a plugin to check your mix in mono

[Stephen Bond]

Like you can believe everything you read online

[JFreak]

True

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by Stephen Bond

Pretty sure monitoring the mono component of a M/S signal is different to summing a stereo to mono?

Anyhow, in the old Digi 001 days using the Waves S1 Stereo imager on the master was the standard with the width fader at 0.

https://www.waves.com/plugins/s1-stereo-imager

Stephen

Yeah I thought that at first too, years back. Then I did some checking. The maths for mid-side is...

mid = L + R
side = L - R

When you hit the Mono button it sums the left and right together. That’s effectively the same as the mid equation. So it does indeed work out.

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by Stephen Bond

I just double checked in Pro Tools for my own peace of mind and blow a few cobwebs away!

Indeed. I stand corrected. Summing to mono using the width on the S1 Imager (or Width at 0% on the AIR Stereo Width plugin) is the same as pressing the M button on any M/S plugin.

Each saw a -6dB drop in level of my test tone from hard left to mono.

Panning the channel to centre (using the pan pot) gives whatever the Pan Depth is set to in Session setup (-3.0 dB in my case).

Stephen

Actually I didn’t think of the S1. That’s certainly another way to go. Stick an S1 at the end of the stereo bus with the width set to 0, and activate it every time you want to do a mono check.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by simon.a.billington

When you hit the Mono button it sums the left and right together.

Back in 80's we used to solder L+R together in Y-cable when we used subs (for mono). Then added coil and capacitor between amp and speaker (for lowpass filter). I bet this is mostly lost art nowadays...

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by simon.a.billington

Actually I didn’t think of the S1. That’s certainly another way to go. Stick an S1 at the end of the stereo bus with the width set to 0, and activate it every time you want to do a mono check.

Best if your monitor controller just had the mono button

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Back in 80's we used to solder L+R together in Y-cable when we used subs (for mono). Then added coil and capacitor between amp and speaker (for lowpass filter). I bet this is mostly lost art nowadays...

In the 80s I was a teenager sneaking into my sister’s room and borrowing her cassette deck and I was connecting that plus my little keyboard to the stereo on the lounge room. Basically I came up with this way of layering multiple parts to make a recording.

In later years I found out this is how it all started way back when and it was commonly called “sound on sound” recording.

Man self discovery rocks.

Originally Posted by JFreak

Best if your monitor controller just had the mono button

Yeah, not many of have the luxury of one of those, though.