Summing a stereo track to mono

[scadh]

I use Ocean Way Drums DL as my primary drum module. While the sound is great, the downside of the DL version (now apparently discontinued) is that there are no discrete channels for the stereo room mics. Instead the room mics are blended into each kit piece channel in three different preset levels (dry, medium and ambient). Because of this, all kit piece samples are stereo. I have the full-version of Kontakt so I can set up independent mono channels for each kit piece and route them to independent mono track in Pro Tools, but then I have lost half of the stereo room mic sample.

I hate mixing all stereo tracks (especially trying to pan stereo tracks -- it just doesn't seem to be as clean), so I have been getting around this by recording the stereo samples to stereo tracks in Pro Tools (one for each kit piece), manually splitting each stereo track to mono and then bussing the two resulting mono tracks back back to a single mono track. And that just sucks. Is there a better way? Is there a plugin, perhaps, that could be instantiated on a mono track that would accept the stereo in from Kontakt and sum it to mono on the fly? Seems unlikely, but I'm kind of grasping at straws here.

In hindsight, I wish I had just saved up a bit more cash until I could find a better deal on Ocean Way Silver, which includes mono and stereo samples, plus discrete sets of stereo room mics so that levels can be set independently (instead of just dry, medium, ambient). With DL, if the medium preset has not quite enough room but ambient has too much, the only option is to bus ambient to another reverb, which feels strange adding reverb to the room mics.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by scadh

I hate mixing all stereo tracks (especially trying to pan stereo tracks -- it just doesn't seem to be as clean), so I have been getting around this by recording the stereo samples to stereo tracks in Pro Tools (one for each kit piece), manually splitting each stereo track to mono and then bussing the two resulting mono tracks back back to a single mono track. And that just sucks. Is there a better way? Is there a plugin, perhaps, that could be instantiated on a mono track that would accept the stereo in from Kontakt and sum it to mono on the fly? Seems unlikely, but I'm kind of grasping at straws here.

To do this on the fly, you could record straight into a mono track by sending the source stereo track on a mono bus..

Shane

[shea]

Originally Posted by Shan

To do this on the fly, you could record straight into a mono track by sending the source stereo track on a mono bus..

Shane

Fantastic,very handy indeed,God you learn something new every day.

This is exactly what im talking about in the silly post in the (pt on win vista 64bit thread)

Shane dont you even think of moving to reaper,don't make sence.

shea

[nst7]

Maybe you could contact the company to find out if maybe there's an upgrade path to the gold edition.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by shea

Fantastic,very handy indeed,God you learn something new every day.

This is exactly what im talking about in the silly post in the (pt on win vista 64bit thread)

Shane dont you even think of moving to reaper,don't make sence.

shea

I use both Pro Tools and REAPER in my day to day work and will continue to do so. Each has it's unique strengths that better suite different parts of a project and session.

Shane

[scadh]

Originally Posted by Shan

To do this on the fly, you could record straight into a mono track by sending the source stereo track on a mono bus..

Shane

Excellent tip, thank you! I haven't had an opportunity to try it out yet, but presumably the stereo track is automatically summed to mono when it hits the bus?

Assuming so, that would mean a bunch of temporary tracks at first, but that tracking could be completed in a single pass rather than two! Good deal.

Thanks!

[scadh]

Originally Posted by nst7

Maybe you could contact the company to find out if maybe there's an upgrade path to the gold edition.

I'm going to contact them to try exactly that (except to Silver rather than Gold). I intend the play the "poor me" card to the fullest, since the promise of the DL version was that additional kits -- including the multi-channel kits) could be purchased a la cart. None of those kits are available for purchase on that site I purchased it from (downloadablesoundz, which I think is Sonic Reality's online store).

Further, the site has also some lost the $39 credit balance I had remaining on my account after my purchase. My account now reflects $0.

Between those failings, perhaps they'll have pity on me and offer me a discounted upgrade to Silver. :)

[Shan]

Originally Posted by scadh

Excellent tip, thank you! I haven't had an opportunity to try it out yet, but presumably the stereo track is automatically summed to mono when it hits the bus?

Yes.

Originally Posted by scadh

Assuming so, that would mean a bunch of temporary tracks at first, but that tracking could be completed in a single pass rather than two! Good deal.

Thanks!

You can make inactive and hide your temp tracks for session management.

Shane

[scadh]

Originally Posted by Shan

Yes.

You can make inactive and hide your temp tracks for session management.

Shane

Oh I know. I actually will just delete the temp stereo once tracking is done.