Mixing in mono
I’m so confused on mixing in mono.
How do you control track panning? How do you control “spread”?
Can anyone give me some articles on extensive knowledge about mixing in mono
Panning or “spread” doesn’t exist with mono. You’re only dealing with a single channel. What comes out of one speaker is identical to what comes out of the other one.
Want to be safe? Mono your kicks/bass and usually you’re gonna be alright. Most club systems are in mono so trying to do cool stereo tricks usually doesn’t work in the big picture. I siightly pan my hats and pads and that’s about it. It’s not even much but enough to provide some swing
Music production question => Music Production forum
You need to understand mono vs. stereo to understand why people suggest mixing in mono. There are mono signals and stereo. Mono has the same signal playing at the same volume out of both speakers while stereo has a completely separate “track” or signal coming out of each speaker as well as some phase information. Each DAW has a panning law that explains how it deals with panning. Panning in most DAWs is actually just changing the volume level of the signal for each speaker, but it could produce phasing issues because you’re now screwing with an original stereo signal’s phase information. Which is why it’s best to do any significant panning with mono signals as opposed to stereo.
What I typically do is convert anything to mono that doesn’t have much or any stereo differences, then get the levels about where I want them, then pan them to give them their own space. Opening up “the center” really helps get your bass and kick some room from what I’ve found. Once panned, I may adjust levels since things may peek out more. Then I put the track on mono and mix. You may find phasing issues, EQ issues because everything’s now been “squished” to mono. And while panning in mono shouldn’t have an effect, it actually does due to the panning laws and the calculation of the mono’d signal that now comes out of both speakers. I’ll go back and forth between mono and stereo to see if anything isn’t really showing through in mono as it does in stereo. If you can get them nearly indistinguishable, (sometimes I forget I’m still in mono when I’ve gotten it nailed) your mix will sound fantastic in stereo as well.
At least that’s how I understand it. I may be off on a couple of things.
It’s an old wives tale that most club systems are mono too. I’ve been interviewing a lot of live sound and club engineers for an upcoming article, and not a single one of them has worked on or set up a mono system in many years.
It’s pretty common around here
I actually just watched an Ableton masterclass with Claude Von Stroke, and in there he actually mentioned that most of the systems he plays on are mono too. He travels more than me so I took his word for it lol.
Which Chicago clubs are mono? I grew up clubbing in Chi-town (lived there until 2007), other than some ghetto bar events, can’t think of single major venue that was mono.
Not trying to be argumentative, honestly trying to gather data to see just how common this is.
I’m positive that Primary and Spybar are.. Those are 2 out of the 3 that I go to. I asked my buddy about Soundbar since he used to be the manager but he won’t respond
Thanks!
I havent been able to verify personally but am going by what im told
The way I understand it is that if you can make a mix sound really good in mono… It will translate to most different monitoring setups/systems much better once its mixed to up stereo… thus improving your mix balance.