing otgether L+R channels (from this derives the importance of checking the mono mixdown). A stereo player only need to do this: L+R + L-R = 2*L (here we obtain the left channel amplified by 2) and L+R - L-R = 2*R.

Mainly we can see stereo as 2 mono systems working together. There are a lot of techniques to register sound field in only 2 channels but we shouldn't mind of it if we are not recording audio but only editing and mixing it. A stereo file usually takes twice space in the hard disk.

There are a lot of audio workstations that need to convert mono files to stereo to work right with them, but this procces only consist of a duplication of the mono channel... there's no really stereo info... (nihil ex nihilo - from nothing you can't get anything).

Is better stereo samples for drums? Stereo samples are always better for everything except for your hard disk (since mono files are smaller). Stereo sample doesn't mean that it will be panned fully left or right but the kick, for example, has been recorded with subtle differences between L R channels, due to room reverbs, micro location, etc...

So I get the idea that its better to stick with stereo drum/percussion samples.
Is it true that utilities will report some files as mono but its stereo? Or viceversa?

BTW, does anyone know of a utility that will scan large number of samples, and distinguish all mono from stereo?

quote:

Is better stereo samples for drums? Stereo samples are always better for everything except for your hard disk (since mono files are smaller). Stereo sample doesn't mean that it will be panned fully left or right but the kick, for example, has been recorded with subtle differences between L R channels, due to room reverbs, micro location, etc...

Very good explaination shockwavedj...golf clap for that one!!

but what I have quoted from you is somnething to be argued...now true in the sense of subtle dofferences in reverb ect...but in the sense of track placement, you need to find room in your mix to place things and I don't just mean frequency wise, I mean spacial or spectral. You see everyting must have it's own placement to fit properly in the mix so it sounds like one big happy family in the same room...sort of speak. This is why we say mono for kick and not stereo..but it more than likely depends on the genre..dance type music should have a centered placed kick drum just because it is the main driver behind the tune and always needs to be in ya face. Anotehr focal point would have to be vocals..ask any technician and he'll tell you mono babay! simply because of placement...vocals shouldn't get lost in the mix so keeping them mono and it just works out! now we go to freaquency and see what happens..mono kick and lets just say bass line too(my preference), that would be a low end freaquency and placed in the mix as mono...now we get our mono vocals, which can range from 300-5000hz roughly and bam you get no confusion just perfect harmony..I'm not saying this is a perfect explaination because theer is a lot more to explain but it gives the just of it.

Then, why are many drum/percussion sample cds in mono if stereo is better?

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