Reverbs, Delay's Mono or Stereo

J

joko38

New member
Hi,

I hope someone can clarify this for me. I was listening to a commercial song this past week and ran it through Brainworx Digital v2 using the Stereo Solo feature. What I found was that the song only had guitars in this field and hardly anything else. All other instruments were in the Mono Solo channel. The song sounded amazing and I loved how tight and controlled everything was.

When I listen to my mixed songs, although they sound okay they could be better. Using Digital v2 with my song, I found that I had put most of my mono tracks through a stereo reverb which in essence ended up in the Stereo field. (I'm assuming that only the reverb was in the stereo field because it's on a buss).

My question to you is this:

When you have a mono instrument i.e. Snare, if I decide to us a reverb, should I be using a mono reverb instead of a stereo reverb?

Also, my drum overheads are stereo which when played through Digital v2, the cymbals are loud in the stereo field but in the whole mix they sound okay. Should I have the overheads as mono so that the cymbals don't end up on the stereo field such as the commercial song?

I'm using BFD2 drums.

Thanks.
 
IMO, I think it all depends on creativity here. Usually if I have a mono track that's sent to a 'verb bus I'll use a Mono Reverb and just pan that reverb according to where the track is panned. This cleans things up and is pretty standard, THOUGH, if you want to be creative, you can pan it the exact opposite way or place it where ever, your call there. Delay is almost 100% a stereo process for me. I LOVE the way a nice stereo delay sounds, esp. when you can adjust the mix, feedback, depth, and time differently on each side. Again, it's a call on your part, the pretty standard way is, yes, on mono tracks usually you'd use a mono reverb on the fx send (not to be confused with a mono aux channel), but their again, the difference in a good engineer and a GREAT engineer is the ability to "engineer" new things and be creative ;)
 
joko38 said:
When you have a mono instrument i.e. Snare, if I decide to us a reverb, should I be using a mono reverb instead of a stereo reverb?
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There is no "should". Like notredamer said, it's a question of creative decision.

Using the snare as an example, if you just want to affect the sound of the snare itself - i.e. if you want that reverb sound but you want it on the drum itself, you'd probably want mono reverb panned the same a the snare itself. OTOH, if you wanted it to sound like a real snare located in a reverbery room or space, then you might prefer a stereo reverb. And if you wanted just a cool effect that didn't sound like a real, dry snare, but didn't necessarily sound like a real reverbery room either, you might use either one, with more unique panning or delay settings. But the common thread in each of those options is to pick the one "you wanted".

The only caution I'd gives is not to over-do the reverbs too wet in too many different places on too many instruments all at the same time. Too much tends to just start to sound like a muddy mess that leaves no room for the instruments themselves.

G.
 
Putting Reverb aside: So with regards that commercial recording and Stereo Solo (brainworx digital v2), does that mean that everything else is mono and the only instruments that the engineer used in stereo was the guitars and some keyboards? Is this why I only here those instruments in the Stereo solo field?

Thanks.
 
joko38 said:
Putting Reverb aside: So with regards that commercial recording and Stereo Solo (brainworx digital v2), does that mean that everything else is mono and the only instruments that the engineer used in stereo was the guitars and some keyboards? Is this why I only here those instruments in the Stereo solo field?
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Unless one is deaf in one ear, in which case picking up stereo vs. mono can be extremely difficult, one should be able to determine that just by listening to the song.

G.
 
Just to add to what others have already said...

Even with a "solo" instrument like the aforementioned snare drum, stereo reverb is still valid if you consider that the snare, even though a single point source, is still in a room/space, and the reverberant sound will be all around the room/space...left and right, up and down.
That said...a "mono" reverb sometimes might be a better mixing choice if you want more controlled/localized reverb rather than one that fills out an entire space.

I usually run a couple of stereo reverbs boxdes for most of my mixes, close in tonality and room size, with one a bit shorter and the other a bit longer, and then I just apply the desired amount of Send/Return level per track.
Some tracks may stay dry, others just a touch, and some with a bit more reverb....as the song calls for it.
 
Like miro said, reverb is naturally a stereo phenomonon. Reverb comes from everywhere. It doesn't matter if the source is mono or stereo. You decide on what you wanna do, but me personally, I never mess with mono reverb. Reverb is always stereo for me.
 
Greg_L said:
Like miro said, reverb is naturally a stereo phenomonon. Reverb comes from everywhere. It doesn't matter if the source is mono or stereo. You decide on what you wanna do, but me personally, I never mess with mono reverb. Reverb is always stereo for me.
Click to expand...

Same here, with reverb.

With delay, not always. The rare time I use delay, I will often make a conscious decision whether I want it to be stereo or mono. I might want a bit of delay on a vocal or guitar solo, but not neccessarilly a "BIG" sound to it. Sometimes I'll record a guitar solo with delay going in while tracking, which makes it mono. Other times, I'll want a BIG echo-ey sound on a rythm guitar in the background, in which case, I'll use stereo delay.
 
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