DnB Maintaining mono compatibility....

S

SafeandSound

Mastering Engineer
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Location
London UK
Maintaining mono compatibility in music production

If ever there was a time this needs to be read about it is now IMO.

I think dubstep production is partly to blame, rarely a day passes here without a track being re-subbed or tweaked due to
mono compatibility issues. Ultimately a compromise to be made between production goals and technical goals.

If there are specific questions I will try my best to respond.

I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it.:)
 
Great read, and just the problem I am having now, with a pad sample, so i guess I am getting Phase problems. In Ableton you can sum up the L channel twice, so it goes to the L + R, will have a go, see if it still sounds good.

Cheers for this, great article! Keep them coming, always great reads!
 
Would be nice to see some more info about phase cancellation and how to avoid it when checking the compatability. Is reverb a help in trying to kill the cancellation? In this instance it worked out for me summing the L channel to both L + R Outputs, but what if I had some sounds were there was some movement and therefore you lose essential sounds from just using one side of the sound in stereo.

Cheers
 
Thanks asshole!
























:carlton:
Seriously tho, nice seeing these topics and still the community creating articles. Lovely read.
 
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tewky1 said:
Would be nice to see some more info about phase cancellation and how to avoid it when checking the compatability. Is reverb a help in trying to kill the cancellation? In this instance it worked out for me summing the L channel to both L + R Outputs, but what if I had some sounds were there was some movement and therefore you lose essential sounds from just using one side of the sound in stereo.
Click to expand...

Well in essence the entire article is about phase and includes cancellation. Check the external link in the article to the page that explains phase.

How to avoid it:

Check it by ear and on a meter (if required) and when recording, which is unlikely for a D&B track any given mics set up must be aurally checked by ear by the engineer. I do this by soloing 2 mics panning them hard left and hard right on a mixing console and listening to see if the bass level drops significantly compared when they are centrally panned. If it does, likely you have a phase problem.

If a stereo spread sounds very wide it is likely it has bad mono compatibility, with this in mind you can identify it by ear or on a meter.
(By ear is preferable as suggested)

Reverb is usually at such low level as not to produce enough additional sonic energy to change a fundamental source phase relationship between L/R channels.

Bear in mind we are speaking largely of phase disparity between L and R channels in stereo. There can also be out of phase elements that are monophonic. A good example is 2 mics in front of a guitar cabinet or snare drum panned central in mono, despite the signals being mono they still have a phase relationship.

Sorry your last question lost me.
 
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HAHA reading that was soo complex, but in essence what he is saying folks is Balance is the essential key here to an awesome mind-melting power packed mixdown. Meaning dont just spread that sound like its the last follower of jesus christ spreading his beliefs, if that man were inside of a church and spreading his love and his voice equally and to be heard amongst all the people he is fine and there will be no problems, but if he is spreading too far outside of that church, he is invading territories that he cannot invade or he will crinkle and fail... my analogy of stereo to mono and street preachers... hahha another aspect to look at the same confusion a lot of producers have... think about it! it's physics you are dealing with vibrations all at a very high and powerful but balanced and steady level... you really couldnt just maximize your sub bass for example without adjusting everything else so their frequencies dont collide with its bass.. just an example, totally non related but its point relates to my main point, and their points join together into one epic unipoint.... hahahaha
 
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