Recording with stereo tracks: Question..

[Tom Harmon]

I thought I'd try recording with two mics, one for voice and one for guitar... using stereo tracks on both. Whe I do this, only the right channel records on each of the two stereo tracks.. Why doesn't the left channel on each record? Tom

[graveleye]

Tom, when you are using stereo tracks, you need a stereo signal for each track. IOW, if you are running a stereo track for your guitar, you will need two mics for the track. Same with the vocal stereo track. When you only have one mic plugged into the stereo track it will only record one side.
In order to accomplish the complete stereo that you are describing, you will need 4 mics 2 for the stereo guitar and two for the stereo vocal. I hope I am making sense.

hehe... where is rail? He will be by in a bit and sum it up perfectly in 2 words or so

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Firstly - why do you want to record the vocal and guitar in stereo? If you're going to record the same source to both tracks - you're not gaining anything.. except wasting disk space. You'd only record in stereo if there was something to be gained.. like you'd use 2 microhones (in your example 4 mics) and get some kind of dimensional space.. but IMO you'd end up with more phasing issues recording the vocal via two microphones than it'll be worth.

Record the vocal to a single microphone to a mono track.. and the guitar, if you like using more than one microphone, record each mic to it's own track.. but watch out for phase issue.

Rail

[nikki-k]

Hi!
Yep- I cannot think of a reason I would use a stereo track for recording.
Even with a stereo (or multiple mic) source, I would still use multiple mono tracks. This affords more flexability, IMHO. I do stereo guitar tracks, as well as mic/DI for bass. Still do seperate mono tracks. Linking channels to use in a "stereo fashion" keeps em the same if you want, unlinking frees up the ability to go to town on pans and such.

[Tom Harmon]

Thank you all for the replyts... you're right! makes no sense to have stereo channels for one mic.. but I thought thats what they were doing in one of the articles in Digizine.. thanks.. Tom