Subject:Mono monitoring tricks?

Posted by: dkistner

Date:6/16/2003 8:32:17 AM

I'm horrible at mixing, so I bought Bobby Owsinski's "Mixing Engineer's Handbook" and have started to implement some of the tips.

I got my busses set up and renamed to "Foundation," "Pad," "Rhythm," "Lead," "Fills" and put an instance of Inspector on each. Already I feel so much more organized and professional!

But I can't figure out a way to temporarily monitor the master or the busses in mono, as is recommended in the book. This is not the same thing as center panning of voices. It's having your panning settings set up for stereo, but you listen in mono and nudge the panning this way and that until (in the mono output) the instruments seem to "pop out" and sound like they're in the right place. This is apparently something most of the genius engineers do in the studio to get it just right.

If my headphones had a mono/stereo switch, this would work, but they don't. So is there any way to do it directly in Acid? Again, not by changing the panning settings to center. A plugin, maybe?

Subject:RE: Mono monitoring tricks?

Reply by: drbam

Date:6/16/2003 9:06:11 AM

As you may be aware, the lack of a mono monitoring feature has been complained about in the Vegas forum since . . . well forever. All good consoles have this feature but not the cheaper ones typically used for just monitoring purposes with home based DAWs. Its definitely a problem for a lot of folks. However, you mentioned in other posts that due to the type of music you create you typically monitor and mix with headphones. This being the case, mono monitoring is not something that I would be concerned with. Your music is designed primarily for headphone listening and if things are sounding good to you on a good set of phones, then I personally wouldn't be concerned with the mono issue. If your music might be played on radio, tv or film, then this become more of an issue to check out.

HTH,

drbam

Subject:RE: Mono monitoring tricks?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:6/16/2003 2:18:35 PM

Thanks, drbam. I didn't realize this was an issue on the Vegas forums!

I'm not concerned so much with mono-compatability in the end result as I am with trying out the technique of panning some things, then listening to them in mono to see if they seem to be sitting on top of each other and at what point they seem to "pop out" when I nudge the panning settings this way and that. I know there's a lot more to be concerned with in mixing than just this, but I got the impression that if you can use this trick to get the panning right to start with, then the EQing and such that you have to do to keep train wrecks from happening could be minimized.

I do have a second set of headphones with a mono/stereo switch, but I'll have to crawl under my desk and unplug my good headphones to try them. But I may do it just to see if there's anything to this trick. Surely somebody has written a plugin that would do this! But I don't even know where to start looking for such a thing, or what I would call it.

Subject:RE: Mono monitoring tricks?

Reply by: drbam

Date:6/16/2003 5:27:25 PM

>>I do have a second set of headphones with a mono/stereo switch, but I'll have to crawl under my desk and unplug my good headphones to try them. But I may do it just to see if there's anything to this trick. Surely somebody has written a plugin that would do this! But I don't even know where to start looking for such a thing, or what I would call it.<<

Yes perhaps there is a plugin for this (you might try posting your inquiry on the Sound Forge and Vegas forums). You may also consider purchasing a small 2 output headphone amp so you could easily check your mixes with both sets of phones. I mix with Mackie 824 monitors and check the mixes for panning, detail, problems, etc on 2 different sets of phones. Each set has its own characteristics and reveals things differently which ultimately aids my mixing decisions.

drbam

Subject:RE: Mono monitoring tricks?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:6/17/2003 8:27:47 AM

I didn't realize there was such a thing as a 2-output headphone amp. (I am not a hardware kind of gal.) I'll look for one, as this would be most helpful.

I did find a mono-making plugin, called aptly enough Monomaker by Marc Poirier of smartelectronix. You have to put it in a DX wrapper to use it in Acid, but so far it's working great. You can get degrees of merging from full stereo into full mono by sliding a slider, and it makes these cool globules kind of kiss each other, then merge. What would we do without our funky-gui plugins? :)

It's Windows...it's free.

I just put Monomaker in my master bus and can do what I wanted to do easily there. Then, when I'm done with it, I just uncheck it in the effects chain.

Subject:RE: Mono monitoring tricks?

Reply by: drbam

Date:6/17/2003 9:15:56 AM

>>I just put Monomaker in my master bus and can do what I wanted to do easily there. Then, when I'm done with it, I just uncheck it in the effects chain.<<

Great! It seems there's always someone out there who is creating just what we need. ;-)

drbam