How Do The Pro's Do It?????

[™Baby Recordz™]

Hi everybody,

I was just wondering if someone could tell me how this thing is done or is it just me?......

Alright, everytime I listen to a song that has some pannig in the instruments or vocal, no matter where you listen to it, it always sounds the same and you hear the same panning and stuff. So for example if I mix a song and do the paning to a main guitar or a second guitar or whatever....when I listen to it in a divice that is mono it doesnt sound right or if I just listen the song thru my right speaker, you can't hear all the sounds that were mix to the left side. But when you do the same with a famous song you hear everything loud and clear as if the song wouldnt have no panning at all. Anyways Im just learning and wanted to ask you guys cause I know theres a lot of people here with a lot of knowledge.

So if any of you have some inputs pls I would really appreciated anything.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote

 

[dualflip]

Ok what you are talking about is mono compatibility, it has a lot to do with phase, if you have not good phase correlation youll end-up loosing a lot when its summed to mono because some frequencies will cancell each other. Regarding the channels, well of course if you listen to the right channel you wont be able to listen to the sounds of the left speaker, but im guessing you are doing a lot of Hard panning, meaning panning things completely to the left or right. So one thing is to have a nice wide stereo image but not too wide, so it translates better to mono, the other thing is to constantly flip to mono when you are mixing and try to make a good compromise between nice wide stereo image, and good mono compatibility, a narrower and more phase correlated stereo image will result in better mono playback, simple as that.

Effects such as reverb, delay, etc... have also a big role in mono compatibilty, if your mix is very wet in effects, it will cause more phase problems when summed to mono. Finally there is mastering of course, the "pro" tracks you are listening have been mastered, in this stage, one (among other) process is the stereo image adjust, where they adjust either the entire stereo image of the song or multiband width, meaning, they can adjust the "stereo image" (althoug stereo image is considered as the whole) of each particullar band they need to adress, for example they may narrow the image on low frequencies and widen highs and so on

Theres a lot of reasons to explain here but try the things i just mentioned and let me know what happens

Cheers !

 

[jarrydee]

Also something simple is ..If you pan a guitar hard left try some light verb or delay on a aux track and pan that hard right...It is fun to do and can sound cool to!!

 

[dualflip]

Also something simple is ..If you pan a guitar hard left try some light verb or delay on a aux track and pan that hard right...It is fun to do and can sound cool to!!

That sounds good, but that type of things are the ones that mess up the mono compatibility, which is what this guy wants to know.

Cheers

 

[RDMS]

Mono compatability is a big issue. That's why you see a lot of single Auratone speakers on pro studio pictures. Once the pans are done a lot of the mixing is done on them. True mono through a single speaker. Leads to clearer mixes in stereo and less ear fatigue during mixing.