Am I losing the stereo effect of vocals by bussing??

[CJ Mastering]

Am I losing the stereo effect of vocals by bussing??

It depends if the bus is stereo or mono and it also depends on if the effect your using is stereo or mono. but vocals are mono in nature.

If you bus a mono vocal tack to a stereo bus and that stereo bus has a stereo chorus effect, you will gain some stereo image for that vocal.

A vocal track is mono, unless you are recording your vocal take with more than 1 mic and that is very unusual and phase issues will come into effect, unless you meticulously place them in such a way to prevent phase.

Would it make more sense to make a bus for all the backing/supporting vocals BESIDES the lead, and just use a stereo compressor there... and blend it in with the lead centered main vocal??

It depends on the sound you are going for. If that is what it takes to get the sound you want, then thats what you use. you have to enter and treat each situation different as each vocal in every song will need different things done to it.

There are no right or wrong ways to do things like this. If what you do achieves the sound your want, then its the right way. If what your doing is not achieving the sound you want, then its the wrong way.

Now, the right way for one song can be the wrong way for another song and the wrong way for a song can be the right way for another.

CJ

[teamalkos]

vocals are mono, so a stereo bus on vocal is kind of pointless. you can't stereo image a mono track with one signal and not a left and right signal.

[Studio507]

If you're panning your vocals and you want to bus them, make sure you send them all to a stereo bus.

My bigger concern here though is that if you can't tell if what you're doing is messing up your stereo image, why are you so concerned with making such a compelling stereo image ?

[CJ Mastering]

Originally Posted by teamalkos

vocals are mono, so a stereo bus on vocal is kind of pointless. you can't stereo image a mono track with one signal and not a left and right signal.

Your wrong! if you have a stereo effect, like a stereo chorus FX on a stereo bus, it will create a stereo effect. The signal from that bus wont be mono anymore.
The stereo bus will make a left and right side of the mono track when you bus a mono track to a stereo bus.

You may be confusing a bus with a track

[ambiguity]

Originally Posted by teamalkos

you can't stereo image a mono track with one signal and not a left and right signal.

you can stereo image a mono track with one signal easily, using a short delay on the imaged track, playing with the delay time and panning the tracks.

or, like CJ Mastering mentioned, processing a mono track through a stereo processor.

[ncoak]

Originally Posted by teamalkos

vocals are mono, so a stereo bus on vocal is kind of pointless. you can't stereo image a mono track with one signal and not a left and right signal.

what are you people talking about.

if you have a bunch of vocal tracks panned l/r/wherever, and want to send them all to a bus, bus them shits to a stereo bus to maintain the stereo image. use a stereo compressor, stereo image maintained, bus compression done.

[teamalkos]

Originally Posted by ambiguity

you can stereo image a mono track with one signal easily, using a short delay on the imaged track, playing with the delay time and panning the tracks.

or, like CJ Mastering mentioned, processing a mono track through a stereo processor.

i wasn't meaning using effects. He was talkking about panning and compression.

[CJ Mastering]

i wasn't meaning using effects. He was talkking about panning and compression.

Still the same thing. Dont matter if its a comp or a chorus. When send a mono track to a stereo bus and that stereo bus has a stereo compressor on it, it processes it in stereo.

Try it and look at your meters. Youll see it turns into a stereo signal

[ncoak]

dual mono, to be precise. but that's not what the op is asking about.

[CJ Mastering]

This is the title:

Am I losing the stereo effect of vocals by bussing??

to be very basic about it, you cant lose anything you never had.

I was just explaing what "can" happen when you bus a vocal (mono signal) to a stereo bus with a stereo effect.

[ncoak]

that is indeed the thread title. but if you actually read what he wrote, his question involves bussing groups of vocal tracks with a stereo spread.

[teamalkos]

Originally Posted by CJ Mastering

Still the same thing. Dont matter if its a comp or a chorus. When send a mono track to a stereo bus and that stereo bus has a stereo compressor on it, it processes it in stereo.

