Stereo or Mono signal for Vocals?

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:16 pm

I have been debating about this with myself for a bit and decided to ask the crew here what your opinions are.
This is the path I use for recording VOCALS.

After my mic I currently use a tube pre-amp to a Digitech Studio 4 (for a bit of compression) then send a stereo signal out to my DAW. I have found that the stereo signal is much nicer and fuller when I send the signal to the DAW stereo. So I use a STEREO vocal track to work with.
Does any one have preferences or is this out of the norm? I would really appreciate some feedback.
B

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:52 am

If you prefer the sound of the stereo vocal track, go with it. You are presumably mixing down to a 2-track CD with the vocals nominally centred anyway, so it makes little difference to subsequent processing.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:28 am

From your description, you are not stereo!!
Its a double mono.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:17 pm

Here's a good way to see if you're actually stereo or not (and my guess is you're not...you're probably dual mono as TVPS states).

Take your stereo track and reverse the phase on only one side of the stereo track. If the sound goes away...double mono. If the sound changes but doesn't completely disappear...you're stereo. The latter is very unlikely (unless you're feeding it out of a reverb box too).

Cheers -

J.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:48 pm

Both good points. I will try that.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:51 pm

If it turns out you are in dual mono, so you are in a situation that shouldn't sound different, but does...the answer usually turns out to be that one setting is slightly louder than the other for some odd reason. Easiest way to fool yourself on A/B comparisons is not to match the volumes exactly (and darn tough to do right).

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