Mono is the best i maybe 34 years old, which may come to a shock as younger ones loves stereo or used to it more, but you feel more on Mono and AM Radio.
Hi Joe, 6 years ago I learned from you the difference between balanced & unbalanced cables, it was great lesson and in fact you helped me making the right decision during my first studio build; thanks for that. But, believe it or not, even nowadays I get confused between a balanced cable and stereo headphone cable (because their ends “the TRS jacks” look exactly the same) I’ve read many articles saying that a headphone cable is not balanced although it looks balanced! In short, the subject “mono/stereo” sometimes gets confused with “balanced/unbalanced”. A detailed video for beginners (with examples showing real cables or sound waves on Studio One) would really help us. And I guess you will be the first one doing it on RU-vid 👏🏼😍 It will be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Yeah this is a good point! As far as I understand it, the cable could be interchangeable - physically the same for stereo vs balanced signals (it just needs to have the extra conductor and TRS/XLR plug). What makes all the difference is what kind of signal the source device is outputting and what kind of signal the receiving device is expecting/interpreting (and obviously you want both devices on the same page here otherwise you wouldn't get the desired result!).
Same here! If I record vocal via stereo cable, would it works like double time voice recording? If not then what is the purpose of stereo instrument/vocal cables?
Dude you are an amazing teacher.. I'm new to music production and I just love your explanations. You know what it's like to not know anything about production and that makes all the difference.
I'm super new to the music production world, and this video just blew my mind. I never realized that by duplicating a track and panning them it wasn't actually making them stereo. Thank you for the helpful video! I will make sure to do it correctly going forward!
I always did the "duplicate one track and pan it L/R"- thing when recording my guitar to make it stereo. Thank you Joe for opening my eyes :) greetings from Germany !
Great explanation of the differences between mono and stereo Joe. I'm mixing for a client who uses Protools to record and that is one thing that he continues to struggle with. He loves the panning effects and little tricks that I do to his tracks, but he doesn't really grasp why it sounds so good to him. He just calls it "creamy". It's cool though. Maybe I'll just send him this video and he will finally get it. LOL! Thanks again for taking the time to make this. 😉
Finally someone who not only says; "you need to use a compressor", but also explains 'hands on control how to do it in clear terms. Long time ago i found such a great speaker without the 2020 visual distractions. Uplifting!!!
Now that you ask, this video touched the subject of phase. I think I may have seen one of your videos talking about it but, if not, there's a subject. Also, what is sound, signal flow, adda conversion... and, if it's not out of the scope of your channel, basic music theory oriented to recording/mixing engineers. Tools for understanding chords, writing and recording main and backing vocals, basic rythim and how to edit percussion... theese are the ones that come to my mind now.
A few years ago I went into a high-end hi-fi shop in London to get a pair of headphones. They had a rack that was plugged into a player that allowed you to swap between different styles of music - rock, jazz, classical etc. I put a pair of headphones on and it was playing classical music. I thought it was a bit odd that this obviously recent recording was in mono. I swapped to another channel and got some jazz... again in mono! I got the attention of a member of staff and asked him about it. He took the headphones and put one side up to an ear, then the other side up to the other ear. "No, they're both working." he said. Although he'd just been talking in fancy tones about the virtues of a £3,500 amplifier to another customer, he didn't know the difference between two speakers and stereo. I made a note of the headphones I liked the best, and bought them from a store down the road. (Which was actually selling them for a good deal less).
we just recorded our lead vocals for our blues track Sleepless with a pair of Lewitt LCT 040 Match condensor mics in XY and got some amazing stereo vocals crazy good mics with Studio One 3 Professional LR stereo track and a Left mono and a right mono tracks worked fabulously
What a wonderful video! I was confused about this, and you made it clear and easy to understand. Always thought stereo meant “Better”, but now I see that’s not the context. Thanks for making this!
Wow - this was amazing! I am a beginner music producer, attempting to stay afloat all of the overwhelming amounts of things to know and start with the basics, and you explained this so well! I watched a few other vids on this subject but they kept veering away from the basics, so thank you for really being so thorough! Also your humor was amazing (laughed when you called us "turbo" lmao) and your kindess at the end, of how there's no shame in starting at level 1, thank you! :) I subbed, and will be scouring your channel!
I'm big on presonus!!! Hands down the best audio equipment. Everything in my studio came from presonus if don't have the eris monitors your missing out fa real. I just love y'all products. keep schooling em joe
Thank you , Thank You and Thank you Joe so much , the two microphones thing that you said clears a lot of my doubt that i had, thank you once again for being there
The way I learned this stuff was from spending MY money on something THEN finding out what mistakes I was Making ! SubWoofers takes your Mono or Stereo signal and splits it up into a high-Medium Hz zone and keeps most of the Bass to itself using "The Crossover". Another thing is Patch bays.............there are standards to be used. They if are BALANCED they will take and use your UNBALANCED cable and give you a good signal. If your Patch bay is Unbalanced it will not.RU-vid makes it easy to learn now thanks too people who give such as YOU Joe.
Joe you are wonderfully concise and clear with your instruction. Love the channel! Having said that, I have no idea what was on those post it notes hahaha
Hi Joe! Thanks for putting this together! My RU-vid channel contains many DES [Digitally Extracted Stereo] audio conversions from mono recordings. I recently had a subscriber ask me what was the difference between mono & stereo. I was at a loss as how to summarize it. Now I can simply direct them to this great video you've prepared and avoid having to type a 1000-word essay on what stereo is. Thanks Joe! Well done!
