"Recording Vocals Mono Vs Stereo?"...

[elly-d]

there are plenty of songs in existance with stero vocals.

double track vox panned is one example, backing vocals is another. also putting a mono into a stereo channel so that stereo effects can be used is another. delayed vox is quite often panned.

i don't want to name songs but there are many, i have used all these techniques.

 

[RAMI]

there are plenty of songs in existance with stero vocals.

double track vox panned is one example, backing vocals is another. also putting a mono into a stereo channel so that stereo effects can be used is another. delayed vox is quite often panned.

i don't want to name songs but there are many, i have used all these techniques.

Not quite the same thing. Yes, if you have a 3 or 4 part vocal ensemble, you can spread that out over the stereo field. Same with panning double tracked vocals. But, they are still MONO tracks.

 

[Farview]

If you can sing the lead vocals same the same way twice, track them twice and pan 20 L and 20 R...sounds good to me...i like it. but some peeps don't...

That would be stereo because you have two different signals. No matter how "the same" you sing it twice, it won't really be the same. You will never be the same distance from the mic at the same point in each take, the timeing will never be exactly the same, the pitch won't be exactly the same, etc...

One performance + one mic = mono

 

[elly-d]

Not quite the same thing. Yes, if you have a 3 or 4 part vocal ensemble, you can spread that out over the stereo field. Same with panning double tracked vocals. But, they are still MONO tracks.

yes i suppose you are right, i have recorded true stereo vocals before. it was a guitar and vocal take in one, two mics, room ambience. but yeah you couldnt tell it was stereo by the vocals though. it does sound different from the mono, but if it was only vox you probably couldnt tell. agreed.

 

[DAS19]

One mic, one source - MONO.

You can run it to a stereo channel and it'll be MONO. You can run it to 6 channels and it'll be MONO.

1 = 1. 1 does not = 2. 1 to the first power is 1. 1 to the 57th power is 1.




Jeeesus, how many times do we have to go over this stuff in one day?

He never said he was using one mic he could use two mics on one source. Your kind of being a dick about it.

 

[Massive Master]

He never said he was using one mic he could use two mics on one source. Your kind of being a dick about it.

We're all kind of tired of answering the same "day one" questions over and over and over again ad nauseum.

Do you know anyone who defaults to a stereo mic setup for a single vocalist? Anyone?

I didn't think so.

Using two mics on one source doesn't make stereo either... Stereo is the DIFFERENCE between LEFT and RIGHT. I blend mics all the time. Still mono if their panning relationship is the same. I (generally) don't record a split pair on a single vocalist -- A degree or two of tilt is all it'll take to throw the image off. So unless you strap the vocalist's head to something so it's completely immobile, you're screwed. And if they're close and their head is actually strapped down, the only spatial relationship you'd hope to get is the difference between the lip smack on the right vs. the lip smack on the left. In which case, you might as well just record in mono.

 

[Elton Bear]

He's not being a dick, the OP is being far too vague, and still nobody knows what he's asking!

 

[paperwork llc]

Massive mastering is right i had this same argument with my two partners in this recording business and they just could not fathom the idea that just because u copy a single lead vocal to the next track and pan one left and the other right does not make it stereo. stereo means u can hear certain things with your two ears witch are located on each side of your head, certain sounds you hear on the left and certain other sounds on the right and the whole idea of stereo is to produce a real life affect in sound and music like drums in the middle keys on the left guitar on the right and so on and so forth.

 

[Farview]

Sometimes explaining it like this helps:

Mono track panned center = the same thing coming out of both speakers = mono

Two cloned tracks panned wide = the same thing coming out of both speakers = mono

 

[RAMI]

Two cloned tracks panned wide = the same thing coming out of both speakers = mono

The amount of bozos that refuse to understand that is over-whelming. I can't believe how many fools still think you can turn a mono track into a stereo one, simply by cloning it.

 

[Greg_L]

The amount of bozos that refuse to understand that is over-whelming. I can't believe how many fools still think you can turn a mono track into a stereo one, simply by cloning it.

It's crazy. Mono vs stereo is not rocket surgery.

 

[mixsit]

Sometimes explaining it like this helps:

Mono track panned center = the same thing coming out of both speakers = mono

Two cloned tracks panned wide = the same thing coming out of both speakers = mono

And then add this which may also jog the concept-
When you mean dual paths (circuits') say dual path. When you say stereo', mean it to say 'the content'! -there is some difference happening in those dual paths.

Yikes. Yes, so simple.

 

[dewhitt]

Ok, at the risk of sounding like a real dumbass, I have a question about this topic. I'm still a newb, so hopefully you'll go easy on me if this is stupid or so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but here goes...

Is it accurate to say that you can't possibly record a stereo version of a mono source? So, to relate it back to the topic at hand, I'm assuming that the human voice is a mono source since most of us only have one (usually), centrally (hopefully), placed mouth on our faces. If some evolutionary advanced singing genius of the future is born with two mouths on a super-wide face and beams into my vocal booth singing two parts from two mouths, then yeah, I could see wanting to capture that amazing event in stereo, but other than that, I'm thinking that the human voice is mono no matter how you slice it or record it, no matter how many mics you use. Is that completely wrong?

