Ever felt like your mixes are just a snowball's throw away from that nice, wide stereo image you crave?
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Apply for our coaching program and book a free clarity call with Benedikt, the host of the show!
Sure, the basics like mic technique, panning, intentional EQ moves, among others are always the most important thing. But there is more. And we want to share one thing with you that you might have overlooked, so far.
Strap in, because we're whisking you up the sonic slopes to conquer the nuances of dual mono vs. stereo compression!
This seemingly small detail can be the difference between a stable, solid center in your stereo image and a wonky center that won't provide the solid foundation that your groove needs.
Or between a wide, clear mix and a narrow one.
Being intentional about this will also give you extra clarity, separation and width for your rhythm guitars, toms or any other stereo source that you're dealing with in your mix.
First, we dissect when to pan mono sources and when to bask in true stereo glory, providing a roadmap through the complexities of creating a nice, wide stereo image.
It's like choosing the right snowboard for the mountain – you need the proper technique to ride the sound waves to their fullest potential.
Finally, we're cranking up the dials on your DAW savvy, revealing the ins and outs of compressor plugins and their different channel linking modes.
Learn how to finesse your compressor settings to keep your mix wide open or dial in that cohesive, 'pumpy' feel when the track calls for it.
So, tune up your audio kit, and let's hit the play button on this episode!
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BenediktHost00:00
Why would I want a stereo compressor if I'm not dealing with a true stereo source? Which brings us back to what we explained in the beginning. If the two have nothing in common, it's just two mono sources playing individual things independent of each other. I want to preserve their natural dynamics and I don't want the left guitar to change because of the right guitar. That doesn't make sense to me.
00:17
This is the Self Recording Band Podcast, the show where we help you make exciting records on your own wherever you are. Diy's that let's go. Hello and welcome to the Self Recording Band Podcast. I am your host, benedikt Hein. If you are new to the show, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. If you're making your own records, you want them to sound better. This is the right place. You found the right place for this and if you are already a listener, welcome back. We're so glad to have you. Thank you for your loyalty and, yeah, for you just being a part of this.
00:50
And today we're going to get a little more technical than the last couple of episodes. So we had a bunch of interview episodes lately. This time we're going a little more technical. We're talking about a thing that is not. I think so, at least not so often talked about on podcasts or YouTube videos, but I think it's really important. We're talking about dual mono versus stereo, specifically when it comes to compression.
01:14
And before you now close the podcast app and leave us because you don't know what we're talking about, let me quickly explain why that matters. So this can be the difference between a stable, solid center in your stereo image and a wonky center. That will provide the solid foundation that your groove needs. It can also add some extra clarity, width and separation to your rhythm guitars, toms or any other stereo or double track thing that you have in your arrangement. So this stuff is important. It's often overlooked. A lot of people, I think, are confused by this, so this is why we wanted to cover it today and, as always, I'm joined by my friend and cohost, malcolm Owen Flutt. Hello, malcolm, how are you.
MalcomHost01:55
Hey, benny, I'm great man. Good to be back, as always. When was the end of a? What is this? This is our third year, or fourth year? Third year, right.
BenediktHost02:03
So the fourth year, because it's 200 episodes and the one year has 50 weeks, right, so 52. Yeah, crazy, we're going to have a four year sort of anniversary in January I think, or February somewhere. Yeah, can't wait. Yeah, totally, it's phenomenal, it's crazy to think that we haven't missed a single week since we started, and it's very cool. And also I'm kind of surprised that we still have things to talk about.
02:30
In the beginning I was worried that, like so many things to talk about In the beginning, like after the first year or so, or when I was, when we were trying to come up with topics for the first year, I was like I was like after 20 ideas or so, I was like that's all we have, that's all we know you know, and I guess nothing more to talk about Turns out there's a lot more and we'll keep going.
02:48
There's a lot, all right. So I don't know, we haven't done a true banter in a while, right? We always had these interview episodes, and so I don't know if there's anything going on in your life. That's worth sharing.