Thanks for this video Joe, it really helped a rookie like me understand recording in mono and stereo. You said that you hope a video like this will make us want to go make music....I have the music, this video is making want to make said music sound the way I want it to. I tried the duplicate track thing and it's close. Now Im going to implement the GIRATS method and record properly. Thanks for your insight and delivering it in a way wven a rookie like me can understand.Thanks brother!
OMG BLESS YOU for explaining this. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to understand this concept and the explanations are always so confusing! every time I hit "new track" and the option comes up I feel like an idiot... no more! Thank you thank you subscribing now!
Though I know now but still an awesome video, I remember coming into the audio world not knowing what reverb, saturation, compressor and etc even meant or what they did.
Never to Old to Learn - I understand the principal you’ve explained in your video here … no problem? But ,,, ! I’m still sort of between two sources in my monohead regarding what I used to think was a stereo amplifier ie. Two completely separate circuits - regardless they’re identical one for left channel or speaker and the other for that on the right each has + and - pole. Whereas, it’s easier to visualize the two signal wires and a common or ground wire shared . Of course this depends on the input signal where… It’s over to you Thanks for the clarity of your vid
A lot of VST default to ouput two channels which you assume are stereo, but many are only outputting two tracks of a mono signal. The only way to tell if a source is actually sending out stereo is to switch the polarity of one channel and then sum the left and right. If there is still a signal, it is stereo (i.e. the difference between the two signals) if there is no signal, it means signal in both channels was the same mono signal. Even two mikes placed incorrectly can result in what is for all intents and purposes two channels of the same signal.
Thank you brother. I always wondered how do I know when to use mono or stereo on Guitar, bass, keys/piano, or drums. I at least know vocals are usually always mono.
Great content! Quick note on your statement in here about not recording guitars offset in time. This actually was and is done when it pertains to double tracking. Depending on the lag time of the track you get anything from flange to chorus and eventually a slapback. As you mention lag between the tracks does create a phasing issue, which is also relatively easy to solve. Check out Strymon Deco for a pedal that exploits this sort of tape era effect. Cheers, keep up the good work.
The stereo/ mono switch is also useful for samples that are stereo that work better as mono. Bass and kick particularly. Keeping things under 100hz mono sounds so much fatter, clearer, impactful, and cleaner
Awesome video thanks. I'm just getting started and your explanation was super clear. Weird that I clicked on yours when I had the whole "duplicating a track" question and voila, you answered it. Thanks Joe!
I feel like a little kid in kinder garden with my open mouth learning what is mono or stereo so i learned if you just recording with one mic your voice or guitar is mono even you like it is stereo it is not. So i accept that fact.
Hey buddy, stereo really means "solid". I learned that from Stereo Review magazine decades ago. The word has some Greek origin. "Bi" is for two - bicycle, bisexual, etc.
Joe as a newbie, this question has been driving me nuts for months. I didn't even know how to frame my questions. Thanks so much for this tutorial. Do you have another one, that shows how to use/mix a stereo track like you talked about with say the x/y mic set up on an acoustic guitar. Many thanks
Brother, I can't tell you how thankful I am for this video, it was very helpful for me. I really want to become a solid Producer but it is so hard for. me not to get frustrated at myself. There are just so many producer terms and stuff that I just don't know and nobody, I mean nobody is explaining this terms like you just did. All that to say thank you so much! Also I want to mention that I'm very much a beginner on this, I'm using Logic Pro x, I don't know how to properly use compression or EQ or any of this things, I guess I know what kind of sound I'm looking for but I don't know how to achieve it yet. Do you have any suggestions for me moving forward? Thank you again Brother!
So, duplicating a guitar part and panning left and right would essentially be in stereo…technically, if no one knew? And with creative mixing could sound good. And essentially, be unnoticeable to most people driving in their cars? And if I plug straight into a DAW, is there some kind of technology within the interface software that can record that guitar in stereo? I know it’s not the best way, just trying to get an understanding of the rationale behind all this. Thanks! 🎸🇺🇸
Thanks for this and all your great videos. I just two-mic’d my acoustic guitar into TWO MONO TRACKS! My thinking was that this would give me flexibility in mixing: maybe an insert effect on the neck mic and less of it on the sound-hole mic - or something. Could I have had these options if I had used one stereo track?
How about electric instruments that have stereo outputs (I'm thinking more specifically of those found on keyboards or guitar cabinets/pedals)? How do they generate a stereo signal? Does it sound good as stereo? If so, why can't that same processing be used to make anything stereo?
Hello, great video, can you talk about the "automation track" and how and why to use it? When i add a new track I have these "audio", "instrument" and "automation" track
thank you for sharing the great information. May I know what is the best configuration for recording VOICE only 😂? Using Stereo or Mono setting? Using 44.1 or 48KHz? I am using OBS to record my voice for my investment course. Thank you so much 😁
In 9:05 (transform from mono channel to stereo channel): when doing parallel compression the old way by creating a bus , for example for a mono recording like Vocals, do I have to transform that bus to mono in Studio One? How could you forget to mention that Joe...my heart is still pumping:)
Hey Joe, I have tried everything that you recommended in Studio One and once I got out of my own way it's night and day! I love tracking everything through my mixer and pushing physical faders. It's the best of both worlds to me. But once it's in Studio One it plays back to the console in a stereo mix only. Is there a way to send it back to the board individually? So that Studio one is literally acting like tape... Thanks Joe Mike
