kabbalisticvillage
IsraTrance Senior Member
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Posted : Feb 1, 2012 17:43:33
This is embarassing but now that im working in Logic and everything has an option for stereo or mono or surround.....what is the difference between stereo and mono exactly?why would someone make a sound stereo and not mono or vica versa?Thanks.
www.soundcloud.com/kabbalisticvillage http://www.facebook.com/KabbalisticVillage
The Greatest Sophistication is figuring out how not to be sophisticated
Suloo
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Feb 1, 2012 17:52
mono = 1 speaker, or both speakers playing the exact same thing.
stereo = 2 speakers (or more) with different audio coming out of the left/right sides.
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orange
Fat Data
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Posted : Feb 1, 2012 17:57
Equilizyme
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Feb 1, 2012 19:40
mono is where the speakers play the same thing. we perceive that sound to be in the center of the stereo field.
stereo separation is crucial technique for production. I mean, listen to the intro of this song for example, the harmonies are separated in the stereo field and the effect is awesome! in mono it would sound all mushy, or at least not as clear.
theoretically, all sounds can be separated from one another without the use of EQ; simply by binaural effect. if you are more interested look up the binaural effect on wiki.
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http://soundcloud.com/equilizyme --
mudpeople
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Posted : Feb 2, 2012 06:06
I HIGHLY MEGA-ULTRA-SUPER-GIANT recommend reading this:
It was a real eye-opener 'Ohhh, THAT'S how it is!' moment, followed shortly thereafter by a double click on the nearest DAW (I recommend Reaper, even if you're unfamiliar. Converting stereo audio files to mono is as difficult as right clicking, and since it doesn't alter the source WAV the result is pretty much instantaneous. Also the demo is identical to the registered version, just with a nag, perhaps the best nag ever written that doesn't lock anything, theoretically you could leave it up til the heat-death of the baryonic universe).
It wont take more than a minute's conversion-work to understand.
Just think of how much more control you can have by splitting a stereo channel into a left and right mono channel. And messing around with their pannings. Duplicating. Tweaking levels. Isolating freqs with filters. Effecting each individually.
Think about panning 2 stereo channels left and right. Both contain essentially 2 parallel mono channels occupying parallel panoramic positions. To visualize, a single stereo channel at the 0 pan position looks like this
..|.|..
2 stereo channels panned hard left and right might look like:
|.|..|.|
But a single stereo broken into 2 mono channels, hard panned l and r could appear:
|......|
Things don't behave nearly that orderly in real life; for example when a stereo channel is panned 100% to one side the channels pretty much overlap and become a mixed mono channel. But I find it a helpful visualization.
I've been mainly referring to working with WAV stems (working with audio instead of active synths, effects, and MIDI gets rid of tons of CPU usage, which can then be used for all sorts of madness), but theres at least one or 2 vst effects and one Ableton device I know of that converts the channel to mono.
But seriously, read the Wiki links.
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orgytime
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Feb 2, 2012 10:46
if you never understood this, you also never understood what certain effects like chorus does to your signal.
or why your synths are getting fatter by panning one osc left and one right, then detune. get into this, this helps alot.
mblane
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Posted : Feb 7, 2012 13:55
I mean this in the nicest possible kabbalisticvillage but i find it astounding that you can go without such basic knowledge, yet your productions sound so great! Honestly i really like your tunes.
I guess it just goes to show you don't have to know all the technical knowledge as long as you have a good ear for what sounds good!
http://soundcloud.com/mattlane
