Mix sound better in mono than stereo

4

4tracker

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What does it imply is 'wrong' if a mix sounds better in mono than stereo?
When i pan for separation things sound worse.

Should I just fight the urge to pan and instead keep things close to center?
 
Post a file that can be downloaded so others can hear and try it out - or post a mono and a stereo render.
 
I have a real problem mixing in stereo as I only have one working ear. (Stone deaf in my right ear)

What I do is mix and pan to get good separation and then flip between stereo and mono to check while mixing. Trying to get them both to sound as near as possible to my one ear. I read somewhere, years ago, getting a good stereo mix that also works as a mono is a good thing. I stuck with that out of necessity rather than choice.

I doubt this info will help you though unless you're deaf too. :thumbs up:
 
Mr Clean said:
I have a real problem mixing in stereo as I only have one working ear. (Stone deaf in my right ear)

What I do is mix and pan to get good separation and then flip between stereo and mono to check while mixing. Trying to get them both to sound as near as possible to my one ear. I read somewhere, years ago, getting a good stereo mix that also works as a mono is a good thing. I stuck with that out of necessity rather than choice.

I doubt this info will help you though unless you're deaf too. :thumbs up:
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Do you get somebody to check the stereo image when you mix at the end?
 
Only if I post on here and get opinions on it. I'm pretty confident in that aspect now as I've had a lot of practice over the years.
 
I tore my calf so I haven't had time to work on this mix and render it for an upload. But basically as I pan things (there are 3 guitars, so I moved 2 L and R and stereo overheads on the drums) the middle gets very thin. In mono it sounded very good. The drum OH sound good panned, but when I move any guitar more than 20 off center it gets so thin.
 
4tracker said:
I tore my calf so I haven't had time to work on this mix and render it for an upload. But basically as I pan things (there are 3 guitars, so I moved 2 L and R and stereo overheads on the drums) the middle gets very thin. In mono it sounded very good. The drum OH sound good panned, but when I move any guitar more than 20 off center it gets so thin.
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sounds like a tracking problem.

possibly you are having either phase issues,
mono tracks on stereo,
or stereo interleave folded into mono,
.

if you can get a good mono mix,
then it makes sense that simply taking certain mono tracks and panning them out left or right,
with CORRECT PANNING LAWS IN PLACE,
would give you an even better sounding mix.
 
It was done in a pro studio, so it shouldn't be phase issues (ha ha). Well, you'd hope.

I don't know the correct panning laws, so that's a problem. I guess that's another thing I need to look into now.
 
Panning laws are built-in to the software/hardware - so when you move stuff from left (or right) to center it doesn't get louder - and vice-versa.
 
Pan laws in some DAWs are configurable. How and where depends on the specific software. In Reaper there's a default (I think in Project Settings) which can be overridden for any individual track by right-clicking the pan knob. I remember both Cubase and Sonar having global settings for this also.

But I always leave it at 0 because I don't really do a whole lot of pan automation. If I pan something over and it changes in relative level, I adjust the fader.

The OP sounds like maybe an arrangement issue - the two guitars maybe don't overlap enough to in frequencies or rhythm or something. Phase is probably not the problem unless they are almost exactly the same, and honestly you'd expect that to cause them to thin out when panned center more than when panned out.

But idk if it's really a "problem" because I haven't heard it. I don't often end up with my main guitars panned much further than 20 or so because it just doesn't feel right to me in most cases. I don't usually like a very wide drum sound either.

You might try the old trick of adding reverb to a copy of each guitar and panning that opposite from the dry version.

Whatever you do, though, I would say be careful not to destroy the mono mix in the process.
 
I'll be the guitars are too loud, and cancelling a bit in mono, which is bringing balance to the mix.

Leave the overheads panned.

Turn off the guitars and get the drums and bass working together well enough that you could just put the vocals on top and call it a song.

Pan two of the guitars wide. Pick two that are playing the same part.

Bring up the guitars slowly until they sit well and don't overshadow the bass and drums.

