Bouncing MIDI to audio: Stereo or Mono or what?

C

clntgn

New member
When I was in college, one of the first things we learned was about bouncing midi to audio. Our instructor told us to just bounce everything to its own stereo audio track. That was more than a year ago. Flash forward to today, I'm working with several tracks that I've bounced to stereo, and finding things difficult to mix/pan. Come to find out that apparently not everyone bounces everything that way.

Now I'm confused. Are there certain things that should be bounced as stereo and some as mono? Or should I instead use two mono tracks panned hard left and right and skip the stereo tracks altogether? And what am I supposed to group together if anything?

Here's a sort of description of what I'm working with to put it into perspective:
-Vibes (sort of a rhythm/main meat of the song
-Crash cymbal
-Hi hat
-Snare
-Kick
-Bass
-Elec Piano
-Pad (Atmospheric I guess is the word I'd use)
-Square lead (Which never sits right in the mix at all, which is where a lot of problems are right now)
 
Whether you want to record the audio as mono or stereo depends on whether the samples/sources are mono or stereo. Drum and cymbal samples are often recorded as stereo samples, especially if they are recorded with any of the room sound included in the sample. If you pull in the audio from these as mono, you will lose the benefit of that stereo recording of the drum in what is almost certainly going to be a better recording environment than you can create after the fact. (you need to pick a sample that sounds appropriate for your mix of course). So stereo sample : record audio to a stereo track. Mono sample : record to a mono track.

That said, presuming no meaningul limits on storage space and processor speed, the "just bounce everything to stereo" isn't a bad idea. It should not affect your ability to pan and mix at all. What sort of problems are you having specifically?

As for combining when recording the audio, it is a big tradeoff. Once you do it, the mix within those combined tracks is frozen. That's a bad thing if you later don't like that mix, but as long as you save the midi, you can always do it over. In particular, an audio track for every drum could add up to quite a few tracks and quite a load for the processor if you've got lot's of other stuff happening to boot. I separate the snare and the kick, and combine everything else, so drums are three tracks for me. If I don't like the mix in the everything else, I have to unmute the midi track and re-record it. I can always separate a piece of that mix then if I want to treat some piece of it differently from the rest (I've never actually done that, but i could:)) I've never combined other midi tracks.

Cheers,
J
 
THis is an interesting question - for instance, if you're using something like Addictive Drums via Reaper, you'll see that all the drum samples have a "stereo" sample... and that you also get overhead and room samples as well...

So I too question exactly what you should use as stereo and what as mono - obviously overheads are stereo as you'd assume there are two mics and they capture the full kit.... but room samples? And are the "stereo" samples for individual drums like snare, kick and toms and hi hats, crashes etc. in these libraries actually stereo, or are they dual-miked mono, in which case there's more of an argument for keeping the two separate rather than combining them?
 
Thanks! That cleared up a lot for me. My processor is a dual core 2.0ghz, so I think I'm ok right now, although my ram is a little lacking (1gb).

I think the main problems I was having was just an overall flat and dull sounding drum track, and like I said, the square lead that just doesn't fit into the track.

I kind of thought the grouping tracks together sounded a little weird to me. I understand where it comes in, but I like having control over everything. I would go back and rebounce the crash and hi hat as one track, but the crash is honestly only used twice in the whole song. I think what I'm going to do is just go back and remix everything now.
 
Not sure I understand what you mean, Supercreep. In Reaper it seems like when you have a mono track and you pan it left or right, it puts the same exact signal on both sides and makes it louder on the side you're panning toward and quieter on the side you're panning away from. With a stereo track, it puts the left signal on the left and the right signal on the right and then boosts the volume of the side you "pan" toward, and cuts the volume of the side you "pan" away from. This being the case, for any sound source that's already "hard panned" in the stereo signal, there's really no panning effect to be had. It will just turn that source up if you pan toward it and turn it down if you pan away from it. For sounds that sit somewhere in the middle of the stereo image of the raw stereo track, on the other hand, it seems like the effect of "panning" is very similar to what you get with a mono track. For example if you have a stereo image of a drum kit with kick and snare in the middle, hat hard left, toms spread across and ride hard to the left, "panning" that track will seem to move the snare and kick back and forth, but will just turn the hat and ride up and down in volme. Am I thinking about this right? Seems like an argument against hard panning in a combined track unless you're really sure that's what you want.
 
If you are bouncing midi whose audio comes from an external source (e.g. a soundcanvas or similar, then there is a point to the OP's question. If you are bouncing midi that makes use of VST, then you are safe in treating this as simply another audio track.

I make use of VSTs now more than I used to, but in the past, I would use midi to drive an external module. I would often leave this 'unbounced' until the very last thing, controlling the mix of midi through (usually) Logic's mixer. When I was satisfied with the whole combination of audio and midi, I would then record the midi as a separate stereo audio track.

However, I found that even when I thought I was satisfied with the whole thing, I would come back to it and wish that I had made one or other instrument louder (or softer). So in more recent times, when I was satisified with the midi of a particular instrument, I would record that as a separate track, and do that for each instrument.

Whether I picked stereo or midi depended on the nature of the instrument or its role in the tune. For example, a midi flute I would record as mono. On the other hand, a broad pad I would record as stereo.
 
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