MalcomHost02:58
I mean, something that's exciting for me is like later today, right after we record this episode or our next episode, I'm going to be going to shoot a documentary as, like the head camera person, I've never done that before, so that's exciting for me. We're just going to I'm like self producing with a body, a documentary idea. I won't get into what that idea is yet, but I'm very excited to go and shoot it. It's going to be very fun.
BenediktHost03:22
I didn't know about that. That's awesome. And so you got location sound, you got music work, you got photography and now also videography why not? Why?
MalcomHost03:31
not Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's all creative stuff.
BenediktHost03:34
Right, it's, and yeah, it's exciting, exciting, really cool. Yeah, very excited, awesome. How about?
MalcomHost03:39
you man. What's going on in Benny's world?
BenediktHost03:42
So I was. I went snowboarding for the first time with my kids this weekend. So I was snowboarding all my life. I've been snowboarding all my life basically, but this time I took my kids for the first time, which was very awesome, bought them some snowboards and we went out and did our first you know tries, and which was really, really cool.
MalcomHost04:00
Made me super proud to watch that.
BenediktHost04:01
And I decided you know, usually we, you know, we wanted to, we talked about it and, like all the kids go skiing usually and they need to learn that for school and all of that, and all the other kids do it as well. But I've never been a skier and I probably won't ever be one. So I just decided, okay, they can learn to ski, but if they're going with me, I'm going to just teach them how to snowboard. That's the only thing I know.
MalcomHost04:21
So and then they can make a decision about themselves.
BenediktHost04:23
So we go snowboarding. They wanted to do it anyways. They asked me for it, so I'm all for it. So we did that. How did they like it? They enjoyed it a lot. So before we did that, you actually I actually gave them. You know, there's different words for that. There's the like a snow snow surfer, snow skate type of thing where you don't, where you're not attached to the board, you just stand on it and you can. You know, basically, skateboard and snow. I got them two of these, just borrowed them and let them try and have fun with it for a while before we made the decision to actually buy snowboards. And they loved it and they actually did pretty well too. So then they said they want to. You know, they want to have a real snowboard. So, yeah, that's why I got them some and now we're doing it.
MalcomHost05:02
Little shredders? Yes, exactly.
BenediktHost05:04
Totally. So yeah, that was that was the main part. The yeah, that was how I spent the weekend. And also we decorated, you know, christmas stuff and the like, we kids. Well, I probably wouldn't have done it on my own, but the kids said there's no way we're not going to have a Christmas tree and all the Christmas decoration.
MalcomHost05:20
So we did that together, so that's out of the way too, it actually liked it. So it's great, oh great. Yeah, I'm exhausted by all this Christmas stuff. It's like there's already been so many, so many Christmas parties and stuff.
BenediktHost05:34
Oh man, put me back into real life soon, yeah totally yeah, that's part of it, and once you know, once it's done, or when I'm at these parties or when I'm doing these things, I actually enjoy it. I just don't want to. It's hard for me to get going or, like you know, I just have so many other things that I'd rather do in a way, but then when I yeah like exercise and eating well goes on the window in the holidays, for me, For example, for example.
05:57
Yeah, anyway, but it's, it's also cool, it's a, it's a nice cool season, yeah. Then the other thing I have to announce is I almost forgot about that in the beginning we have two more spots officially left in our coaching program, the self-recording syndicate. Before we stop registrations for a while, we need to build out some more systems, maybe expand the team, think about some things and probably also increase rates, to be honest. So this will happen in 2024 at some point, and for now, we take on two more students. I got a few more calls scheduled to the end of the year.
06:25
So if you are interested in joining the coaching program, please go to theselfrecordingbandcom slash call and apply for the self-recording syndicate. I've no doubt that I'm going to fill these two spots very, very quickly. So if you want to be a part of that, please apply and then, yeah, whoever is a great fit will get into this, and then we're going to close it for a while. So just going to announce that, because we have like 40 students in it right now, which is about how much I can I can handle at the moment and then we'll, yeah, make some decisions as to like how we can scale without compromising what we offer to students.