Bring the 3rd guitar track up in the center until it fills in a little bit, if you really need it.

But yes, post the mp3. If all 3 guitar tracks are doing wildly different parts, this method won't really work. It could also be the source of your problem.
 
Thanks guys. Yeah the guitars are all doing different things. One is distorted rhythm (I should probably keep this one center or very close, right?), one is lead that runs through most of the song, and the other is wah pedal that's a mix of both the rhythm and lead.

My instinct was to pan the lead left, the wah right about 20 on each, then put the rhythm in the center. It just feels thin when I move either guitar. I'll try the reverb trick. Is it just a matter of duplicating the track verbatim and then adding some reverb to it? This creates a sum (bump in volume), though, right?
 
Add another distorted rhythm guitar track and pan them both wide. Then put the lead and wah tracks where they fit. The problem you were having is caused by there not being a stereo foundation. The foundation was mono, then you just had little twiddley bits floating around the sides, not connected or pulled together by anything.
 
Farview said:
Add another distorted rhythm guitar track and pan them both wide. Then put the lead and wah tracks where they fit. The problem you were having is caused by there not being a stereo foundation. The foundation was mono, then you just had little twiddley bits floating around the sides, not connected or pulled together by anything.
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Is that a common problem when recording mono and then panning them?

Are guitar cabinets recorded in stereo frequently? From what I remember, there was one mic on each cabinet, then those mono tracks were panned. This is a remix project from many years ago, so I'm trying to remember...
 
It depends on the type of music you are doing, whether the cabs are recorded in stereo or not. It was much more common 30 years ago. Now it is pretty normal to record two mono rhythm bed tracks to balance the mix.

Since this is something from forever ago, I'm assuming you don't want to start adding stuff. There are a couple things you can try.

1. Add a short, tight reverb to the rhythm guitar and panned it opposite the actual rhythm guitar.

2. Duplicate the bass track. Cut everything above 300hz from the first one and pan that center. Cut everything under 300 he on the other one and pan that opposite the rhythm guitar. You will need to play with the cutoff frequency and compression to get it to balance the guitar.

3. Throw a chorus on the rhythm guitar to make it stereo.

4. Throw a stereo reverb on the rhythm guitar.
 
Farview said:
It depends on the type of music you are doing, whether the cabs are recorded in stereo or not. It was much more common 30 years ago. Now it is pretty normal to record two mono rhythm bed tracks to balance the mix.

Since this is something from forever ago, I'm assuming you don't want to start adding stuff. There are a couple things you can try.

1. Add a short, tight reverb to the rhythm guitar and panned it opposite the actual rhythm guitar.

2. Duplicate the bass track. Cut everything above 300hz from the first one and pan that center. Cut everything under 300 he on the other one and pan that opposite the rhythm guitar. You will need to play with the cutoff frequency and compression to get it to balance the guitar.

3. Throw a chorus on the rhythm guitar to make it stereo.

4. Throw a stereo reverb on the rhythm guitar.
Click to expand...


Thanks man, I will try those. Regarding #4, do you mean put a stereo reverb on the r. guitar even those that track is mono? That's legit to do?
 
I would put a stereo verb on the mono rhythm track. Depending on the song, probably a room reverb.

Without two separate rhythm performaces, the best you can do is put the mono rhythm in a "space", with a reverb.
 
4tracker said:
What does it imply is 'wrong' if a mix sounds better in mono than stereo?
When i pan for separation things sound worse.

Should I just fight the urge to pan and instead keep things close to center?
Click to expand...

How is your monitoring situation set up? Is your listening position about the same distance from the speakers as they are from each other? It's typical to lose some strength from the center image when you're too close to the speakers.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
How is your monitoring situation set up? Is your listening position about the same distance from the speakers as they are from each other? It's typical to lose some strength from the center image when you're too close to the speakers.
Click to expand...

I record in a small apartment, so I'm just using a good set of headphones. They're actually flat response and quite accurate when I move the mix to other systems. But I never thought about how they'd affect the stereo image.
 
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