Pan, Mono, Two Track Mono & Stereo

[Hugh-AR]

Pan, Mono, Stereo & Two Track Mono

To appreciate this it's best to wear headphones.

A MONO recording goes to one side only .. left or right. If this is coming from a left or right speaker then that is fine, as both ears hear the sound and will position the sound either to the left or to the right, depending on where the sound is coming from. But if one is wearing headphones only one ear hears the sound, and the other hears nothing. This is not a real life experience, and it'll do your head in.

If you COPY the sound, so you have exactly the same sound coming from left and right, then you will be able to listen to the music, but it will not have any depth, and sound as though it is coming from 'over the top of your head'. This is called TWO-TRACK MONO.

STEREO is when you 'pan' sounds to the left and the right, and the sounds going to each ear are different, both in makeup and in volume. You can see all this if you look at the waveform in Audacity.

I have come across the video below explaining all this with regard to playing a guitar. He manages to get a guitar to 'sound in stereo' by either having two mics on the guitar in different places; or recording what he plays a second time and trying to keep to the original as closely as possible. The second recording is not a COPY of the original, and as you can never play something exactly the same twice, if you put one recording to the left and the other to the right you will get a much better sounding guitar than you would get from just copying the original and having the same on both left and right (ie. ending up with two-track mono).

But another thing he looks at is just having the one recording, and putting a time delay on one of the channels. This gives a far better result for listening than having exactly the same coming to both ears.

If you are interested in how to make a good recording you will find this fascinating. Of course, we don't have to bother about any of this when playing/recording our keyboards as we have the ability to 'pan' sounds to left or right so our recordings are in Stereo anyway.



At 14:50 in the video he mentions another video he has put up, on John Lennon's "Imagine". This is a real eye-opener on chord harmony, and I have put up a Topic about this here:

http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=402&t=6526&p=58695#p58695

[dentyr]

Of course, we don't have to bother about any of this when playing/recording our keyboards as we have the ability to 'pan' sounds to left or right so our recordings are in Stereo anyway.

Now as the fellow says, if you play like that on the kbd then both tracks will be in exactly the same time, not slightly offset. To do what he suggests you need to play one track to the left, then one to the right but slightly off the beat, in other words, 30ms out of time. This means recording the song twice as he has done on the guitar but with the kbd you need to put your second track onto another channel. This is basically multi-tracking. To build up the song you add a bass to another channel and use a good drum style. Doing this you can listen to your first track, or tracks, as you put down the others. I am not sure if you can offset the timing on the T4 but it may be worth looking into if you are that interested.
Regards, Den.

[Fred]

I have not watched the video, however I thought the prime object (on keyboards) was to replicate the positions of the various Band / Orchestra player by selecting each voice on the keyboard to approximate the position on stage.

Fred

[dentyr]

Hello Fred, You are quite correct, that is the purpose of the panpot. However, this fellow has a guitar and he is explaining how they "Thicken" the sound by playing the SAME thing but very slightly off the beat. They can't do a panpot as we do. If you have a Tyros (or kbd with three right voices) then you can position them where you like with panpot. Then when you record other tracks with other voices then that fills in the whole band. Multi-tracking is a fine art and you have to be careful that you don't swamp the music with sound (as I did with my first attempts.)
Video is worth watching even if it is just for interest.
Regards, Den.

[Hugh-AR]

I have come across a YouTube video (an old one!) which really shows how STEREO can be used effectively to enhance the music you are listening to. And this has nothing to do with 'positioning instruments on the stage'.

If you listen carefully you can hear the drums coming in on the right; the bass singers come from the left; and the general singing is from centre. I am wearing headphones to listen to this, so none of the sound is coming to both ears .. only what is 'channelled' for each ear to hear. I would very much like to hear how this sounds through speakers (with both ears hearing the sound channelled to the left and right) .. but do not have an amplification system in the flat (have to think of the neighbours!).

The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)



Hugh

[dentyr]

The drums are definitely on the left, the group singing is not quite central and the soprano is off center right. Great stereo. Listened to this on my computer with the home theater set up that I have coupled in.
Den.

[Hugh-AR]

Den .. that's cray! The drums are definitely on the RIGHT! I am wearing Sennheiser headphones that come complete with a stereo jack plug (ie. I haven't wired it up myself). When I plug my headphones into my Tyros 4 and 'pan' to the left, the sound comes out of my LEFT earpiece.

Also, when you watch the demo stereo guitar YouTube video above at 10:18 .. where he has the sound coming from the LEFT ONLY (OUR left, as we are watching it .. not HIS left) .. the sound is coming from my LEFT earpiece on my LEFT ear. Can only come to the conclusion that you have your home theater wired up the wrong way round. What happens when you wear HEADPHONES?



Anybody else got a comment about this? Please do a POSTREPLY below.

Hugh