Can't Hear Vocals When Mixing In Mono

S

StrandedLegion

New member
Hey everyone. Quick question. I've been going back and remixing some old songs I recorded several years ago. I came up with a weird problem on one song. When I mix the tracks in mono, I can't hear the vocals. When I switch back to stereo, it's fine, but whenever I switch to mono, I just can't hear the vocal track. I have tried a couple of things, but I haven't identified the problem yet. I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers as to where to start looking to solve the problem. If I need to post any additional information to help identify the problem, I certainly will. Thanks for any info.
 
Hey,
If two recorded parts share the same space in the stereo image and have similar frequency content, they're going to fight with each other.

If you recorded two acoustic guitar parts that shared a lot of the same frequency content but panned them hard left and hard right, you'd hear them both.
Panning them both dead centre would probably be messy,
but if you had a bass and a flute panned dead centre, you'd hear them both just fine.


So, although there's much more to it than that, your vocal is probably getting masked by a bunch of stuff that's panned wide and, therefore, not causing a problem when you listen in stereo.
Most likely guitars or some rhythm instrument.

A lot of people still track and do their first mix in mono for that reason.
The idea is that if things sound cool in mono you're not likely to run into mud problems in stereo, whereas the opposite is not necessarily true.
 
Oh, or that...
Didn't even think of that. If you're using and kinda of duplicate/nudge 'technique', it's not likely to collapse well.

Good call, RFR.
 
I did a little more work on it, and it sounds like the phasing issue might be the problem. I opened up the actual wave file for the vocals (separate from the rest of the mix). When in stereo, it's fine. When I switch it to mono, I can't hear it (same problem I was having in the mix). I noticed that when I switch the wave file to mono, the meters on fader barely register. I tried using the "Invert Phase" command, but that didn't do anything. Is there anything else that can be done regarding the phasing?
 
Is the vocal track stereo? If so, split it into 2 mono files, and get rid of either the L or R side, then pan the other one center. That should get rid of the cancellation.
 
Yes, the vocal track is in stereo. I was about to ask something along those lines. The first time I tried the "Invert Phase" command, I picked "Both Channels," and it didn't do anything. This time, I picked "Left Channel" and it worked. Then I undid the command, and chose "Right Channel" and that worked as well. So, are those two commands basically doing the same thing you were mentioning about splitting the track into 2 mono files and getting rid of one?
 
On the phasing, that's a technique used to eliminate vocals on comercial tracks.
You split the stereo file into two mono tracks and then flip the phase. Vocal gone, or mostly.
:D
On your daw I have no idea of what specifically you'd do.

What daw you using?
I'm sure someone knows the answer.
 
Sounds like somebody tried to be fancy and get a super wide stereo image out of these vocals by flipping phase on one side. I bet it's crazy cool on headphones. :eek:
StrandedLegion said:
Yes, the vocal track is in stereo. I was about to ask something along those lines. The first time I tried the "Invert Phase" command, I picked "Both Channels," and it didn't do anything. This time, I picked "Left Channel" and it worked. Then I undid the command, and chose "Right Channel" and that worked as well. So, are those two commands basically doing the same thing you were mentioning about splitting the track into 2 mono files and getting rid of one?
Click to expand...
Yeah, the issue is that one side is opposite polarity from the other.
1 + (-1) = 0.
If you invert both you get
(-1) + 1 = 0
If you invert only one you get
1 + 1 = 2*
If you throw one away, you get either
1 + 0 = 1 or
0 + (-1) = -1
which are actually indistinguishable from one another.

Tad told you to throw one or the other away and just go with the one that's left, and that's fine, (un/re-)inverting one and then mixing them together is the same, but twice as loud.


* or, I guess -1 + (-1) = -2, which is not actually different.
 
Last edited:
I'm using a really old software. It's called Majix Studio 10. These are songs I wrote about 8 or 9 years ago. That's the software I recorded them with back then, so that's what I'm using to remix them.
 
All of the songs in that batch were recorded that way. This was the only song where the vocals did that.

ashcat_lt said:
Sounds like somebody tried to be fancy and get a super wide stereo image out of these vocals by flipping phase on one side. I bet it's crazy cool on headphones. :eek:

Yeah, the issue is that one side is opposite polarity from the other.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top