kip4
Well-known member
good point jonesey well put. 
Mo Facta
Farts of Nature
I prefer to get my levels right at tracking and balance the instruments on input. This basically means that when it comes time to mix, all the faders are basically at unity. If I need a gain change, I'll rather adjust clip gain but it rarely goes 3 dB either way. To me, that is the art of tracking.
I try to compartmentalize my mind to be a different guy for each phase. I don't view tracking as a prerequisite phase to serve the mix. I look at it as my first shot to getting the sounds I want. If I can accomplish that then mixing becomes incidental. The song will mix itself.
When it comes to panning, some things are automatically panned by default. Stereo signals ALWAYS go hard L and R. I don't believe in intermediary panning, ESPECIALLY for stereo sources because, IMO, that's not really stereo, is it? I subscribe to the LCR method of mixing as much as I can. For me, there are three positions for the fader: Left, Center, and Right. I decided right from the get-go what goes where and when you've only got three options, the decision making process becomes a lot less complicated. I do not labour over whether the shaker should go L56 or L58. What a waste of time, IMO. If I want to hear it on the left, I put it on the left.
There are exceptions, though. Like with choirs where every voice has a separate track and you're dealing with many tracks. In that case I'll use intermediary panning to get them to gel across the whole stereo field.
Anyway, my point in all of this is to set your goals high from the beginning and always strive for a finished record sound no matter what phase of the process you're in. Why not? The production can only benefit from it.
Cheers
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I'm looking forward to the day I can get my head around mono. Every time a discussion comes up on checking a mix in mono, I'm lost as to the use if it's going to ultimately end up in stereo. If everything is going to end up panned across the stereo soundscape, what's the point of checking it in mono ? Will not all the sounds take on different relationships with one another than the ones they'd have if they were all panned up the middle ? I just don't get it.
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sixer2007
New member
For me, it's all about getting things to play nice when it's a huge pile of mush. I think of it like this (sorta, coming up with this metaphor as i type!). Think if you had 10 painted sheets of glass, all of different colors, all stacked on top of each other. You want to be able to look through all the layers and see the green sheet at the very bottom through all the rest, and the pink sheet in the middle, etc, etc. So, you have to scrape the paint from the other sheets to see that sheet's color, in that particular place.
So, to see your guitars, you have to cut away the other sheets with EQ, compression, etc. Same to see the snare drum, and on and on. If all of this is done in mono (hence the stacked sheets of glass) then your mono mix will be great! Then, put that baby in stereo and wet your pants! haha.
I hope my ridiculous metaphor makes sense...
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RAMI
Guest
It did. I just tried it and actually wet my pants.
Oh no, wait, I was watching pron. I'm going to try your mono thing now.
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sixer2007
New member
Great Rami, let us know how it goes!
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
I'm a sucker for analogies! That's a pretty good one. And there is the excitement of switching to stereo and seeing it all open up.
But I'm still with Grim on this one. If you've got all those painted sheets of glass in front of you, why stack them up behind each other in the first place? I would rather spread them all out so that you could see what is happening all at once. And if one is being obscured by another, either shift it, or do a bit of scraping.
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RAMI
Guest
I'm just being an ass.
I used to mix in mono all the time and I can vouch for it's benefits. But, to be honest, I'm just too impatient and end up panning things as soon as I can. So, I sort of abandoned the technique. Not because it's not good, but because of my ADD.
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sixer2007
New member
I see your point here, But it's sooo much easier to hear masking when panning isn't moving sounds out of the way. And in the end, I bet your mix will be heard in at least somewhat mono like 80% of the time, so it better sound good in mono! Anytime a person isn't right between two speakers, bam, mono listening.
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sixer2007
New member
You know, mixing in mono doesn't mean you can't pan too! For instance, I pan everything where I'll probably end up with it right at the beginning, and get a decent balance. Then, I toss a stereo widener on the 2-bus, set to Zero (making it mono). Now I can mix in mono, but easily switch to stereo because i want to know what it might really sound like, and because we all know that listening in mono blows a fatty.
C
chuckduffy
Well-known member
Yeah - as far as my comments I use it to spot check and find frequency clashes and phase issues - I don't mix in mono all the time - just at strategic points. If you listen to the mono versions of some of the great 60s stuff you realize that everything has a great sonic frequency and level balance. Everything coming out of one speaker and you can hear every single instrument clearly.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
An interesting fact, in the late 60s as stereo was taking over from mono as the main format, certain records were mixed in both stereo and mono so obviously, a stereo record sounding good in mono wasn't that big an issue. No one knew who would buy what !
This is a very interesting observation. But is that true ? If a stereo recording is playing and different things are panned all over the place, even if you're on one side of the room, you still hear it as stereo. Or at least, I do !
