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-- Mixdowns in mono vs stereo, what do you do?

Mixdowns in mono vs stereo, what do you do?

When you do a mixdown, do you make your mix elements mono and then create a stereo image out of it for a mix, or do you use stereo panning and no mono elements or both?

I make sure everything below 200 hz is in mono , and everything else I give a big stereo image with reverb chorus and flangers

just have a nice balance between mono sounds and stereo sounds - no need to overthink it

Mix everything in mono then slash everything stereo than i have perfect headroom after that i golden connecter thunderbolt drive for extra bandwidth and quality,

I was wondering when someone would ask this again. It had already been geeze like what, 4 days.

quote:

Originally posted by LoveHate I make sure everything below 200 hz is in mono , and everything else I give a big stereo image with reverb chorus and flangers

Used to do that, not anymore tho

I heard this approach, relating to EDM specifically, was due to the physical limitations of vinyl records--anything below a certain frequency not mixed in mono would cause a needle to bump out of the groove of the record and skip.

Maybe it doesn't matter so much anymore with the prevalence of CDJs and DJ software?

For me, it's more based on the individual sound selection and what collectively sounds correct in the end. Kick drum usually mono, but not adverse to bass being wide stereo.

If I'm right, I think what most people are missing what the OP is asking:

Not do you mix to accommodate mono (i.e. LF being mono), but do you make all the stereo elements (so L & R separately) mono and then mix them as individual channels?

I work mainly with score mixing and there's no such thing a stereo track; you get everything as individual tracks, even when the composer has used stereo synths - everything is bounced down to individual tracks (so LR, or LCR, or LRLsRs or LCRLsRs or LCRLsRs + LFE) and you mix all of them as individual tracks to build the stereo (or surround) image.

In EDM, it's not quite intuitive for several reasons: So much of what we do relies on stereo FX or built in FX on stereo synths, so then splitting them or bouncing down to mono tracks is another stage.

Furthermore, in EDM most of us do a lot of things (such as mixing) on the fly as part of the production process, and many don't have a separate mixdown phase. I'd actually love to find a logical and swift way to write a track, then take it to a proper mixdown phase later, but it ends up usually being twice the work and fucking my workflow during producing.

I'm trying to set up as much of my hardware as mono as possible. I need to grab an ADA8000 which I'll use to route the Supernova outputs as mono channels. I can also run the Virus as 3-4 mono channels although in reality that may well be used as more of a stereo 'wow' synth. Same deal with the Blofeld. The AN1x can be mono as well, but the JV1080 is probably best left stereo.

It's funny, after speaking to a pal of mine I came to the conclusion that mono was the way forward just about the same time this thread was put up.

When everything is stereo, nothing is stereo

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord When everything is stereo, nothing is stereo

truth ^^^

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord When everything is stereo, nothing is stereo

Amen.

To be honest, stereo channels don't really exist in the puritanical sense - stereo groups etc do but if you look at all the mixers on the market, they're mono channel desks.

When you get in to recording or working with real instruments, there's not such thing a stereo instrument; only the way your record it's output and even with a stereo mic, they are two discrete channels.

It's only really that computers have allowed stereo channels to be included in a mix. My current aim to get away from any stereo tracks (apart from groups) and do everything as discrete mono tracks to build the stereo image.

This is true.

I do however see a place for the 'stereo' VA's as it's a valid tool to use these days. I do like the mixer in Cubase where you can switch to dual stereo to narrow or expand the field as well.

I actually read something interesting though, in that if you want a true mono synth signal, you need to synthesise it in mono to start with rather than just making it mono in the mix.

Much experimentation to be done.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord I do like the mixer in Cubase where you can switch to dual stereo to narrow or expand the field as well.

Hmmm. Please explain more.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord I actually read something interesting though, in that if you want a true mono synth signal, you need to synthesise it in mono to start with rather than just making it mono in the mix. Much experimentation to be done.

