WIZZLE said:
Ok, well what do I do or is there anything I can do to get the stereo sound? Or will I have to record all my vocals in mono?
Well ... your tone suggest that recording your vocals "in mono" is a terrible thing. I'd suspect that something in excess of 90% of the vocals on the records you hear on the radio where recorded "in mono."
A few notes (I'm not sure if these will be helpful or not):
- The sort of prototypical way
I'm used to thinking of a recording is: you record a bunch of tracks to your multitrack (all at once, one at a time, a bunch at once with a few overdubbed after, whatever). Generally, these are "mono" -- that is, the rhythmn guitar is just on one track. Then you mix the whole shebang down to stereo, and pan stuff wherever you want it, stick effects on it, etc.
- Just because you record something in mono doesn't mean it has to be all on the left channel or all on the right channel in your final mix. (I apologize if this is obvious to you.) When you mixdown a multitrack recording to stereo, it would be rare for an individual track
not to be panned somewhere between hard left and hard right.
- Sometimes you might record a single "event" to two tracks at once (
i.e. "in stereo"). Solo acoustic guitar, for example. Or a piano. You do this by using two microphones (or sometimes more than two, or sometimes a "stereo mic" which -- as mentioned above -- is sort of like two mics in one case). In my limited experience, a lead vocal isn't usually recorded in stereo. It
can be, though. Basically, you'd be picking up a more "complete" sense of the room sound, if you do that. A brief note on how: set up two mics in a standard stereo arrangement (XY, ORTF, M-S, baffled omnis, whatever -- there are web sites that describe 'em all) backed away from the singer a bit.
