My question for everyone w/ any experience (opinions) When you mix a song in a DAW do you keep the tracks mono or create stereo single tracks? I have been mixing w/ all stereo tracks by creating stereo image wave files. So basically I go through all the tracks of the song make them stereo mixdowns and some light processing. Then I make a new template for the mixdon and enter in the stereo tracks accordingly. I feel that when I have these stereo files I can achieve more creative panning of the tracks.
So, I guess my real question is your opinions on this approach. Pros & Cons, cuz its sounding good this way for me. . Sometimes keeping some tracks mono and making some stereo sounds good too, like clearer/spacial. Any feed back on this would be greatly appreciated.
kind regards to all
jer 8-)
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thanks for feedback Yeah I just experiment too. Thats why I had
thanks for feedback
Yeah I just experiment too. Thats why I had to post this question about mixing. Some songs just have a narrow width to the PAN L AND R. Then an engineer would want to, say, increase the stereo field w/ Stereo Imagining. I find better results by recording and mic placement, add in natural reverbs somewhat. That way I get a natural sounding room or not. Trying to find a landscape for the song is really hard. Well thnx for the reply its makes a lotta sense. :D
I posted this once before and I never determined conclusively, b
I posted this once before and I never determined conclusively, but as memory serves, at least one application (Nuendo) requires that you record monaural source material on stereo tracks in order to get stereo-ization out of stereo effects. In other words, if you recorded a guitar track with a single mic to a mono track and applied reverb in sometime afterward, the reverb would be entirely monaural as well. To create a stereo track and record mono information to it, however--identical information in both Left and Right channels--would let you use stereo effects to their full potential.
Barring this, though, to ever record stereo sources as hard-L/R stereo tracks must require tremendous forsight and I don't see a huge benefit.
It really depends on the arrangement and instrumentation. I typ
It really depends on the arrangement and instrumentation. I typically record key elements with a stereo pair anyway, so there is no need to induce a stereo track from a mono. Sometimes I leave the two stereo mics on separate mono tracks. It might be just in my head, but I think this gives me more panning control; I can adjust the stereo width and its direction of the track that way. With a stereo channel the single pan knob the width seems harder to control on my DAW. But Like I said maybe it’s all in my head.
However if the instrument is not key, I tend to make it mono. This is for tracks that really don’t need space around them, or ones that I want to appear directionless or from a specific point in the stereo field.
But in the end, there are no real hard and fast rules for me, I just mess about until the sound makes me smile.