That's technically true, otherwise you're just collapsing stereo elements in to a mono signal and can end up with a lot extra frequency content that would otherwise not be there in the first place. It's a bit OTT, but some OCD composers actually work like this, where their stereo sound are actually two individually built mono channels. But then you see they are working in Reaktor and MaxMSP and haven't washed in weeks, let alone seen daylight.

theres 3 different panning modes in cubase, i normally use a plug in though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lstpj2WXJ8k


on the whole i like mixes that start in mono in the low end, roughly 200 hz down (i normally have a multiband imager on the stereo bus to make sure)

and as you get up into the higher frequencies i like things to be wider, I like my hats panned wide at the moment, and the top ends of synths, cymbals, etc to be fairly wide. Also i like backing vocals/ double tracking nice and wide

Talking about stereo synths, i used to always have the stereo setting on max (for example in the virus or massive they have a similar setting as part of the unison function for stereo width) but now i tend to keep the stereo width more narrow as i found these very wide unison synths can sound a bit nasty, especially in mono, as mentioned above

With vocals, the lead is naturally mono, but it can be nice to give it a bit more width with perhaps a plug in (like ps22) and of course the reverb and delays will give it some width

You can pan the backing vocals nice and wide for a lovely stereo spread which is a nice contrast to the narrow lead vocal

As stereo (or the illusion of stereo in terms of what most of us our doing) is not really 2 mics, but more the difference between the left and right channel sometimes i like to have to slightly different instruments panned hard left and right playing the same music. OR anyway you can create a difference between each channels (eg the haas effect by delaying one side a matter of milliseconds, before it becomes an audible delay)

You can also experiment with mid side encoding - for example clearing the low end out of the mid part of a reverb to create more space in the mix, and a greater feeling of perceived width

Some imaging plug ins are really great, for example i recently used the nugen stereoizer on a Rhodes sound (which was pretty much a mono sound) and i thought it worked great, and even summed well to mono

but yeah, almost all my tracks start as mono, naturally, and either panned dead center or wide as part of a pair for width - but the synths i do use a bit of artificial widening with the unison function

Chris

quote:

Originally posted by chris marsh theres 3 different panning modes in cubase, i normally use a plug in though http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lstpj2WXJ8k

Thanks, that's actually a really neat built in feature of cubase.

quote:

Originally posted by chris marsh on the whole i like mixes that start in mono in the low end, roughly 200 hz down (i normally have a multiband imager on the stereo bus to make sure) and as you get up into the higher frequencies i like things to be wider, I like my hats panned wide at the moment, and the top ends of synths, cymbals, etc to be fairly wide. Also i like backing vocals/ double tracking nice and wide

That's exactly how I mix. The V method. The higher you go in frequency, the wider you can pan.

quote:

Originally posted by chris marsh Talking about stereo synths, i used to always have the stereo setting on max (for example in the virus or massive they have a similar setting as part of the unison function for stereo width) but now i tend to keep the stereo width more narrow as i found these very wide unison synths can sound a bit nasty, especially in mono, as mentioned above With vocals, the lead is naturally mono, but it can be nice to give it a bit more width with perhaps a plug in (like ps22) and of course the reverb and delays will give it some width You can pan the backing vocals nice and wide for a lovely stereo spread which is a nice contrast to the narrow lead vocal As stereo (or the illusion of stereo in terms of what most of us our doing) is not really 2 mics, but more the difference between the left and right channel sometimes i like to have to slightly different instruments panned hard left and right playing the same music. OR anyway you can create a difference between each channels (eg the haas effect by delaying one side a matter of milliseconds, before it becomes an audible delay) You can also experiment with mid side encoding - for example clearing the low end out of the mid part of a reverb to create more space in the mix, and a greater feeling of perceived width Some imaging plug ins are really great, for example i recently used the nugen stereoizer on a Rhodes sound (which was pretty much a mono sound) and i thought it worked great, and even summed well to mono but yeah, almost all my tracks start as mono, naturally, and either panned dead center or wide as part of a pair for width - but the synths i do use a bit of artificial widening with the unison function Chris

All good stuff but I've never got in to mid side funnily enough. I've never found the need - you can do everything required with EQ and pan.

I'm actually having fun with LCR mixing right now and it's quite amazing what you can do with it.

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