MalcomHost06:56
Absolutely. That's so, so awesome man, and huge thank you to all the listeners. That's like, yeah, that wouldn't be possible without all of you out there listening 100. Apparently, to the stats we just checked the thousands of you. It's awesome.
BenediktHost07:10
Yeah, really Thank you, because it's also the feedback that we get from you and the questions, the comments. This really helps us make better content for this show. That's one part of it, but it also helps me serve my students better because it teaches me a lot about the problems you have, about you know what you're struggling with, what your goals are, all of this. So, really thank you. Thank you a lot. Okay, let's get to this episode Right and let's do it Cool. Let's start with talking about the basics here, like the difference between mono and stereo, actually, because I think we need to clarify a few things before we can dive into the dual mono versus, you know, true stereo thing on compressors. Yeah, so what do you start?
MalcomHost07:51
Okay. So where I think we should start is trying to separate what they actually are from each other. There is some terminology that is regularly used by all of us audio recording people all the time. That is incorrect and that's okay. I don't think, benny, and I want to convince you to change how engineers and musicians communicate about recording stuff like guitars, but I think it is important to understand that it's incorrect. Yeah, why it's incorrect, and then just keep on going using the incorrect words. It's totally fine.
08:26
It gets the point across and, like, the most common example, especially in like rock music, is when you have like a double guitar performance.
08:35
You know, you record one guitar, you pan it hard left, you record a second guitar, take of that same thing, a double, and pan it hard. Right. Now you've got two guitars coming left and right and we say, all right, we got stereo guitars, right, let's record some stereo guitars, and we do that. But that's not actually stereo, that's just dual point source, mono. Right, we've got two mono performances playing at the same time coming out of different speakers, but it's not like we made a stereo recording really technically. Whereas to give you, if you're like, all right, well then, what the hell is stereo If you have an XY set over your drum kit. I saw overheads, you know two microphones capturing the same source in a stereo field. Now you have a stereo recording. You know you have captured a recording of something that has width when, if you had recorded the same drum kit twice and then panned it hard left and right, that would be again mono.
BenediktHost09:29
Yeah, another example would be any sort of stereo synth that you use. If that is like stereo, whatever the output of that synthesizer is, that is a stereo source. Right, it's not dual mono. It has actual stereo content in the sound itself. A piano mic with two mics can be a true stereo source. A choir if you have a group of people singing and you point, you point two mics at them and you pan those left and right, you got one performance, but it's still wide and stereo. Those would all be stereo recordings, versus a second take of the same thing recorded with one microphone will sound like a stereo thing. But it's actually dual mono, it's two mono sources. They just pan to wherever.
MalcomHost10:06
Exactly. Now one more bit of information to confuse you all. If you stick, let's say, two SM57s beside each other on a guitar speaker and record those, and then you're blending them, you've got them just pan to the exact same, so they're both coming up the middle, for example, and then you're just blending the volume to find a tone you want. You haven't made a stereo product then, either. No, so you've got two mics on the same source, but you've still made a mono thing 100% and yeah, no, I'm going to leave it like that.
BenediktHost10:37
One more thing but that would definitely be confusing. No, that's enough to grasp.
MalcomHost10:41
It's not actually hard to grasp, but all it's just like when you think about it, like, oh yeah, we actually haven't made stereo guitars is the typical thing, absolutely.
BenediktHost10:50
As long as yeah, if a thing is panned to one direction, like the center or left or right or anywhere in between, but it's just one source, it's always mono. You just pan it somewhere. And if it's like two mics or two parts of it pan to different sides of the same performance, it's going to be stereo, so all right.
MalcomHost11:09
So now we know that and you can make a decision of how you're going to record.
