Outputting In Mono question.

Yes, you pan the L/R of your stereo source(s) in the mix, while actually summing all those later on in the signal path to become mono. You’re in a way mixing ‘in the blind’, where stereo is concerned.

Yep. I OFTEN start a mix in mono, especially if there’s a lot going on. Making a good mono mix, then panning is a great way of preemptively avoiding frequency masking that can be tough to hunt down in a stereo mix due to spacial separation. Not something to do with every mix, but definitely not “retarted”.

Hi Arjan and Varimu - thanks for that answer!

Arjan - I think you are talking about panning while in mono (not afterwards, as Varimu describes?)? Is this something you have done? … can you explain please what happens to the mono sound as you pan L/R? With the exception of the Pan Rule (equal power, etc.), I can’t mentally picture what difference the pan position would make on the sound that is summed to mono later on in the signal path.

Thanks again for any help!

Well, I was explaining what this was about, I have no experience mixing like that myself. I do always check final mixes in mono though (lesson learned, see earlier), and I’m planning to spend some time ‘mixing in mono’, just to see how that feels - it appears a bit alienating to me. But that’s a good reason to try it, I think.

One thing that I’m a bit apprehensive about, is that the psycho-acoustic effect of hard panned sounds that sound louder because they come from one side will probably be mixed louder in mono, to keep them heard. That means that after switching back to stereo they will be too loud in their ‘stereo spot’. But we’ll see…

Thanks for that Arjan. While I have read the phrase “try panning in mono!” before, I’ve never really understood what that meant or met anyone who has done that.

Re: mixing in mono first … George Martin of Abbey Road Studios has written that it forces one to carve out sonic spaces much better than going to stereo right away … using the other tools available like EQ cuts, attenuation, compression … THEN putting it in stereo and adding the L/R aspect makes for a much better mix, with much less competition between instruments for the same sonic real estate.

“retarted…” :question:

Mixing in mono, out of one speaker (just use the pan on the master fader and pan one side either to the L or R), is an excellent way to balance your mixes and to find the sweet spot for elements in a mix… and one endorsed my many heavyweight mix engineers in the industry. :bulb:

Yeah, it’s always so much fun to visit.

That’s a tricky way of putting it - you might end up listening to L or R channel only. Pushing mono and then ‘balance’ to L or R will get you mono from one speaker.

Sorry, let me clarify…take one side and pan it over to the other side so you are listening to the entire mix out of one speaker. Thus, the “mono-out-of-one-speaker” mix technique.

I understand what you are writing here. But is that what people mean when they say, “… pan in mono…”?

No…if you want to start the rough mix in mono, you need to sum the master. Pan law affects actual volume, you know? Sum the master…pan a vocal from center to left, it’s gonna get louder. 3db on most consoles.

I honestly find its too confusing to theow up all the faders raw in mono. I do religiously periodically check…and check elements…but, the idea of starting a mix in mono…the idea is to get balances right…but, my opinion is…the actual benefit of a stereo spectrum is making more room. I’ve never found starting the mix in mono to be of any major use except to quickly point out phase issues during tracking that may go unnoticed and this cause nagging balance issues as the mix progresses…which can be easily ferreted out by periodic checks as you bring elements in, particularly multiple mic’d elements.

YMMV. It’s not a baseless idea. It will make you look super hard at the amount of stereo samples you use… :wink:

If you sum into mono, using a mono button for example, yes, you will have issues with levels when you go back to stereo due to the pan law…4.5 db seeming to be the best compromise there, but, when you listen out of “one speaker” mono, the pan law is a non-issue. You may have to still “tweak to taste” a bit when you go back out to stereo, but, you may be very surprised how good your mix will sound after mixing using the one speaker trick.

Actually, the signal gets quieter when you pan to virtual centre by the amount set by the pan law, -3dB default.

Switching to dual panner and panning say the left side all the way across to the right will produce the correct result.
L+R=Mono

Using the standard panner and panning hard to one side will not work as it reduces the volume of the other side until when hard panned (again say right) there would be no left signal at all!
0+R=R

If using the control room mono switch, watch out for the slight problem with the downmix setting!!!
The summed mono downmix is normalised so will actually usually sound louder than it should, this is a setting in the downmix plugin and defaults to on for some reason, but can/should be switched off.

Setting pans while listening mono is a very interesting concept. Thanks for that input, I’ll give it a try :slight_smile:

The panning being referred to is as follows:

The main output buss is set for mono output. The input channels may be a combination of stereo and/or mono (note that even a mono channel can be panned) channels set to output to the main buss. Initially all the input channels are set to centered.

The main output buss must be set for mono output; not just centered as stereo-based inputs such as keyboards or tom VST sets for example are not really outputting in mono just because the panning is centered on their channel.

The initial mixing in mono could be thought of as mixing “vertically” giving each element it’s due balance in the overall mix.

Then, panning an individual input channel, while not being perceived as left/right movement on the mono output buss, begins to eliminate any phasing conflicts with other input elements. Hence the “popping out” or finding the “optimal slot” sound when the phasing conflict is resolved.

When you then switch the output to stereo, you’ll find a much better clarity of separation between the input elements and improved stereo image because there are no phasing conflicts.

Much confusion can be avoided by using the correct terms: A single mono channel has ‘pan’ (placing the single source in a L-R panorama) and not ‘balance’, and a stereo channel has ‘balance’ (balancing two sources for L-R) and not ‘pan’.

Additional note for those concerned with the Pan Law:

From the Cubase Manual:

About the “Stereo Pan Law” setting

In the Project Setup dialog you will find a pop-up menu named “Stereo Pan Law”, which allows you to select one of several pan modes. These modes are required for power compensation. Without power compensation, the power of the sum of the left and right side is higher (louder) if a channel is panned center than if it is panned left or right.

To remedy this, the Stereo Pan Law setting allows you to attenuate signals panned center, by -6, -4.5 or -3dB (default). Selecting the 0dB option effectively turns off constant-power panning. Experiment with the modes to see which fits best in a given situation. You can also select “Equal Power” on this pop-up menu, which means that the power of the signal will remain the same regardless of the pan setting.

I happen to use the “Equal Power” setting in my mixes to avoid the situations described in previous posts for just this type of mixing.

Actually I was referring to a stereo output bus, switching to dual panner and not the default “balance” and panning one side all the way across to the other.

Saves setting a mono output bus and still gives the desired one speaker mono.

Pan laws are important and totally agree with you on that.

Interesting way to do it.

I have the Control Room set up for a number of reasons (Room frequency/phasing correction for one).

So it allows me to leave my project output buss set to stereo, but allows me to switch between mono and stereo monitoring with a button push in the Control Room. Output is the same mono signal to both left and right speakers.

Do you think that there are any potential differences, in the end, between the mono signal going to only one speaker and the same mono signal going to the 2 left and right speakers?

Yes I do, more room interaction, and speaker mismatch are a couple. IMHO single speaker mono is better.

I use the controlroom myself, watch out for the mono normalisation I referred to above, you notice it when comparing to hardware mono summing

“Panning in mono …” - still don’t understand what that will achieve except possibly making things louder/softer according to whatever panning law is chosen. In other words - “What can the relevance be of L/R panning in mono?”. So I guess it’s best to just try it.

Is this what people recommend?

  1. Mix6to2 set up as last insert in Master track (I don’t use control room, I have Mix6to2 set up as a “mono button” as has been described on this forum previously).
  2. Pan my multitrack project tracks, which has stereo and mono tracks, and see how it sounds?

Thanks -