80 % ? I reckon that's a bet you'd lose. Unless you're including your "not bang between two speakers" as mono.
I think of mono over stereo in the same way I think of minidisc over CD. It's the poor relation {to a head with two ears on opposite sides}.and because we all know that listening in mono blows a fatty.
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RAMI
Guest
Good point. Never thought of that. The thing that stopped me from going mono was the un-panning and panning of everything.
I'm not sure I'd use a stereo widener, though. I'd never use one on a stereo mix. I don't trust those things to not do something weird, even in mono.
But I'm going to look and see if there's a one button way to go mono in Reaper.
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
There is. On the master fader, there is a button that allows you to switch from mono to stereo and vice versa
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sixer2007
New member
First, I'm not sure how you hear in stereo from across the room. If you pic a random modern record (not one you've heard before, and not one you've worked on) and play it from across the room, I bet you can't tell me where the keyboard part is panned, or the lead guitar, or anything! If you can, you're super man in my book!
And yes, I would consider "Not directly between the monitors" as not exactly stereo. Maybe not mono, but not fully stereo either.
Btw, I mean no disrespect in this argument, just trying to get to the bottom of this!
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sixer2007
New member
I just realized I lied
I use the cubase widener, but not set to 0... there's a nice little "Mono" button on it. I believe that's true mono. Cubase has no option on the stereo bus so i'm glad they gave that option.
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RAMI
Guest
HA! You're right, man. Thanx.
I never really looked closely at that button because it's in the same place as the "phase" button for all the channels.
Well, that changes everything.
Very cool.
ollie99
New member
I think I might just mix in stereo, and at the end check that it sounds good in mono and make any changes that are needed. however I do agree with sixer that most people will listen to your music in mono. When I finish a song or have made progress I will post it on facebook, and most people on there will be sitting at home on their laptops probably listening to it in mono (if they listen to it at all!) and out of all you guys, I'm sure no more thant 50% of you would be sitting between speakers at home every time you listen to someone's song on here, although I do try and listen through earphones
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Yeah, I caught that. I never felt you were dissing. Actually, I thought that point you brought up was really intriguing. I had to really give it some thought.Btw, I mean no disrespect in this argument, just trying to get to the bottom of this!
My thinking on that was that the recording is fixed as stereo or mono or 5.1 or quadrophonic, regardless of where in the room the listener happens to be.
I don't see stereo or mono or quad or 5.1 as being determined by my position/location. If I'm in the bath and I have a stereo cassette or CD player playing from the bedroom or even out in the corridor, I can hear everything in the music. I don't personally need to identify where each specific sound is coming from for it to be stereo. It's stereo whether I can work it out or not. Volume also plays a part. And unless I'm wearing headphones/buds, I'm rarely ever directly in the centre of two speakers, not even in a car or van.
Each morning as I'm loading up my van, I play one of my albums. I'm closer to the left hand speaker than the right and sometimes, what's coming out of the right hand speaker is fainter than what's coming out of the left. But if it were mono or mock mono, it would be the same wherever I am because the two speakers would carry identical signals.
Aw, shucks.....you're super man in my book!
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sixer2007
New member
My thinking on that was that the recording is fixed as stereo or mono or 5.1 or quadrophonic, regardless of where in the room the listener happens to be. I don't see stereo or mono or quad or 5.1 as being determined by my position/location. If I'm in the bath and I have a stereo cassette or CD player playing from the bedroom or even out in the corridor, I can hear everything in the music. I don't personally need to identify where each specific sound is coming from for it to be stereo. It's stereo whether I can work it out or not. Volume also plays a part. And unless I'm wearing headphones/buds, I'm rarely ever directly in the centre of two speakers, not even in a car or van.
Each morning as I'm loading up my van, I play one of my albums. I'm closer to the left hand speaker than the right and sometimes, what's coming out of the right hand speaker is fainter than what's coming out of the left. But if it were mono or mock mono, it would be the same wherever I am because the two speakers would carry identical signals. Aw, shucks.....
See, I think that's exactly what I'm trying to say. Surely, no, the sound does not actually become mono because you move, but your brain tells you it is. Stereo is the illusion of dimensions, which cannot exist in mono (except maybe front to back). But once you aren't between 2 speakers, that illusion is gone. Both speakers still play it, but your brain can no longer hear the directionality or right vs. left speaker. In the same way, if you walk 100 feet from your monitors, the sound seems to come from one location, not two, thus mono.
Idk man, I'm no scientist, but it makes sense to me.
And, I wonder if you hear everything because the mix engineer worked in mono?!
Or maybe pros are pros for a damn good reason! I get disappointed when I listen to my favorite records sometimes now, but that's another ball game.