BenediktHost11:14
Just rewind and listen to this 15 times and then you'll get it. No, so yeah, now we got this. Sorry for interrupting. You're welcome, all right. How do we move on from here?
MalcomHost11:24
Well, I mean, there is okay. There's one more thing and this is probably what you were going to say, Benny decided not to but there's certain mic and techniques that are stereo right, Like X, Y, space pair kind of thing, and you can record guitars in stereo. Like, I just wanted to cover guitars in particular, because I think we've just pretty much like all of that said okay, guitars are actually mono, but you can record stereo guitars. It's just, you probably don't want to and you're probably what you're talking about doing is probably mono, Okay.
BenediktHost11:53
Now I'm done.
MalcomHost11:54
All right.
BenediktHost11:55
Now we have to explain, though, what that would mean, because now you just started it, so that's what I wanted to say. So any amount of close mics on the guitar cap, always mono, because it makes no sense to pan them apart. It's never going to be wide anyways. So you blend those mics, it's always going to be a mono source, no matter how much microphones you throw on that cabinet Point source mono Exactly.
12:15
However, if you put a pair of room mics into that room in X, y or whatever you know, with some distance to the cab, so that there's actual stereo information, like something our ears would, in the room, perceive as like stereo, because it's bouncing off the walls left and right and stuff, so if we captured that, then we would have, in addition to the mono recording, we would have a stereo pair, and now we could pan that mono recording to one side, but we could leave the stereo room pan hard left and right. So this would provide some sort of image, and so there's a mix between the mono guitar and then the stereo image. Same with, like drums, close mics plus overheads or rooms. You have the close mics. They are all mono, even if you pan them left and right, they are all mono sources. But then you have a stereo pair of overheads or a stereo pair of room mics. These are actual stereo recordings there you go.
MalcomHost13:01
Now. Here's the scenario Benny, you've got your favorite JCM 800 Marshall guitar head and it's being run into two separate four by 12 cabs. All right, yep, but those four by 12 cabs aren't in the same room. They are in different isolation chambers where, if you stick a mic on each of those cabs, there is no crossover bleed between those two cabs. No doubt that the microphones only hear the cab they're on. There's no information reaching it from the other one. What have we created?
BenediktHost13:31
To me, honestly, that's still mono. Me too. There's no. If they're not in the same room, there's no, you know, no stereo image. If I'm standing in front of it, there's two isolated mono sources and probably if there's no delay in between they would. Even if you pan them heart left and right, it won't really sound wide. It would still sound like a mono thing, it's the same take.
MalcomHost13:50
Yeah, still gonna sound pretty mono yeah.
BenediktHost13:51
So to me, that's all, that's all mono. Yeah, and there's trickery you can do, like some bands with one guitar player. They would play through two rigs slightly, delay one and then pan them heart left and right, which creates the illusion of like a double track or stereo thing. But those is all not really stereo, it's like you know. Yeah, psychoacoustics, yeah.
MalcomHost14:09
And even if those caps were in the same room, like it's still with pretty much result in a very mono vibe. So yeah, there we go. I think we've covered it pretty good now.
BenediktHost14:19
Exactly? Yeah, I think so too. Let's get to why this matters, or like what we actually wanted to talk about, which is like dual, mono and stereo in terms of compression.
MalcomHost14:28
So yes, because I think everybody's probably seen this by now and they open up a plugin and there's a switch on there or a button and that says dual mono or stereo, and like it doesn't say or, but it's a selector and you can click to put the plug into dual mono or to stereo mode. And that is what we want to kind of demystify and explain and then tell you how to use it and why you would use it.
BenediktHost14:50
Yep, I have to say, though it's probably different for you than it is, compared to many of our listeners, because Pro Tools handles this a little differently. So in most, you see, if you open up a plug in, I think you can change it from, you can choose between, like dual, mono and stereo, and you see these options. I think in most Dawes and I might be wrong about the Pro Tools thing, but that's how I remember it but in most Dawes you just open the plug in and it will be. There's no dual, mono or stereo option, it's just whatever the plug in is, and then it automatically turns into a stereo thing if it's a, you know, if there's two channels on the track, and it will be mono thing If there's one channel. And and there's not the dual mono switch. But it oftentimes only gives you like a link button or something where it can link or unlink the left and right, but I don't.
