Ideas for making a mono signal stereo

[crs117]

I am in the middle of recording an acoustic session. I have an interlude between the verses that i recorded in mono (whish i had set up a second mic). I then have an acoustic part that plays the melody of the verses, and then i have a part that plays droned chords to fill in the small holes (nice effect). Anyay i pan the 2 parts left and right (partially off center not completley), but the mono interlude part in between the verses does not seem to fit well. The mix goes from an obvious stereo mix to mono real fast and it sounds kind of ugly. Any tips would be great.

Christian

[scardanelli]

1/ Copy the mono part to another track and delay it by a few milliseconds - 6-12 should do it.
or
2/ Insert a mono to stereo effect such as a chorus, delay etc on the mono track.

basically your depth of field just disappears when you drop to your mono guitar. You could also try just sending the mono git to a nice stereo spread reverb to lush it up a bit. There are loads of way to get rid of the drop in space you'ew experiencing, just experiment.

Hope this helps
Simon

[crs117]

I have been trying all of those methods. It seems as though when i apply any effect to one track and not the other, i get that swimmy effect (you can actually hear the sound wave moving). when i doubled the track and moved it slightly off center i got that natural chorus effect (almost sounded like an airplane taking off). I am trying to find a subtle stereo field effect so its not mono->stereo->mono again.

Thanks but any other tips.

Christian

[QuikDraw]

Christian,

Here's how I simulate stereo. It works well for me.

Create a stereo Aux. Buss the mono track(s) to the stereo Aux. Have the bus send that you use set to Post Fader. Insert a stereo Short Delay on the Aux. Set the Mix on both sides to 100% wet. Set the Depth, Modulation, and Feedback controls to 0. Now set the Delay on the left channel to maybe 9ms, and the right channel to maybe 17ms.

The actual delay times don't matter that much as long as you keep them very short (less than 20ms or so) and each channel has a different delay value. Larger numbers generally provide a wider soundstage. It is important to use a different delay on the left and right channels or you'll just end up with a delayed mono signal.

What this does is it leaves your original mono signal right in the middle where it belongs while putting a simulated stereo signal behind it. You mix the delayed signal via the Aux fader with the original signal to taste. Once you have the dry/delay mix the way you like it, you control the overall level with the dry audio track's fader and the stereo aux volume follows it because the send is post fader.

You may have to play with the delay values and the level of the aux fader for a while to get the stereo effect you're looking for without a phasey effect, but it can be done.

It's a subtle stereo effect, but it's better than a mix going stereo > mono > stereo.

You might also try narrowing your other stereo signals a bit to better match the middle section. That section might sound better wide, but in the context of the overall mix it might be better to sacrifice a bit for the sake of continuity.

Have fun.

Mike

[Mark_Knecht]

Christian,
Don't know if you have any of the Waves packages, but one of them contains a plug in for simulating stereo. You might try that if you have it.

Good luck,
Mark

[crs117]

I was kind of skeptical when i tried your exact advice Quickdraw after dealing with this in several different ways, but after following your advice almost to a T i got a fairly good simulated stereo field. Thanks guys for the responses.

Christian

[Jorge442]

copy the mono track to 2 other tracks, pan them hard left and right, delay them byt 7ms or so and throw one of them out of phase (easy with a 1band Digirack eq).

easy and worth a shot IMO

jorge

[Mr_Seven]

You could also eq the split signal to make one side HP and the other LP in addition to the above.