Stereo Wideness that doesn't Cancel in Mono

[Hardnox]

I am mixing a song and using the wide stereo effect on chorus and background vocals by duplicating the vocal, time shifting one 18ms and panning one hard right and the other hard left. Or I use a stereo delay plug-in. I'm sure you all know abou this. Anyway, when I switch to mono monitoring, the chorus and backing vox sound phasy. I listened to some reference CDs and this didn't happen on similar effects when I listened in mono. Please help me out. Anybody know how to make this work. The mix sounds great in stereo!

 

[Slackmaster2K]

It IS a phase problem. Try varying the delay time and you might be able to find a sweet spot. Or try a spatializer plugin that's designed specifically to give the effect of a particular stereo image. You might also try tracking seperate takes and panning them hard without any unnatural delay.

IMHO, it can be more realistic or less obvious to pan 75% or so instead of a full 100%. And sometimes you can produce the illusion of a wide mix by simply panning one or two things way off center...e.g. subtle.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[ametth]

...or you cannot worry about mono compability at all..who listens in mono anymore? Even the cheapest systems these days playback stereo. Unless your music is specifically made for playback on a mono system, I wouldnt worry about it. YMMV.

 

[Hardnox]

WHat about broadcast? Radio? MTV? Does that require good mono capability?

 

[Track Rat]

As long as clock radios and a lot of TVs have one speaker, if you're doing stuff that's destined for those mediums it has to be mono compatible.

 

[Eurythmic]

Plus music loses some of its stereo spatialization if you're standing outside of the speakers' sweet spot.

Can't you just reverse the phase of one of the two tracks? I thought that was supposed to fix phase issues.

Or you could just be like Trent Reznor. He put a warning label on at least one of his records saying something like "Not to be played back on mono equipment".

 

[Hardnox]

Someone recommended to me to do two vocal takes instead of duplicating the one track causing identical phase. Or, if it is the same track panned hard right, hard left, use a pitch shifter and boost one up 3 cents and the other down 3 so they no long have identical waveforms. What do you think?