15:31
for example, in Cubase there's not, there's never a switch that says like dual mono. That's not a thing, unless the plug in itself does that, which is not often.
MalcomHost15:38
Yeah, no, I actually was referring to the plug in. Like the Vertigo Buscar, it's got a dual mono. But you're right, pro Tools does have the ability to just run two instances on any stereo track in dual mono. But that'll make more sense once we explain what this is. Okay, all right, good, good.
BenediktHost15:53
So in most cases you'll see yeah, in most cases you'll see linked, linked and unlinked. And there's, we got to get to that. There's two different things that this could mean. So, linked and unlinked, it might be dual, mono versus stereo, depending on how they label it. And then there's things like like the waves plugins, where you have to be careful that you actually choose the stereo version for a stereo track and not the mono plugin on a stereo track. That's with waves, at least in Cubase, if you know, I can open a mono instance on a stereo track, which won't ever work. That's a whole different thing. Just make sure, if you have a stereo instance like a plugin that is capable of processing two tracks at the same time, that this does not automatically mean it's actual stereo. It could be dual mono, it could be stereo, you could switch between the two and you can be intentional about it. That's what we're talking about here. So you want the plugin that's able to process two channels at a time, and now you have control over how this happens. This is what we're talking about, and so the two things that I meant that linking could mean is one you could link the controls of the left and right channel, meaning if you turn one knob, like the threshold.
16:56
We're talking about compressors more than anything here. So if you adjust the threshold and you see maybe a stereo compressor that actually has two sets of identical controls, for example, and you grab the threshold knob on one and you turn it, the other one moves accordingly, like the controls are linked for both channels. That's one thing, that it could mean just linking the controls. There is another thing in the background, though that happens, which is what the compressor actually listens to, like what the compressor sees, the signal that it reacts to, and this is called the side chain or the detection circuit. And you can.
17:30
There's a different form of linking where you know you not only link the controls, but you're actually linking those side chains, meaning if the left channel sees a certain level and it goes past the threshold, the left channel will react accordingly, like will do whatever you tell it to do, and then the right channel will follow that same thing.
17:48
Like there's, the side chain is being summed together, basically, and the two channels see the same thing and they react the same way. So not only the controls are linked, but also what those different channels see is the same, and so when there's a lot of level on one channel but not on the other. Still, both channels will react Right. So this is like linking the side chain versus unlinking the side chain, which means if there's a big peak on the left side but not on the right, only the left channel will compress and the right side will not, or not as much, and vice versa. So you can still have the controls linked to have the same settings on both channels, but the behavior of the two channels might be different because of the difference in like what happens left and right.
MalcomHost18:28
Right Does that make sense. Okay, which is my favorite way to use a bus compressor yes, yes and no, we got it. Yeah, exactly, we'll get into that.
BenediktHost18:37
So an example, just before we dive into the how this works and what and all those things. Just an example, so you know what I'm talking about. Let's say you have a Tom group, which is you could argue that it's not really a stereo thing, but it's like definitely a group of things and stuff happens left and stuff happens right. So you have your Tom's group to a stereo channel and you have the Rack Tom's. Yeah, and you have the Rack Tom, for example, because drummer's perspective is the way to go. You have the Rack Tom's on the left and the Floor Tom's on the right.
MalcomHost19:05
Benny and I disagree about this. Yeah, totally. If you're new to the podcast, we do this totally opposite. Yeah, there's no right or wrong, just say no.
