Reaper doesn’t switch mono/stereo. All of it’s tracks and mixer channels are “stereo” (two channel) afaik… but you can record or place mono audio files on them.
+1
You can do that in Cubase also…
Just use stereo tracks. If you set the input of the track to be a mono source, then it will record in mono onto the stereo track. Set input to a stereo source and it will record in stereo.
I used to use mono tracks to record, then move the audio to a stereo track for FX etc until I discovered you could record in mono on a stereo track in this way…
Same here, only case you’d need to use a mono track is if you encounter a mono plug-in that only processes one of the channels when inserted on a stereo track.
/A
Like UAD plugins which have the option to cut back on DSP power used. I really hate not having dedicated mono channels like earlier versions of Cubase had. Having to use a stereo plugin to process a kick, bass, vocals etc is a real shame and a waste of UAD resources which aren’t necessarily plentiful. Centering a stereo channel and using a mono plugin does not work, I am still forced to using a stereo version of the plugin. Boo to that!
FD,
Does Cubase do this automatically if you select a mono input to a stereo track, or do I have to somehow tell Cubase to do this? I tried looking it up in the manual and haven’t found anything yet. Also, I am away from home with no audio interface or guitar/mic, etc., thus no way to try it out. This will be helpful for me when I get back home.
Sincerely,
J.L.
What are you talking about? You can of course have mono tracks and channels in Cubase
jaslan,
just select mono input and that’s all. you can check it with included VSTi, set a VSTi’s output to a mono channel and use this output as the input to an audio channel.
What I am talking about is changing a stereo track into a true mono track if the track was not created as a mono track from the get go. Centering the panning does not do this. If one creates a mono audio track from the start and records mono into said track then great, however, the output of a VSTi for instance may be set standard as a stereo output, you cannot change this into a true mono output, you can only center the panning. If the track were a true mono track, you could use mono based plugins with ease and have it working as it should and sounding as it should (UAD plugs). If you simply center the panning of a stereo track and use a dedicated mono plugin it does not sound right at all, only the left side gets processed and things sound pretty wonky pretty quick. Replace the mono variant of the plugin with a stereo one and everything sounds as should, however you are wasting resources on the dsp card this way which means less instance counts overall. In older versions of Cubase, I believe SX3 and under had a button on the channel strip itself one could toggle to switch the track from mono to stereo and back again with ease. This is no longer the case since Cubase 4. As well, older Steinberg plugins such as Halion 3 had options to set up dedicated mono outputs for a channel, but Halion 4 now only deals with Stereo outputs.
You can tell Steinberg has abandoned the flexibility of turning stereo tracks into mono tracks and back again and it has changed the way one works with tracks if they were used to having the flexibility in the past on previous versions of Cubase/Halion when mono tracks were selectable from the get go, or easily changed once created if created in stereo from the start.
+1
I would love that. I don’t know about Reaper, but Logic certainly does this.
Well, surely that´s something different than “not having a dedicated mono track”.
(Apart from Instrument tracks), you can have a dedicated mono track for everything in cubase.
If your VSTi allows mono outputs, you can also have mono VST Instrument channels. So that´s rather a question of the VSTi allowing a mono configuration, than Cubase not providing “dedicated mono channels”
This button was abandoned in SX 2 already, the last version that has it was SX 1.
dedicated mono channels was perhaps poor choosing of words on my part. The dedicated button which allows you to switch between mono and stereo is what I was referring to. Yes this is gone, yes I miss it, yes it certainly had its benefits as I mentioned previous and will not go through again. Having a button to toggle back and forth between mono and stereo was great as it didn’t rely on the output of a VSTi instrument to allow for stereo or mono outs. 99% of all VSTi have stereo outputs only, including Steinbergs own offering, unlike the past where Halion 3 for instance allowed you to setup mono or stereo outputs.
The only part of Cubase which still contains such a button is the control room outs and I love that feature. I wish they would include that button back on all channels, like they did in SX1 and previous you say?
Indeed, SX1 had a mono/stereo button. Very useful.
But I’d really like to see the mixed mono/stereo feature which was removed from SX3, the one where you could put a stereo plugin onto a mono track and it becomes a stereo output channel. This is a great halfway house because you can use mono plugins on say a guitar, thus saving processing power, then at the end of the chain add your stereo ping-pong or chorus or both.
VST3 has turned the plugin into the slave of the channel, as stated earlier. This I can understand, but nevertheless I think we’ve lost flexibility and ease of use.
Mike.
+1, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Lost flexibility is a huge downer. Your example of being able to save processing power by using mono plugins, yet still using a stereo where needed is a prime reason why I would like to see this feature back.
You can (and I have) create an export macro that does what the old behavior on the tracks did. There really isn’t a loss of flexibility, there is just a loss of a pre-existing button on the track.