Finalized mixes always seem centered

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Ninja_Drummer

Ninja_Drummer

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Hey guys,

I've been having this consistent issue with my mixes sound really centered after I finalize it and export for mastering. For example, this recent song I'm doing for a band involves a guitar solo that I have hard panning installed (Like there are two guitarists taking turns playing a piece of a solo). There would be one piece of the solo I would hard pan left, then when the next part comes in I hard pan right, then the final riff I would have it come out both sides or centralized for lack of a better term.

But when I export the mix, the panning would seem to disappear and the solo would just seem centered the entire time. I'm thinking this might be a phase issue, but I felt I should bring it to the table.

I usually have them panned out at least 65%.

Thanks
 
Ninja_Drummer said:
I'm thinking this might be a phase issue

Thanks
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I doubt it has anything to do with phase if you're talking about one guitar being panned left and right.

Does the whole mix come out sounding centred? IF so, are you sure you're rendering your final mix in stereo? Not sure what DAW you're using, but in REAPER, you can click "Stereo" or "Mono" when you finalize a track. You might be rendering in mono.
 
Yeah, it could be what Rami suggested, or you could have done what I have in the past, are you bringing the audio file back into Your DAW into a mono audio track? this usually would automatically sum it to mono, Dont know what program your using, in logic there's a button at the bottom of the fader to change to stereo.
 
I use Cubase 5 and it automatically exports the mix as a stereo mix unless you state to export it as mono or split the channels. I export as a wave file.

Would it affect the mix if I've got the guitar bussed into a stereo group track?
 
Ninja_Drummer said:
Would it affect the mix if I've got the guitar bussed into a stereo group track?
Click to expand...

As long as it sounds like it's panned when you play it in your DAW, it shouldn't matter if it's bussed or not... Your DAW should be exporting exactly what you hear.
The only thing I could think of is what everyone else is saying about it being exported as mono, but if you don't think that's it, I'm not sure what it could be.
 
I just exported it without the guitar solo grouped, and it seemed to come out just fine, it's very strange. I notice that when you export it gives you the option of what channels to export and as default, it is stereo output.
 
maybe you're sending them to a mono buss, but however you have your monitoring set up you still here the panned tracks, but when you render your monitoring settings don't matter so the mono buss is making the guitars mono?

For example on my saffire pro 40 you can set up monitoring, you can also do it in reaper. a couple times it's gotten me...I'll send drums to a buss and it'll get really loud because I can still hear the drums on their individual tracks (from the monitoring options) and the buss (from the DAW). if I were to render at that point, the buss would be all that got rendered. In other words if it's a monitoring issue, your whole mix could be way off when you render.
 
aaronmcoleman said:
maybe you're sending them to a mono buss, but however you have your monitoring set up you still here the panned tracks, but when you render your monitoring settings don't matter so the mono buss is making the guitars mono?

For example on my saffire pro 40 you can set up monitoring, you can also do it in reaper. a couple times it's gotten me...I'll send drums to a buss and it'll get really loud because I can still hear the drums on their individual tracks (from the monitoring options) and the buss (from the DAW). if I were to render at that point, the buss would be all that got rendered. In other words if it's a monitoring issue, your whole mix could be way off when you render.
Click to expand...

No, the buses are all usually stereo. I make sure to do so. I run my monitors out of an Alesis IO26 firewire. There is a knob on my interface that allows me to determine the computer source or clock source I would assume. I guess I'll try messing with it.

But really doesn't seem like a monitor issue unless somehow my interface is translating panning in a completely different way than Cubase
 
Make sure you don't have any mono effects on the stereo bus. It will mono everything on that bus.
 
Mix down just the guitars.
Does it come out in a left/right stereo file? (How about with or w/o the group (sub buss?).
Maybe a sigle hard panned track? Does it stay full left' (or R?

Trouble shooting is breaking things down into its parts, eliminating and isolating the variables.
 
I've exported w/o the buss and it came out just fine. I also use stereo vst's when applicable in my stereo buses.

I usually have the guitars bused to one group/bus track so that I can control all their volume at once as well as applying general dynamic processes like compression or dist. I then bus the group track to an fx bus for verb, delay, and other external processes. But I would only apply a certain amount to be bused to the fx track usually along the lines of -5 db to -1.
 
Found the issue, well now I know why they say to avoid presets, I discovered that using a master template from cubase automatically puts a stereo spread on the stereo out vst plugins, very interesting....
 
Ninja_Drummer said:
Found the issue, well now I know why they say to avoid presets, I discovered that using a master template from cubase automatically puts a stereo spread on the stereo out vst plugins, very interesting....
Click to expand...
I don't understand. I don't have Cubase anyway, but I need closure on this or it will hound me forever. :eek:
 
When I master my tracks (to the best of my ability) cubase gives you the option of picking a preset template from their project creation menu that automatically sets up the project in a way that a "typical" master project would be. I.E. dynamic processors, stereo enhancers (the culprit for my problem). But in the preset I chose the plugins were place in the stereo out channel rather than the actually track I was mastering itself, so it was something I overlooked greatly.
 
If you have Cubase 5, when you start a new project click on the "Mastering" preset and open up a new project using that template and you'll see what I mean.
 
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