Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Mono or Stereo?

P

Peter Stallo

Member
When you add a VST track to your project, do you add it as a mono track or a stereo track?

For instance, if I add a violin in mono, can I still pan it's position appropriately in mono, or do I have to select stereo to position it correctly?

On the other hand, if I have a sub-bass that I will leave dead center, does it make sense to just leave it as mono?

I'm just thinking about ways to conserve computer resources
Click to read more...
 
I think it may not save much resources. If the samples themselves are stereo, they'd probably have to be downmixed from stereo to mono on the fly. And as soon as you pan, that implies the mono channel gets upmixed back to stereo... So the time that your audio really stays mono might be shorter than expected. Unless you know for sure you have some plugins or heavy processing that would work faster with a single mono channel, it might not be worth the routing hassle.
 
shawnsingh said:
I think it may not save much resources. If the samples themselves are stereo, they'd probably have to be downmixed from stereo to mono on the fly. And as soon as you pan, that implies the mono channel gets upmixed back to stereo... So the time that your audio really stays mono might be shorter than expected. Unless you know for sure you have some plugins or heavy processing that would work faster with a single mono channel, it might not be worth the routing hassle.
Click to expand...
I see. Thanks!
 
I find this a bit confusing also. I have just bought spitfire studio strings for example. I'm loading each instrument in stereo as "they are seated in the correct playing position" so should give me the traditional seating image "out of the box" I assume. I however don't really hear that much left to right image. Perhaps I'm just not doing it quite right. I also use Symphobia, the image seems clearer in those libraries.
 
I always do stereo even for solo instruments that are recorded in mono. It makes is far easier to add e.g. stereo delays. If you really want mono, just use the mono button on track if your DAW support it, or one of the plugins.
 
depends on your library. If your library or instrument has early reflections baked in or added in the instrument, then you want to retain the stereo positioning from the library and you do not want to use mono tracks. If you are using a totally dry library like VSL, then you probably want mono. In VSL case, if you use MirPro, then especially you need them to be mono..if you're using MirPro in the DAW. So for example, VSL's ViPro provides stereo output but totally dry. When you use ViPro together with MirPro, you need MirPro to receive mono signals in order to properly do what it does to place the sound on stage with early reflections and more. When you use ViPro inside VEP, then VEP automatically converts the signal to mono for you before sending to MirPro. But if you use ViPro directly in your DAW with MirPro, then you have to make it mono yourself somehow.

The gain plugin is one way to do that in LogicPro.

The freely available bx_solo plugin also has a mono button that works for this.

but if you're using, lets say EWHO Gold, then you definitely want the stereo from each instrument and don't mess with the panning too much, they are all pre-panned in stereo for you by the way they recorded the samples on stage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom