do you record in stereo or mono?

djclueveli

New member
are you suppose to record vocals in stereo or mono? i always record them in stereo but i dont know if thats the right way to do it. i use acid pro and they have no mono recording setting that is available all they have is stereo.
 
Generally, lead vocals are recorded with 1 mic in mono... but there's no right or wrong way, depending on the sound you're after....
If you're already just using one mic, then you aren't recording in stereo, you're just splitting your mono signal onto two tracks in Acid.
See the link above ;)
 
Yup...good link... :cool:

I record in mono except for my keys. I think it helps with setting up your stereo spread.

my 2c
 
If you sing in stereo, then I would record it in stereo. Otherwise, I would record it in mono.
 
Dogbreath said:
Yup...good link... :cool:

I record in mono except for my keys. I think it helps with setting up your stereo spread.

my 2c
I even record keys on two mono tracks. That way, you aren't stuck with the imaging that the keyboard company gave you. I see this a lot in HH and R&B, 15 layers of keyboards all in the center because the key parts were recorded to stereo tracks. The patches on keyboards are stereo, but the sounds are generally pretty centered in the image.

If you record to two mono channels, you can pan both sides anywhere you want, you can also process the two sides differently, etc...
 
Farview said:
I even record keys on two mono tracks. That way, you aren't stuck with the imaging that the keyboard company gave you. I see this a lot in HH and R&B, 15 layers of keyboards all in the center because the key parts were recorded to stereo tracks. The patches on keyboards are stereo, but the sounds are generally pretty centered in the image.

If you record to two mono channels, you can pan both sides anywhere you want, you can also process the two sides differently, etc...

Well you can of course pan a stereo track.... at least in my DAW you can. I'm also not sure what anomolies may develop by panning one side of a stereo sample to the other side, rather than keeping them seperated and shifting the image by inversely proportional gain change. But as always, what sounds good IS good. :)
 
Robert D said:
Well you can of course pan a stereo track.... at least in my DAW you can. I'm also not sure what anomolies may develop by panning one side of a stereo sample to the other side, rather than keeping them seperated and shifting the image by inversely proportional gain change. But as always, what sounds good IS good. :)
It depends on why the patches are stereo. If they are mono sources with a stereo chorus, it won't collapse very well. Most piano patches are just slightly panned from low to high, they collapse very well. Sometimes it's good to just use one side as a mono track to keep the mix from getting cluttered.

Another thing I do is run one side through a reverb and leave the other one dry. That adds depth and direction to the track.
 
Majority of the time it is great to record in mono, since it saves HD space also. But if you are looking for a certain sound or trying to capture a room's acoustics then i would reccomend stereo.
 
If you have a stereo image and you pan the right and left channel to the center, you have collapsed the stereo image to mono.

Full stereo and completely mono are not the only choices you have. If you have a stereo sound spread across two mono tracks, you can have the pan knobs at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. It still has a stereo spread, but it isn't as wide. This leaves room for other things that are panned wider. You can also just tilt the image by leaving one side panned hard while bringing the other side in towards the center.

The only time I use stereo tracks is when I am sending something out to a hardware processor and recording the effect (reverb, flange, etc...) otherwise, everything is on mono tracks.
 
If you can get a hold of a good figure 8 mic....use it, trust me.


It's almost like 2 mics in one easy to mix track.
 
If you can get a hold of a good figure 8 mic....

I spent yesterday afternoon recording a duo playing acoustic guitars and singing harmonies with a beyerdynamic ribbon and an AT cardioid in an M/S configuration. Now that's the way to go with stereo! It sometimes takes awhile to get everybody balanced right, but when you do, the results are amazing.

OTOH, when I am multitracking, I invariably record in mono, except for keyboards or drums. Otherwise, you end up with too many conflicting aural cues about where everything is. "Stereo" comes from the mixdown.
 
lpdeluxe said:
OTOH, when I am multitracking, I invariably record in mono, except for keyboards or drums. Otherwise, you end up with too many conflicting aural cues about where everything is. "Stereo" comes from the mixdown.
I record all my stereo information across mono tracks. Just like Farview says, it gives you much more options during mixdown.
 
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