I'm ducking for cover now, so go ahead and fire away

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt

 

[Farview]

You pretty much have it right.

The only way to really record a single vocal in stereo is to back the singer away from the mic and record in stereo. Of course, that is more stereo micing the room with a singer in it than recording the singer in stereo...

Group vocals, choirs, etc... are a completely different story, but single vocals are mono. Even when you put delays and reverb all over it, it is still a mono voice with stereo effects on it.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Ok, at the risk of sounding like a real dumbass, I have a question about this topic. I'm still a newb, so hopefully you'll go easy on me if this is stupid or so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but here goes...

Is it accurate to say that you can't possibly record a stereo version of a mono source? So, to relate it back to the topic at hand, I'm assuming that the human voice is a mono source since most of us only have one (usually), centrally (hopefully), placed mouth on our faces. If some evolutionary advanced singing genius of the future is born with two mouths on a super-wide face and beams into my vocal booth singing two parts from two mouths, then yeah, I could see wanting to capture that amazing event in stereo, but other than that, I'm thinking that the human voice is mono no matter how you slice it or record it, no matter how many mics you use. Is that completely wrong?

I'm ducking for cover now, so go ahead and fire away

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt

As Massive says, there's not much to a voice alone that warrants a stereo mic setup. If there's some kind of meaningful ambience happening it might be worthwhile, but that would be the small minority of situations.

 

[Cosmic]

"Stereo" and "Mono" doesn't exist in Nature; they are terms we have invented to classify what we do in audio and how our heads work.

If someone stands in front of you with a guitar and sings, you hear him and his guitar right in front of you, courtesy of your two ears and the processing in your brain.
You also hear the surrounding ambient info (if any) and possibly any acoustic slaps that his voice or guitar may produce on the sourroundings.
That is "stereo" in real-life, through your two ears.

It is the equivalent of placing a stereo pair or a single-point stereo mic where you stand, and yet the main "information" (vox, guitar) comes right down the middle.
It is recorded into two channels at the same time, in real-time, by two separate mic heads. THAT is stereo recording, regardless of what's in front of the microphones.

Any single miking in the studio is...well...mono, regardless of how many times you add another track, because you don't have the real-time ambient/directional information that two mics produce when they record a source simultaneously.

C.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

I think this:

"Stereo" and "Mono" doesn't exist in Nature; they are terms we have invented to classify what we do in audio and how our heads work.

contradicts this:

Any single miking in the studio is...well...mono, regardless of how many times you add another track, because you don't have the real-time ambient/directional information that two mics produce when they record a source simultaneously.

The first statement is closer to how I view it, that stereo is whatever we say it is. Simple differential panning of at least two signals is enough for me to consider a recording stereo. Once it is played in a room the additional cues are there, even if they aren't "accurate". The second statement applies better to binaural sound, intended to be heard through headphones. For that you need to provide all the timing, head shadowing and pinnae effects in the signal to produce truly realistic playback.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

"Stereo" in audio is short for "stereophonic", which means using two point sources (usually loudspeakers or headphones) to synthesize a full, multi-degree field of sound between (and, with certain tricks, a bit beyond) the width of the two sources. The "position" of sounds within that stereo filed or stereo image is synthesized (faked) by sending the sound to both speakers at varying relative volumes. Our two ears and our brains translate that difference in level into a direction from which the sound appears to be coming, even though it really isn't. This is why we are able to pan mono tracks left-to-right; we just adjust the relative volume of the sound in the two channels to make it appear as thouh the location of the fake image is moving.

When we listen in stereo - i.e. through two speakers - there is no "mono" or monophonic sound. When we mix down to "mono", all we are really doing - one way or another - is creating a stereo image where all the sounds are of equal levels on both the left and the right speaker. Our brains interpret that as being a single point source located directly between the two speakers. But it's still a stereo signal.

The only time there is truly a mono sound is if we play everything from all channels back through just one speaker, like a clock radio or something, in which case no "stereo" image can be artificially created. Then our ears just act like normal, creating their own spacial image in our heads because of our stereo receptors (a.k.a. our two ears), allowing us to tell in which direction that mono speaker is located.

G.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

The amount of bozos that refuse to understand that is over-whelming. I can't believe how many fools still think you can turn a mono track into a stereo one, simply by cloning it.

Yeah, man, totally! Everyone knows you have to apply about 8ms of delay to the cloned track to get "real" stereo!!!




*Drew backs quietly out of the thread.

 

[mixsit]

... but other than that, I'm thinking that the human voice is mono no matter how you slice it or record it, no matter how many mics you use. Is that completely wrong?

I'm ducking for cover now, so go ahead and fire away
Best Regards,
Dave DeWhitt

No ducking.
So put put my two cents in again, to what ever extent there were variations between what your two mics on a vocal see, there lies the stereo version's difference from a single mic. Let's say the vocal is rather close- the mics pick up the slight movements the singer makes as image shift around center'. And what ever room reflections there might be as Farview mentioned.