Stereo File Sounds Dissapears in Mono

[Pilgrim007]

I am recording sounds from a motif es rack. It is routed to my fast track ultra as stero(left and right). When listening, the piano for example sounds great in stereo. However, it is almost gone when in mono.
I would like to know if there is an issue or if im doing it wrong etc.
When audition sounds on my motif es rack in mono, it already sounds disappeared before recording anything yet

[teo]

Sounds like you have one channel out of phase with the other. Probably the cable from the motif to the interface.

[Sigma]

because ITS MONO with maybe a tinge of "stereo effect" and 1 side is out of phase..

so when you put them up the middle at the exact same gain the main sound almost completely drops out and what minimal effect/room/verb is there remains


a vast majority of "stereo ": keyboard sounds are MOMO with stereo effects added ..take out the stuff on the fx pages and check it out

[StratSvante]

MOMO, hihi

[ionian]

Because they're in Mono.

Keyboards and synths by nature are in Mono. It's only the effects that are in stereo! Although technically in this day and age it's possible to create different waveforms and send them to separate left and right, most synths don't do this as there's no real purpose.

I usually mute all effects from my boards as the reverbs, phasers and delays are low quality in any keyboard and instead record the board in mono and recreate the effects with much better hardware and plug-ins. (Plus it saves on inputs!)

I think synth manufacturers though it was clever many years ago to play the "stereo" card and convince people synths are in stereo. But taking a mono sound and slathering it in stereo delay and reverb and an autopanner doesn't make the source sound stereo!

Besides kill all the effects, (a lot of synths these days have an effects off function buried in the global menus) and work with the sound from scratch and do the effects yourself. As a lifelong synth and keyboard player I found that most patches are slathered in way too many effects to make the solo patch sound appealing when trying keyboards out patch by patch in a music store but really are just overkill when you start layering synth sounds in a song.


Frank

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by StratSvante

MOMO, hihi

lolz!!! i'll leave my typo in hahahahahahha

[theblue1]

If the sound only partially disappeared instead of almost completely disappearing, I'd say that Frank (immediately above) was correct in suggesting that it's got a "stereo-izer" type effect on it that uses phase tricks to simulate stereo. When the two sides are collapased to mono, in such a case, you'll often see fairly extreme comb filtering cancellation where the out-of-phase material partially cancels out.

But...

Since it almost completely disappears, it's almost certainly a mono signal (with maybe a small gain diffence between channels or a touch of reverb or something else to inject a tiny bit of difference between the two sides) with one channel reversed in polarity.

In a crude and inaccurate manner of speaking, reversed polarity puts all frequencies "180 degrees out of phase" with each other. But, of course, it's not really phase, per se, which is related to a time delay between versions of the signal which will produce varying amounts of comb filtering when the signals are combined) but polarity reversal of two (nearly) identical signals, which will produce (nearly) full cancellation when the 'positive' and 'negative' wave forms are combined.


Check for polarity reversal switches in your signal chain or in your DAW. (Often -- typically -- mislabeled as "phase" or "phase reversal" despite the fact that they act on polarity, not phase, which is related to time and the periodicity of waves at different frequencies. The 'traditional' mislabeling of polarity reversal switches is an old bugaboo that goes back decades in mixing board nomenclature.)

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by ionian

Because they're in Mono.

Keyboards and synths by nature are in Mono. It's only the effects that are in stereo! Although technically in this day and age it's possible to create different waveforms and send them to separate left and right, most synths don't do this as there's no real purpose.

I usually mute all effects from my boards as the reverbs, phasers and delays are low quality in any keyboard and instead record the board in mono and recreate the effects with much better hardware and plug-ins. (Plus it saves on inputs!)

I think synth manufacturers though it was clever many years ago to play the "stereo" card and convince people synths are in stereo. But taking a mono sound and slathering it in stereo delay and reverb and an autopanner doesn't make the source sound stereo!

Besides kill all the effects, (a lot of synths these days have an effects off function buried in the global menus) and work with the sound from scratch and do the effects yourself. As a lifelong synth and keyboard player I found that most patches are slathered in way too many effects to make the solo patch sound appealing when trying keyboards out patch by patch in a music store but really are just overkill when you start layering synth sounds in a song.


