Amp Sim - Mono/Stereo/Mono Input Stereo Channel? How Are You Doing It?

G

GLA

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Hello all. Something I've been curious about.

Mostly produce punk if I'm doing distorted guitars. I'll generally double-track, hard panned (though sometimes quad-track if I'm feeling frisky, which will then be one pair hard panned and the other 75% each side.) Then each channel (generally) goes off to a guitar buss then off to the main buss.

My "go-to" for it was, for each guitar track, make a stereo channel in Cubase with a single MONO input for that channel, amp sim of choice then as an insert. Now a fair few amp sims (currently very much into my ML Sound Labs sims) will output something in a stereo signal, so this seems to make sense on the face of it. I'd certainly say having used my ears it sounds at least "fair" but I've not won any Grammys either!

Just thought I'd ask the collective how you go about recording amp sims, do you do as above or are your tracks mono all the way.

Thanks in advance for any replies/thinking on that. :)
 
Guitar is a mono instrument. So, recording your "dry" track in stereo is just a waste of resources.
Two "wet" stereo tracks panned L/R is plenty, especially if you actually record your performance twice. Any more than that gets too saturated for clarity... But, sometimes that's a cool effect.
How many guitars do you want in your band? ;)
 
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You can record a Mono instrument like a guitar to a stereo track - but your pan only work and as location - means to the right or left.
To get a stereo track I record guitar to a mono track - then clone the track - then you can pan the two tracks across the spectrum - creating
as wide a signal as you can - also you can record stereo by one track by sending the Wet signal to the left and the dry signal to the right - then
panning them to where you like the sound.
 
Papanate said:
To get a stereo track I record guitar to a mono track - then clone the track - then you can pan the two tracks across the spectrum - creating
as wide a signal as you can
Click to expand...
Sorry man, that doesn't create anything close to stereo. That's just a louder mono track. Cloning a mono signal doesn't automatically change it to stereo. You need either 2 distinct performances, or some kind of chorus effect to turn mono into stereo.
 
Random dude said:
Sorry man, that doesn't create anything close to stereo. That's just a louder mono track. Cloning a mono signal doesn't automatically change it to stereo. You need either 2 distinct performances, or some kind of chorus effect to turn mono into stereo.
Click to expand...
It is stereo - or maybe you would call dual mono - in either case it allows you to spread the mix left and right - and you set the volume accordingly - which I believe is the OPs intent - he wasn't describing a true stereo track.
 
Papanate said:
It is stereo - or maybe you would call dual mono - in either case it allows you to spread the mix left and right -
Click to expand...
No it doesn't. It's just mono.

This has been discussed to death. I'm not going to keep arguing about it because that horse has been dead for a long, long time. All you're doing is creating a louder mono track. It's not stereo, it's not even pseudo-stereo. In fact, it's not even dual mono.

It's the exact same signal on both channels, AKA: MONO.
 
Just record 2 Mono Guitar tracks, with a Mono Guitar Amp Sim, Panned Hard Left/Hard Right. Boom! The only reason you should ever have a "Stereo" Guitar Track (Stem/Render?) would be if you've got some Delay/Tremelo/Reverb on it that's going back and forth between the Stereo field. Otherwise just run those two Hard Panned Mono tracks through your Delay/FX etc...
 
....unless you forgot to mention one step in your process, like "nudging" one of the tracks a few milliseconds forward (or backward I guess). Even that might be the worst way to create "stereo", but at least it will give you some separation.

But simply cloning and nothing else will just give you mono and nothing else.

EDIT: Sorry, this was meant as a continuation to my response to Papanate's comment above UJN's.
 
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Thanks everyone - I'll revert I think to the mono channel then for amp sims, give that a go.
 
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