Stereo Tracks, or mono? Help me out ;)

[Slowjett]

For some reason I always select stereo when adding a track.
The stuff I do is your basic acoustic rock type of stuff. Recording acoustic guitars, vox and whatnot. Im recording from mono sources like 1 mic or DI.

Here is my reasoning for selecting Stereo instead of mono. I feel that if i want to use a an effect like Rverb that it outputs in stereo and would not work correctly on a mono track. am I correct in my thinking? Or am i just wasting disk space?

If i want to do a stereo guitar track, i'll use two sources (mic/transducer, or two mics) on two different tracks. Is this the correct procedure, or should I record them into 1 stereo track?

Is there any reason I should record stereo tracks from a mono source?

Thank you for your input guys!

-Josh

[LemonTree]

keep them mono, if you're recording two instances of the same guitar track, say amp and DI box keeping them mono gives you 2 faders to play with to blend the signals together.

Create a stereo effects track and put your reverb on that. In the semds box list for each guitar clicking in there will give you the option of sending to the effects track.

Also you could record several guitar tracks amd make a GROUP track, you right click on any track info on the left for this option, you then make the routing for each track to output on the guitar group, this way you can insert a reverb or delay or hit them all with the same EQ setting or chosen effect, compression etc. Also..wherever you pan each guitar on the mixer will show up in the same place in the stereo group.

Hope that was helpfull

Alex

[Farview]

Reverbs, delays and other effects that you need to mix the dry signal with the effected signal should be run on effect sends, not inserts.

Compression, gating, EQ, etc... should be run on inserts.

If it's a mono source, you should use a mono track. You will be able to run more tracks that way and you will free up a ton of hard drive space.

It also frees up resources. You can send all the drums to one reverb instead of having 5 instances of a reverb (one for each channel) That will keep your computer from choking.

[Slowjett]

Hey guys, thank you so much!

Im not sure how to use sends in qbase to use pluggins. I've been using insterts for verbs and compression.

Any suggestions on routing?

-Josh

[Farview]

Compression, gating and EQ should be inserts.

Reverb, delay, chorus, flange, etc.. should be sends.

If you look up routing, effect channel, aux send, etc... in your manual, you will find all there is to know on the subject. (different versions of cubase handle this differently)

[Slowjett]

Thank you.

-Josh

[legionserial]

Personally would even prefer to record a stereo source as 2 mono tracks just for the versatility. You can always send the 2 tracks to a stereo group track. The only time I use stereo tracks is when I'm bouncing stereo MIDI.

[EZWriter]

I have Win 7 running Cubase and using an Audiogram 6. For some reason I can record to any stereo track but can't get anything to come through on any of the mono tracks, so I have been stuck just using stereo. Am I missing something stupidly simple (that seems pretty obvious I just can't figure out what it is....)?

[Farview]

You need to set up the inputs as mono inputs because you can't route a stereo input to a mono track.

[EZWriter]

On the left side (sorry just learning the terminology for parts of the program) I have the mono track I'm using set to mono in and stereo out. That doesn't record. Is there some other area I need to change it in?

[Farview]

Got to Devices->VST Connections-> and click on the inputs tab. That is where you set up the inputs for your audio interface.

You need to set it up so the the input you are using is connected to a mono input (which you can name). When you have done that, you can go back to the left side and choose that input for that track.

[EZWriter]

Originally Posted by Farview

Got to Devices->VST Connections-> and click on the inputs tab. That is where you set up the inputs for your audio interface.

You need to set it up so the the input you are using is connected to a mono input (which you can name). When you have done that, you can go back to the left side and choose that input for that track.

That did it! Thanks so much. Is there some reason though that it won't 'stick'? When I start a new project I have to set up those mono tracks again but not the stereo for some reason...