Try it and look at your meters. Youll see it turns into a stereo signal

but true stereo signal comes from the source....as one person said above me you can't lose whats not there. 2 of the same mono recorded signals left and right does not make it a stereo field. for instance if i record my fantom in to my daw mono and make a left in right of the same signal that true stereo signal will not be the same as if i recorded the signal in stereo in the first place try it with a piano or string. see if you can get that stereo image with those instruments and report back.

[Maverick87]

I use Reaper and its just folder tracks, Reaper doesn't really separate mono tracks from stereo tracks so that's why I'm a little confused by it

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by teamalkos

but true stereo signal comes from the source....as one person said above me you can't lose whats not there. 2 of the same mono recorded signals left and right does not make it a stereo field. for instance if i record my fantom in to my daw mono and make a left in right of the same signal that true stereo signal will not be the same as if i recorded the signal in stereo in the first place try it with a piano or string. see if you can get that stereo image with those instruments and report back.

You are missing everyone else's point. The OP was talking about bussing a GROUP of PROCESSED vocals. Panned BG vocals and a lead. If you send all of those to a mono bus, you will loose the stereo placement you had going with the BG vocals. To break it down further, BG vocals are suppose to consist of several separate takes. A human double usually varies a bit from take to take. Panning some takes left and some right will give the BG group of vocals as a whole a true stereo spread. This scenario has nothing to do with taking the same recording and panning it left and right.

If you read the original post in full, the reason he wants to bus them in the first place is because he wants to add extra "glue" by sending them all through the same compressor at the same time. For that you will need to use a stereo bus and a stereo compressor in order to maintain that stereo spread created with the BG vocals. You misunderstood the question the OP was asking.

To answer the OP's question: You only have to worry about doing what you described if the plugin is indeed mono, or if you are using it in some sort of dual mono mode (where the left channel is compressed separately from the right).

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by Maverick87

I use Reaper and its just folder tracks, Reaper doesn't really separate mono tracks from stereo tracks so that's why I'm a little confused by it

You get exactly what you pay for sometimes.

[Maverick87]

Thanks everyone for making this crystal clear.

Reaper is awesome.

[teamalkos]

Originally Posted by PettyCash

You are missing everyone else's point. The OP was talking about bussing a GROUP of PROCESSED vocals. Panned BG vocals and a lead. If you send all of those to a mono bus, you will loose the stereo placement you had going with the BG vocals. To break it down further, BG vocals are suppose to consist of several separate takes. A human double usually varies a bit from take to take. Panning some takes left and some right will give the BG group of vocals as a whole a true stereo spread. This scenario has nothing to do with taking the same recording and panning it left and right.

If you read the original post in full, the reason he wants to bus them in the first place is because he wants to add extra "glue" by sending them all through the same compressor at the same time. For that you will need to use a stereo bus and a stereo compressor in order to maintain that stereo spread created with the BG vocals. You misunderstood the question the OP was asking.

To answer the OP's question: You only have to worry about doing what you described if the plugin is indeed mono, or if you are using it in some sort of dual mono mode (where the left channel is compressed separately from the right).

I understand the question now...yes if you have them on a bus insert as a group then yes stereo compressor thats a no brainer and self explanatory. I thought he meant individual track busses using a stereo compressor on a mono signal

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by teamalkos

I understand the question now...yes if you have them on a bus insert as a group then yes stereo compressor thats a no brainer and self explanatory. I thought he meant individual track busses using a stereo compressor on a mono signal

FWIW, You still don't understand the question, but the OP already got what he needed out of the responses and that's what matters.

AFAIK, he was concerned over whether or not using a stereo compressor on the vocal group would negatively affect the apparent level of anything panned centre, in his case the lead vocal. He also stated having some confusion over discerning whether his compressor plug-in was running in stereo or mono in Reaper because the program in his opinion doesn't make the difference perceivable enough in his case.

Hope that clears things up for you.

[Zachariah]

Now that you have a stereo image for the vocals...adding a compressor to the group of processed vox will effect the sound quite differently. Now instead of only bringing up room tone with the compressor you are now effecting the relationship of your lead/bg vocals in ur vox submix.

