How do you fix "mono" compatibility issues in your mixes?

[Zarabozo]

Hi All,

I'd like to know how each of you work to make your mixes compatible with mono sound.

I've been reading and googling a lot regarding this and very few people talk about real pro technics or methodologies to mix properly and make the mix compatible with both stereo and mono.

Also, it's incredible how much people talks about mono compatibility like it's something that doesn't really matter "that much", saying things like "if someone is going to listen to your mix in mono, then it's someone with a crappy device and probably won't pay any attention to the mix anyway".

Mono is incredibly important and there's a lot of situations where a song will sound in mono. Just to mention a few:

1) Youtube videos not loaded in HD can automatically have sound in mono.
2) TV shows constantly play songs/videos in mono even when they boradcast in stereo.
3) A lot of clubs play music in mono to all speakers, and the same can happen in any place where music is played in a lot of distributed speakers.
4) FM radios automatically change from stereo to mono as frequently as the signal gets interference or gets weak.
5) A lot of portable music players have a single speaker.
6) Lots of commercials on TV/Radio use songs in mono for the background music.

Contrary to what many people thinks, we are not living in a world where mono is something from the past. It's very, very important, that any mix can sound as good in mono as it sounds in stereo. It's something that you can notice in 99% of any real professional production in the market (e.g. top studio, top engineer, top mastering house) when you listen to the songs in mono, they really sound very close to the mix in stereo, including eq.

However, it's something that can be really hard to get. It's extremely easy to have a very good recording, with what seems to be a great mix in stereo, and find out that it sounds terribly bad when you test it in mono. You start noticing lots of phase issues, unintentional changes in the levels, lost reverbs/delays, lost high-end frequencies, etc.

Some people claim that the best thing to do, is to mix everything in mono from the start (real mono, listening to a single monitor preferently or having the master stereo channel hard panned to the center), and when the mixing is finished, then open the sound to the stereo monitors and start panning whatever you want. However, most of those people also seem to ignore that you need a -6db panning law (known as pan depth in Pro Tools session settings) to have a 100% compatible with mono panning - otherwise you are simply altering the mix you did in mono as soon as you touch a panner.

So, I'm really interested in knowing what you guys do about this and how much weigth you put into having a mix compatible with mono.

Also, is there something that real professionals of audio processing (generally mastering studios) do to fix a mix that is already printed into a stereo file/tape/disk, when it sounds great in stereo and very bad in mono?

Cheers,

Francisco

[JFreak]

To begin with, everything is mono compatible if you have all your tracks in either L, C or R panning; assuming you have a good recording that does not have phasing issues. Stereo effects *may* break mono so you need to toggle it on and off while you mix to make sure you're not introducing mono problems. You need to build it from ground up, not fix it in the shrink-wrap.

Sure, center channel can be enhanced later on, but doing so alters the mix so it'd be better to do the mix all over again if it's not mono compatible (=finished).

Google about "LCR mixing", that is a mono-compatible technique for someone who is paranoid about phasing issues. Basically it means that because there are only three panning positions that are mono compatible, every other panning position may be a problem with mono. They rarely are, but still.

Reverbs are many times lost, because mostly people nowadays use stereo or greater-than-stereo reverbs. Use mono reverbs and your mono mix sounds better. Also try to use shorter reverbs or very short delays or very slight detuning to thicken the track. These tricks are still valid for a mono mix; obviously you cannot have a 5.1 reverb on a mono mix so that is just basically lost.

Good luck and happy learning!

[Zarabozo]

Originally Posted by JFreak

To begin with, everything is mono compatible if you have all your tracks in either L, C or R panning; assuming you have a good recording that does not have phasing issues. Stereo effects *may* break mono so you need to toggle it on and off while you mix to make sure you're not introducing mono problems. You need to build it from ground up, not fix it in the shrink-wrap.

LCR is 100% mono compatible only if your pan law is set at -6db or you don't move any pan knob during the mix. And yes, phasing issues can appear, even on very good recordings (e.g. two different instruments/signals that happen to have very similar waves).

Some reverbs, for example, are designed in a way that sound great in stereo and not only sound bad in mono but also create phase cancellation and directly affect the clean signal when summed. Sometimes that can be improved by adding a pre-delay but that's not always what you're looking for in the mix.

I understand a lot regarding mono compatibility. I wanted to create this thread not to just learn the basics, but to really known more and deeply about what other experienced guys do to have mixes that can sound great in mono too. I'm also really interested in what mastering engineers do regarding mono compatibility.

I actually thought this thread would have a lot more answers and eventually contain a lot of good info.

[albee1952]

Mono compatibility can rear its ugly head, depending on how you mix. For instance, if you create fake double tracking by duplicating a track and nudging it, that is likely to NOT go to mono well at all. The most important thing you can do is; listen to some of your mixes in mono before they leave your studio.

[Kasper]

Avoid fake stereo sources, anything that uses phase changes to create the illusion of stereo.

This includes many samples and synths (soft and real)

Fake stereo effects, mono to stereo effects.

And any real stereo/multi mic sources can have phase issues too.

As stated, just check it in mono along the way as you mix.
Many people don't have a mono button anymore, but I use the one on my board all the time (you can set one up in software too, if you don't have one on your mixer/monitor chain)

Check your mix through a crappy mono speaker.
That's what Auratones were all about

kasper