The use of stereo tracks

[The Unavoidable]

Yeah whats that aboot?

I'm just using mono tracks when I record, becuse I have no idea on what the benefits/uses of stereo tracks are.

Someone enlighten me!

 

[natasinfected]

You should stick to Mono channels from guitars to drums (overheads included) unless you are recording some stereo synths or things like that.

 

[Skinny Viking]

can also come in handy for reducing track counts (if thats an issue) ...

example:

you have 9 tracks of backing harmony choir vocals, 3 sets of 3 voices doing the same part. You can use stereo tracks to bounce down to ... get a good balance of sound from one set of the 3 with your panning and levels and then bounce down to a stereo track. Do this 2 more times with the other 2 sets. You now have 3 stereo tracks which uses the equal to 6 mono, or if you feel frisky and the balance isn't vital, you can bounce all 9 down to 1 stereo track. This way you would only be using the equal of 2 mono tracks instead of 9.

Again, this can be helpful if you're limited in the amount of tracks you have (PTLE without upgrade) or just to help make your workspace a little more efficient.

Cheers!

www.myspace.com/shadowdancemusic

 

[greyskull]

i use them for overheads and room and things that are stereo.

 

[Ihsahn1981]

Some plugins only work on stereo tracks.. Other than that its cool to use mono for most things. Saves disk space too..

 

[vespiz]

Sometimes, if you track something in stereo, for instance acoustic guitars and synths, it tends to "blend" nicely into the stereofield. Sometimes it works better than double tracking. Mono mics are often called spot mics, because they "shine a spotlight" at a sound (er...) and stereo is like a bigger picture. (Damn, talking about audio IS like dancing architecture!)

 

[Ihsahn1981]

Sometimes, if you track something in stereo, for instance acoustic guitars and synths, it tends to "blend" nicely into the stereofield. Sometimes it works better than double tracking. Mono mics are often called spot mics, because they "shine a spotlight" at a sound (er...) and stereo is like a bigger picture. (Damn, talking about audio IS like dancing architecture!)

Indeed. If you're doing lots of "complicated" picking on acoustic guitar its near impossible to do multiple takes. Stereo micing is absolutely necessary.

 

[Force666]

I just use them for importing stereo tracks if need be. Even for a stereo source I just use 2 mono channels.

 

[PostMortem1666]

I like to use stereo tracks on overheads and things such as that so I can put a compressor on it once and be able to hit bypass to hear the difference rather than having to copy and paste the settings and put those on the right side of the overheads and then having to bypass both to hear the difference.

 

[The Unavoidable]

Sometimes, if you track something in stereo, for instance acoustic guitars and synths, it tends to "blend" nicely into the stereofield. Sometimes it works better than double tracking. Mono mics are often called spot mics, because they "shine a spotlight" at a sound (er...) and stereo is like a bigger picture. (Damn, talking about audio IS like dancing architecture!)

So, would you track it like normal but on a stereo track, or track with two seperate mics on one stereotrack?

 

[vespiz]

So, would you track it like normal but on a stereo track, or track with two seperate mics on one stereotrack?

2 separate mics into one stereotrack (otherwise, it's just a mono recording on a stereotrack, which is just a waste of tracks)

 

[Keiffer]

So, would you track it like normal but on a stereo track, or track with two seperate mics on one stereotrack?

you can track a mono source with a stereo file, but it's a waste of disc space and processing.

use Mono for Single mics, and Stereo when the pair are associated e.g Overheads, Stereo cab, Blumlein config, X-Y, and so on...

Stereo tracks makes life convenient.

 

[DestroyTheColossus]

One of my teachers said that it sounds cleaner to record your master to a stereo track than it does to bounce down the tracks. So rather than bouncing, you would bus your stereo mix to a stereo track and record it there.

 

[Metaltastic]

One of my teachers said that it sounds cleaner to record your master to a stereo track than it does to bounce down the tracks. So rather than bouncing, you would bus your stereo mix to a stereo track and record it there.

Hmm, I wonder if that depends on the DAW, cuz of summing engines and all...

 

[AudioGeekZine]

This thread makes my head hurt, I'm just waiting for JBroll to rip you all a new one.

so when you guys learned about audio engineering/recording you skipped right to the reamping, using impulses etc. missing the basics like the difference between mono and stereo.

 

[Jaymz]

I don't trust teachers...

 

[JeffTD]

Hmm, I wonder if that depends on the DAW, cuz of summing engines and all...

Yup... it bypasses the DAW's internal summing engine and gives you a way more accurate representation than 'exporting a mixdown' would give.

 

[colonel kurtz]

One of my teachers said that it sounds cleaner to record your master to a stereo track than it does to bounce down the tracks. So rather than bouncing, you would bus your stereo mix to a stereo track and record it there.

i was told to do the same myself by a rec. arts teacher in protools HD. i always assumed, though, that it had to do with the teacher's past familiarity with analog processing, where of course the tracks from the multitrack machine are summed in the console, then recorded to 2-track tape from there.

sounds like a good candidate for a null test...

 

[colonel kurtz]

well, scratch the null test idea for cubase...there's no way to route the main out/master fader to another track

anyone want to try this with PT? i'd be pretty curious to see whether the files completely cancelled each other out.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

well, scratch the null test idea for cubase...there's no way to route the main out/master fader to another track

anyone want to try this with PT? i'd be pretty curious to see whether the files completely cancelled each other out.

The difference is when the system is really taxed, automation and MIDI may glitch or be ignored when using bounce to disk (that is the rumor)
Another difference is you can't dither, recording your 24 bit mix internally to another track will still be 24 bit. You can quickly export it from pt with ctrl K, and interleave it, but no dither options.

Personally I do record to track rather than bounce to disk, this way my mix bus compression and master limiter get recorded and are not just monitored.
I personally don't care about dithering as it makes such a minute difference whether you do or not, if it indeed does anything at all. Why bother.

The biggest difference you will hear (for the better) is when you are using outboard analog summing devices like the Dangerous D-Box.