Frank

amen brother ..i hate mixing tracks where i gotta go thru 8 or 9 "stereo" pads and split/center/invert to see what's really different and needed..

9/10ths of the time i just take 1 side and put on my efx which are much more spatial//in their quest for as many sounds as possible..synth key makers sacrifice sound quality on many occassions and try to make up for it with cheesy efx patches

[ionian]

Originally Posted by Sigma

amen brother ..i hate mixing tracks where i gotta go thru 8 or 9 "stereo" pads and split/center/invert to see what's really different and needed..

9/10ths of the time i just take 1 side and put on my efx which are much more spatial//in their quest for as many sounds as possible..synth key makers sacrifice sound quality on many occassions and try to make up for it with cheesy efx patches

I've done quite a bit of session work and I started to notice how grateful engineers were when they would find out the first thing I do is kill all the effects on my boards! Besides, the last thing any engineer or mixer needs is my cheesy keyboard ping-pong delay, that's not even tempo-aligned to the track, bouncing around and mucking up his mix.

You're so right about the sound quality. When you start muting effects you start to learn how woefully pathethic most keyboard patches really are.

When you start looking at each patch, they're treated like it's the only sound in the world! One patch has huge reverb. Another patch has tremendous delay. A third pad has mega-flanging AND chorusing with an auto-panner! I mean, how are you supposed to mix a song when every sound has its own universe!?

Besides I can't be the only one rolling my eyes after seeing one too many muted trumpet patches covered in arena-sized reverb, a delay with endless feedback and some asinine name like "MilesTRUMPET!"

Frank

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by ionian

I've done quite a bit of session work and I started to notice how grateful engineers were when they would find out the first thing I do is kill all the effects on my boards! Besides, the last thing any engineer or mixer needs is my cheesy keyboard ping-pong delay, that's not even tempo-aligned to the track, bouncing around and mucking up his mix.

You're so right about the sound quality. When you start muting effects you start to learn how woefully pathethic most keyboard patches really are.

Besides I can't be the only one rolling my eyes after seeing one too many muted trumpet patches covered in arena-sized reverb, a delay with endless feedback and some asinine name like "MilesTRUMPET!"

Frank

Not to drag us farther off subject, but I noticed this problem as we moved into the mostly-or-all wavetable and 'workstation' based keyboards and away from true synths in the 90s. The thin, unsatisfying samples of synths are typically so static and uninvolving in such modules and all-in-one keyboards that the lure of slathering effects must be irresistable. As anyone who's spent much time in music stores probably knows, for a lot of purchasers, it's all about first impressions.

[Pilgrim007]

found out the problem...all i did was simply cancelled one of the channels (I chose the right channel) . Both were originally centred (mono) so when I cancelled the right channel, the sound came out correctly and it sounds normal now (ie. not phased or anything wierd like that).

now let me sell this motif lol

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim007

found out the problem...all i did was simply cancelled one of the channels (I chose the right channel) . Both were originally centred (mono) so when I cancelled the right channel, the sound came out correctly and it sounds normal now (ie. not phased or anything wierd like that).

now let me sell this motif lol

Right.

You understand why that worked, right?

When the two channels were panned center, they had enough 'out of phase' (or simply polarity inverted) content that the positive and negative canceled each other out.

When you muted one channel, the other channel was no longer being summed with (what apparently) was a polarity inverted copy of itself, and, so, no longer was reduced to near zero level.

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by theblue1

Not to drag us farther off subject, but I noticed this problem as we moved into the mostly-or-all wavetable and 'workstation' based keyboards and away from true synths in the 90s. The thin, unsatisfying samples of synths are typically so static and uninvolving in such modules and all-in-one keyboards that the lure of slathering effects must be irresistable. As anyone who's spent much time in music stores probably knows, for a lot of purchasers, it's all about first impressions.

the oberheim obx a , prophet 5, jupiter 8 and fairlight were my favorite synths back in the day..each had such a sound..the oberheim ws just awesome in that buzz/bottom bass stuff