Stereo mixing

[styleruk]

Hi all.

I get the feeling I'll get shot down here, but I'll give it a try anyway.
Bearing in mind, I am a complete amateur when it comes to this stuff.
I have owned a Tascam cassette mixer, a Roland zip drive mixer (still have that), and now I bought an M-audio air 192-6, which came with Pro tools first.
This question is about when I mix out or final mix if you like.
Let's say I start a project and record simply a guitar channel and a vocal channel through my M-Audio, I set a mono channel for each. when I have finished, I can add a master to control a few things and clean the track up with an EQ etc. but the balance will only act as a volume. EG; I scroll it left and I'll get full volume, as I scroll bast top dead centre to the right, the volume goes down.
So what is the best practice to output a stereo mix and can someone point me to a very easy step-by-step guide to do this.
I know there is a lot more to it, because I've come accross this before on my Tascam many, many years ago and managed to master that, never had the issue with my Roland, but with pro tools first, I'm getting a little muddled here.
Thank you.
Si

[JFreak]

Hi, welcome to the community.

Mixing is an art you need to learn by yourself. Youtube is full of tutorials regarding vocals, guitars, drum kit, etc... just pic a topic you are interested and try it out with your own material.

But this much I can say: stereo mix has a holy trinity of L, C, and R and you should learn to take advantage of those. And whtever you do your stuff should still sound good as mono.

[styleruk]

Appreciated, and I've mixed a lot in mono, but I've mixed a lot in Stereo over the years on other devices and even using other software eg audacity. But if anyone knows a good tutorial to this it would help.
I know there are tons of stuff online, but sometimes you find gem tutorials if you ask. Like bitesize 2min videos etc. I probably only need a quick reminder of something and it will click.

[JFreak]

Have you visited groove3.com already?

[styleruk]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Have you visited groove3.com already?

No, well, just now. That looks like something you pay for to me, maybe I'll have a read about it first.
Seems odd that I can mix very nice mono tracks, but if I wanted to pan a guitar to the left, the options are not there. It's although there's some kind of flip option. I've checked my routing and it all looks like it should work, but there's obviously something I'm not getting.
Up to now if I want to mix any kind of stereo track, I've output each channel and run them in audacity...seems the only way at the moment.

[JFreak]

I can see free 7-day trial right in the page header

[styleruk]

Originally Posted by JFreak

I can see free 7-day trial right in the page header

OK, missed that, all I saw was $ per month etc...a busy site. I'll have another look

[styleruk]

Originally Posted by JFreak

I can see free 7-day trial right in the page header

LOL, they want your credit card details first....no thank you.

[JFreak]

Suit yourself.. those have got good reviews here

[styleruk]

I've been through a ton of online help and come to the conclusion that the Pro tools first I have just simply cannot give this option. It's not an issue, most stuff I do is just for youtube live videos etc, so mono is good. When I record an album, I go to a studio and the engineer there knows what he's doing.
Odd though, that the pan does nothing here but change the volume, that's why I thought it might be how I've set up my hardware, but then audacity would have the same issue surely?
Every video I've watched, it seems so easy to set up. The steps to take are really baby steps, but it's simply not working for me. I have re-installed in case it was a bug...twice now.
Apart from that, I find PT quite easy to use for everything else, but if someone can suggest something or a simple to follow tutorial on this that'd be great. Thank you.