Wish mono / stereo tracks were more elegant

Cubase
1

I wish mono and stereo tracks were more flexible.


I use mono sources on mono tracks when I want to use external 500 series compressors / distortion etc.

When I know I’m not going to use an external processor I can use a stereo track on a mono source and this means I can use a stereo reverb without having to use a buss or send. However the problem with this is if I want to render the track - I do this when using melodyne ARA because of it’s limitations, my mono source is rendered to stereo (I’m talking dry - obvs If I was rendering with inserts it would have to be stereo)

Could we not dispose of mono and stereo tracks and utilise the routing section of the channels to dictate how we want the source to be treated?

2

I know it is a bit of a pain solution but you could always export that track as mono and just tell Cubase to insert it into your project.





Or did I misunderstand your post?

3

Rudal makes a good point, this would work, but I have a question? If you have a mono channel with a mono recording on it and route it to an external stereo reverb, then your mono track is then coming back to a different left and right stereo channel that you created? Or are you saying that when you render the mono track, having sent it to a stereo reverb - and somehow it comes back in stereo on the mono channel? Is this possible?

Are you simply trying to add the verb to your mono track before mix down, with the intention of removing the external verb after having done this? Why not bring back just one leg (Left or Right) of the external verb unit?

Haha, I am confused here, sorry.

4

I’m not using an external reverb.

What I’m saying is in a nutshell:

If you use a stereo track you cant route to an external mono processor like a compressor.
If you use a mono track you cant use a stereo plugin.

This combined with the fact that things like melodyne ARA are flakey and not integrated fully with Cubase means the lack of flexibility can be frustrating.

At the end of the day I can just create a new track - either mono or stereo - and shift the plugins and audio over to the new track to suit my needs but we shouldn’t have to do that as it’s a work around.

It would be handy if in the routing section of the channel we could shift from mono to stereo - stereo to mono at different stages in the insert chain. I appreciate that this only really going to be appropriate for a mono source but it’d be useful.