How to do in Cubase what this old plugin does/did. Mono-summing. DFX MonoMaker

Cubase
1

Hello everyone.

I’m currently building my Mac-based DAW based around Cubase/Wavelab Pro 12.

I’m looking at all the plugins from a previous DAW, and one I used all the time was a simple little mono-summing VST called MonoMaker. I used it as a simple dirty way to just make any track mono.

Anyway, I’m having trouble finding this for my current installation. It’s still available on the vendor’s site but Cubase can’t see it once installed. Which got me thinking - is it even necessary these days. I’ve probably just gotten into the habit of throwing it on multiple tracks rather than look to see if there’s a native function within Cubase that does the same thing.

I generally used it for making bass sounds mono. But I suppose a more elegant solution would be to stick something on the master buss instead.

Any ideas?

2

I don’t know this plugin, so I am not sure what it exactly does, but Cubase (Pro? Not sure about other editions) has two plugins that can sum the signal to mono, ironically they are called “MonoToStereo” and “StereoEnhancer”, but both have a tiny little “mono” button. You can also gradually increase/decrease the stereo width with them.

If you want the whole track mono, you can of course since Cubase 14 (i think) switch the whole track from mono to stereo and back, as you like.

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3

Brilliant. Thanks!

Yes, I’ve seen those plugins, sounds like they do exactly the same thing as MM. I’d obviously dismissed them out of hand due to their names… :grin:

Using C12 so the second option is off the table for now. Which reminds me of another question I intended to post so may as well ask now. Are you able to buy/DL older versions of Cubase than the current version? I ask because I’m running C12 on Mac Monterey. The current Cubase, 15? is I believe incompatible with that OS. Would it be possible to buy the latest Cubase version that was compatible? Whatever that was, 14 maybe? My Mac is fast, but quite old now so is stuck on Monterey.

4

You only can buy the latest version of course, which is C15 now, but with that license you can use all older Cubase versions from C12 to C14.

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5

That’s fine. Great. I’ll wait till the autumn sale and upgrade.

Thanks.

6

What’s wrong with the Stereo Combined Panner?

If you don’t mind creating an account, there’s this:

It has a mono-maker. (Ignore that price, it’s free.)

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7

Good shout on the Brainworx stuff. I’d forgotten about that.

Stereo Combined Panner? I’m guessing this is the simple solution I’ve been overlooking.

8

It’s been in Cubase as far back as I can remember, including 12.

To sum two channels, set them to the same pan position (mono).

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9

I was thinking that the stereo combined panner was perhaps a bit more tedious to set up than just loading StereoEnhancer and hitting “mono”, but one could save a preset of course, so that might be even quicker….

10

It’s nice to have options!

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11

Indeed! The Stereo Combined Panner is great but I guess there are cases where you’d want the signal to turn mono earlier in the signal chain.

12

Is the plugin you are talking about a VST2 plug-in? By default, C14 doesn’t show VST2 plug-in anymore. You have to activate them in your VST effects library .

13

Yes I would think so, it’s quite old.

I’ve decided to not use it going forward as the other people on the thread have suggested more up to date solutions.

Good to know about VST2 though, so thanks.