Mono track to stereo track

[generalchaos316]

Still experimenting with Reaper and having alot of fun with it. This has been eating at me for a day or so:

I have 2 guitar tracks recorded in mono. I want to take one of the guitar tracks and get it into stereo so that I can pan it wide while leaving the other closer to the center. How do I do this?

In Pro Tools I would make a stereo aux track and bus the guitar into it. It seems like the same principle would apply...and I think I am getting thrown off my Reaper's seemingly transparent handling of mono/stereo sources. To top it off...I am not even fully sure what this technique is called so I don't know what to search for in the manual or on the web. I want to say "stereo submixing" but that doesn't feel quite right... Help!

 

[billv]

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you would like to do, but if "panning wide" means panning to the left or right, then you could just use the pan slider on the mixer track of the one mono guitar.

Did I miss something?

 

[ruined]

So do you want to make one guitar track "appear" stereo? Or do you want to put stereo effects on it? Those are the only reason I can think of to make a guitar track stereo. If you want to do fake stereo, just copy that guitar track, nudge the new one over a couple samples in time and pan them opposite of each other. You might get small phase issues, but it sort of gives the effect. Other than that, I can't really see what the benefit would be.

 

[danny.guitar]

Just to clear something up in case you are misunderstanding...

If you take a mono track, split it into stereo, it will not get any "wider". Same as if you take that mono track, duplicate it, and pan each left and right, it will not get wider.

You need to apply some sort of stereo effect like delay/reverb, stereo widener, etc.

If you just want to make a mono track sound "wider", take a look at the free plugin called mdaStereo. Just slap it on the mono track and change the "width" slider.

 

[generalchaos316]

So do you want to make one guitar track "appear" stereo?

This is essentially wanted to do. Based on the replies though, seems like that might not be a best practice?

If you take a mono track, split it into stereo, it will not get any "wider". Same as if you take that mono track, duplicate it, and pan each left and right, it will not get wider.

If I would have done either of these, is that what is referred to "big mono"...or does big mono refer to an entire mix? What is it about applying a stereo effect that aids in the "wider" sound? (Curious)

 

[danny.guitar]

If I would have done either of these, is that what is referred to "big mono"...or does big mono refer to an entire mix? What is it about applying a stereo effect that aids in the "wider" sound? (Curious)

It's usually just referred to as "mono".

A stereo effect, effects each channel (left and right) differently. These effects are usually time-based (reverb, delay, "haas effect"). The slight difference in time (usually about 10-20ms or it just sounds like a delay) produces the "wider" sound because you are hearing something different out of each speaker.

The plugin I posted is very good in my opinion. Someone named Zed32 recommended it to me. I posted a thread about it awhile ago with an audio clip so you can hear it:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=254591