huge difference between stereo and mono

[wishingwell]

I am getting great sounds and feel out of the eleven rack - as long as I stick with stereo. It seems to me that switching the unit to mono makes the sound very thin and lifeless. Playing in mono is nowhere near as fun as with headphones in stereo.
But I intend to use the unit in mono: one signal out the PA and the same signal for my monitor. I cannot really utilize stereo.
The big difference seems to come from the reverb: great sound in stereo und I could play on forever. Mono however somewhat takes the fun out of it.
In mono I just cannot dial in a sound that comes close to a stereo sound.

What is your experience? Is there a chance to get something as good in mono as in stereo?
Thanks for any suggestions.

[Benoni]

more than likely you are saying Stereo is better because of the perceived volume difference.

Setup a Stereo Track and 2 Mono tracks.

Make the input of each the Rig signal.

Record a short riff.

Then mute the 2 mono tracks. and play the Stereo.

Then pan both mono tracks 100%, 1 Left 1Right. Solo both Mono tracks and play. They will sound the same as the stereo track.

Now there will be some difference when recording time based effects in mono versus stereo.

[Chad Pippin]

Remember that hardly any live sound environment will allow you to truly utilize a stereo signal. 99% of the time when people hear music in public, they are hearing it in mono.

With that said, it is a lot more enjoyable to listen in stereo when using headphones. But that doesn't necessarily translate to the live environment.

I'll never forget the time I went to see the Foo Fighters live at Arco Arena in Sacramento. I was off to one side of the stage and for some reason I couldn't hear Dave Grohl's guitar at all. I could hear a ton of the other guitarist. I got curious and walked back behind the FOH position and finally heard both guitars in this beautiful stereo sound field. The only problem with this approach was that about 25% of the room was actually able to hear it. The engineer was hard panning the electric guitars. Weird.

The difference that you are hearing is more of a psychological thing that any actual difference between the stereo and mono signals of the 11R.

[wishingwell]

thanks for the quick answers.
I just did some playing with stereo and mono tracks and different panning.
Like you both already mentioned there will always be a difference between mono and stereo and I will have to live with it, since playing with the band in stereo does not work for me.
What I did notice however is that I should just keep the ER set to stereo although I use only the left channel in playing live. To me it appears that this setting comes closer to "real" stereo than the mono setting.
Hope this makes sense, because I am starting to doubt my hearing capabilities.

[dawnsman1]

If you use some modulation effects though such as Chorus and only use one output instead of switching to a summed mono out, you will get a detuned signal. It will sound out of tune. So, be careful of that!

[zedhed]

Couldn't you just use both main outs to PA and use 'Output to Amp' for stage monitoring?

At least that way you know you're audience will be hearing it in stereo.

Or use 'Output to Amp' 1&2 for a two monitor stage setup

[Badcard]

Originally Posted by zedhed

Couldn't you just use both main outs to PA and use 'Output to Amp' for stage monitoring?

Yep, that's what I do.

[wishingwell]

yes, using both channels for the PA and also for monitoring would be best of course.
However we are always short of channels and I stay away from stereo effects like ping pong delays for example anyway, because it does not work that well live.
The reason for switching to mono was to make sure that I would not end up with different sounds on the monitor and the PA, no matter whether the signal is coming from the left or from the right channel.
I just stick with the stereo setting, but use only one channel and watch out not to use effects that need stereo to work right.
This still sounds better to me than the mono setting.
....and hope that is not just my imagination, because after all the adjusting back and forth it is getting hard to distinguish.