Stereo tracks with mono recordings?

[cclegg68]

Hi, I'm mixing a documentary film that have only mono recordings. Is there a way I can make the mono ambience tracks appear stereo? ...Like would ANY other film!!!!
I tried routing the mono clips left and right in a delay plugin and then flip the right side phase (a trick from Jay Rose's book), but that leaves me with an unpleasant comb filtering.

Thanks for your help!

[C_Meyer]

This sounds like a similar situation I recently encountered when I had only one mono guitar track to mix.

What I did was duplicate the track, pan one 100% left and the other 100% right, put a very slight flanger on the right track (so low that it is not at all audible when you pull everything else up), then I put some slight tape saturation on the left (will work without the tape saturation, I heard a slight difference). A very, very slight delay on one side may also work.

The above will give it a wider stereo field than just duplicating the track and panning both.

I hope that helps some!
Chris

[philper]

Originally Posted by C_Meyer

This sounds like a similar situation I recently encountered when I had only one mono guitar track to mix.

What I did was duplicate the track, pan one 100% left and the other 100% right, put a very slight flanger on the right track (so low that it is not at all audible when you pull everything else up), then I put some slight tape saturation on the left (will work without the tape saturation, I heard a slight difference). A very, very slight delay on one side may also work.

The above will give it a wider stereo field than just duplicating the track and panning both.

I hope that helps some!
Chris

If you do as suggested above the two sides will be somewhat out of phase with each other, and may cause the mix to fail broadcast QC (ie they will not sum to mono properly). If you try this you should check your interchannel phase often and decide how wide you want to risk doing this effect. If you are working in 5.1 it will also affect how well an LtRt will be able to "steer" the effected tracks to the correct speaker during decoding. There are some software packages that include phase meters that aren't too expensive.

phil p

[minister]

What's wrong with mono?

You are not cutting in stereo backgrounds?

[mikevarela]

I agree with Minister. Many of the doc-style pieces I've mixed were mono, and it's easier and sometimes more believable to mix the sweeteners, hard fx and other stuff into a mono track than trying to take everything stereo. You'll undoubtedly notice that library ambiences don't match and you'll have to futz a lot of the material to match it.

Staying in mono leaves you some wiggle room to use more of the production sound, and remember that doc-style mixes can sound a little harsh as it'll provide the realism the genre goes for.

You could provide the client with a dual mono 2channel track for the dvd is they wish.


** I just noticed that Minister meant you were creating stereo from the amb and backgrounds... however delivering dual mono is fine as well.

Also, you could return a verb to the stereo track to induce some incoherence in phase if you'd like to make it stereo, just not too much (try impulse response too).

[rhumphries]

I will sometimes take a mono amb track and pan it leftish, and then take the same amb track, but maybe 30 seconds or so further on in the clip and pan it rightish. It works better with some tracks than others, and I usually don't pan hard left and right because sometime there will be a big hole in the middle.

-R

[soundguydave]

+1 minister.

You should be building ambiance using your own recordings and library sounds and blending in the mono production sound.

[minister]

Originally Posted by mikevarela

** I just noticed that Minister meant you were creating stereo from the amb and backgrounds... however delivering dual mono is fine as well.

???

I meant : he should be cutting in stereo backgrounds. That's what most good editors do.

I've never used production for backgrounds, only for fill. I have tried every teknik mentioned here and it all either caused problems or made me go "meh" when I listened. rhumphries' suggestion is the best jury rig. But again, why not cut in.....................

[PoxyMusic]

Originally Posted by cclegg68

Is there a way I can make the mono ambience tracks appear stereo?

Either keep it mono, or cut in stereo backgrounds, as the others suggest. There's really no point in doing otherwise.

[cclegg68]

Yeah, well I it's a desert film and don't really have desert ambience libraries or recordings (except the ones that were given to me with the project) so I think I'll keep it in mono; it is a "pro bono" project for a friend so..!

Thanks everyone!

[philper]

Originally Posted by cclegg68

Yeah, well I it's a desert film and don't really have desert ambience libraries or recordings (except the ones that were given to me with the project) so I think I'll keep it in mono; it is a "pro bono" project for a friend so..!

Thanks everyone!

You can buy sounds one at a time cheap from SoundDogs etc. A few bucks might get you enough BG that will serve (under a mono fill etc cut). If your track is emptyish and the music is minimal I can understand your desire to have stereo ambiances, but, as has been said, it is better in the long run to fill the mono dialog w/ mono then add whatever stereo ambiances you can come up with instead of doing phase tricks to stereoize mono tracks. Doing this will eventually get you into trouble.

phil p

[mikevarela]

Originally Posted by minister

???

I meant : he should be cutting in stereo backgrounds. That's what most good editors do.

I've never used production for backgrounds, only for fill. I have tried every teknik mentioned here and it all either caused problems or made me go "meh" when I listened. rhumphries' suggestion is the best jury rig. But again, why not cut in.....................

Yeah, I meant that you were suggesting he cut stereo AMB in which case he'd be doing it right, not making stereo AMB from production. I meant either make the stereo backgrounds or just deliver the whole thing in mono, adding fx/amb as mono when needed. It might be easier in the long run.

I've done both

I agree that messing with upmix techniques involving phase might get him into trouble as well.

[Matti]

mathewlane.com - DrMS spatial processor plugin cheap and excellent, has a preset for this also

Matti