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[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by Zachariah

Now that you have a stereo image for the vocals...adding a compressor to the group of processed vox will effect the sound quite differently. Now instead of only bringing up room tone with the compressor you are now effecting the relationship of your lead/bg vocals in ur vox submix.

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Only if you are squeezing the crap out of the audio coming through that bus. He said he was doing it to add "glue" which usually means you would only be using anywhere between 1-3db of compression. You don't really need more than that if all the vocal tracks have already been individually compressed.

[Zachariah]

1-3dBs of gain reduction could also be viewed as 1-3dBs of noise floor boosting.

Either way you look at it you are changing the relationship of the vocal elements.

Im not saying you shouldnt compress the vocal bus, just answering about differences when processing a subgroup.

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[yosemitesam]

Originally Posted by Zachariah

1-3dBs of gain reduction could also be viewed as 1-3dBs of noise floor boosting.

Yeah but with well-recorded 24-bit audio that 3 db of noise floor boosting is basically nothing, right?

[Zachariah]

Its definitely slight. But for this case...u will hear the bg vox come forward a bit.

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[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by Zachariah

1-3dBs of gain reduction could also be viewed as 1-3dBs of noise floor boosting.

Either way you look at it you are changing the relationship of the vocal elements.

Im not saying you shouldnt compress the vocal bus, just answering about differences when processing a subgroup.

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I'm not trying to discredit anything you are saying, but if I have the ability to clear things up as to how they pertain to an actual mix situation, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

The boost in noise floor will not even be audible enough to make an apparent difference, and that information would probably matter more to someone looking to apply this stuff to whatever they are working on today. I wish I could say I'm sorry for trying to be more constructive, but then I would be lying.

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by yosemitesam

Yeah but with well-recorded 24-bit audio that 3 db of noise floor boosting is basically nothing, right?

Technically, it will always be something, regardless of the amount of compression being used, but if your recordings are clean and dry, you can apply more compression to them before things start to sound less than ideal. You just have to use your best judgement on how the compression affects that recording within the full context of your mix.

[Zachariah]

Originally Posted by PettyCash

I'm not trying to discredit anything you are saying, but if I have the ability to clear things up as to how they pertain to an actual mix situation, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

The boost in noise floor will not even be audible enough to make an apparent difference, and that information would probably matter more to someone looking to apply this stuff to whatever they are working on today. I wish I could say I'm sorry for trying to be more constructive, but then I would be lying.

In the context of a vocal mix this does apply. In relation to the main vocal, compressing the whole vox submix will pull the bgs more forward in the mix but still retain that they are behind the lead (if mixed in such a way). The noise floor may or may not be more audible with a full mix going on (depending on the recording), but what will be more audible is the relation of the vox in the context of the mix to this point.

3dBs of gain reduction once you have your overall balance set is audible...i can hear 1dB of gain reduction on a vocal thats just barely poking out of a mix. Might have to go in and automate that bad boy to get him back in his spot.

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[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by Zachariah

In the context of a vocal mix this does apply. In relation to the main vocal, compressing the whole vox submix will pull the bgs more forward in the mix but still retain that they are behind the lead (if mixed in such a way). The noise floor may or may not be more audible with a full mix going on (depending on the recording), but what will be more audible is the relation of the vox in the context of the mix to this point.

3dBs of gain reduction once you have your overall balance set is audible...i can hear 1dB of gain reduction on a vocal thats just barely poking out of a mix. Might have to go in and automate that bad boy to get him back in his spot.

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My opinion is that the difference is just not big enough to make such a big fuss over, but the information you are sharing is still useful all the same, and is something that should be considered amongst other things.

Any use of compression will require a compromise. Whatever that compromise may be, and how you can work around it will depend on what you are trying to achieve. This was not part of the question the OP asked, so I see no need to go into it here.

[Zachariah]

Originally Posted by PettyCash

My opinion is that the difference is just not big enough to make such a big fuss over, but the information you are sharing is still useful all the same, and is something that should be considered amongst other things.

Any use of compression will require a compromise. Whatever that compromise may be, and how you can work around it will depend on what you are trying to achieve. This was not part of the question the OP asked, so I see no need to go into it here.

Indeed.

Cheers!

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