BenediktHost19:13
But yeah, I pan it from his perspective. So meaning the higher Tom's, the Rack Tom's, are to the left and then it goes from left to right, it gets lower, basically to the Floor Tom's. So if you now have a compressor on your Tom's bus, on your group, where you're summing the Tom's together to one group, where you process them together assuming you're doing that and you have a compressor there to compress the Tom's as a whole, now if you keep the compressor linked which is the default on many of those compressors if you just insert it, you choose a setting and you go and you don't do anything about it, then that means if there's a loud Floor Tom hit, both sides will compress. And if, let's say, the drummer hits the rectum at the floor tom at the same time and the floor tom is louder than the rectum, it will still compress both sides the same way because of that louder floor tom.
19:59
However, if you unlink the two side chains, you have the same settings but the side chains are not linked. The right side will only listen to that floor tom or predominantly listen to that floor tom and the left side will hear the rectum louder and they will behave slightly different based on what happens on those sides, which is more accurate? Basically, because the right side will compress harder if the floor tom is louder. The left side won't compress as much if the rectum is a little quieter, so the two act independently of each other. That would be one example, same with guitars double-tracked rhythm guitars.
20:33
Same thing. One side might do chucks, palmutes, lots of level. The other side might do some open chord or single notes, something that has a lot less level. Basically, if you send the two to the same compressor with the side chains linked, the quieter guitar will be ducked as soon as the louder guitar does the chucks, the palmutes, and if it's unlinked, the quiet guitar stays as it is and the louder guitar gets controlled as it becomes louder.
MalcomHost21:01
Yeah. So by unlinking them and having them responding independently, you're actually going to end up with a more uniform result, because it's taming the peaks of both sides to get them closer together. Rather than if there is a loud tom on the left and it's linked now, you just turn down the quiet side a bunch as well, for seemingly no reason in that circumstance.
BenediktHost21:23
Yes, exactly Now. There is pros and cons to this, because there's a reason for why you can link the two, and that is if you're dealing with something that has we might actually disagree there, Malcolm. Yeah, looking forward to hearing your opinion here. So, for example, on a bass compressor or a drum, let's say a drum-bass compressor, you have the kick and the snare in the center and I personally want those to stay in the center and be there like rock solid and don't move left or right or anything. I want that solid foundation, the center of my image.
21:54
Now, if I link the two sides, I can accomplish that because, no matter what happens, the two sides always compress the same way. They listen to the same signal. The stereo image stays the same. So the image doesn't shift. The levels shift in a sometimes weird way, but the image doesn't shift, never Like. It always stays the same. Both sides get the same control, react to the same signal. Everything stays exactly where it was in terms of stereo image.
22:17
If you unlink the two, it could mean that the kick and snare slightly move left and right depending on what happens, left and right. Right, Because they come out of the center, which means they come out of both speakers at the same time. And now, if one side is getting more compression than the other, for some reason, it means that everything slightly shifts depending on what exactly happens in terms of compression. I personally don't want that with drums. So for drums I usually go with a drum bus, I usually go with linked, or if there is a control where I can gradually control that, I might go 50% linked or something. But I rarely go completely unlinked on a drum bus.
MalcomHost22:58
But it depends on the source.
BenediktHost22:59
Perfect sense of being yeah but it depends on the source. Though With some tracks you can get away with unlinked, it's perfect, and with other tracks where I feel like the center is not solid anymore, I will move to linked. It depends on the source, but you can be intentional about this, right.
MalcomHost23:12
No, I would totally agree with you. Like in that circumstance right there, I would probably gravitate to a stereo setting which is linked and then go with that, because, yeah, the kick and the snare are again mono, not stereo instruments. Usually they're close mics anyway. So what we're hearing, and if that's being played up the middle, those discrepancies in left and right volume caused by an unlinked dual mono compressor is going to cause it to move to whatever side is loudest. Essentially, it's pretty like it would have to be pretty dramatic for you to really feel like it's moving all over the place, but you might just lose this little bit of like and a clear center stereo image.
BenediktHost23:55
Am I even automated?
MalcomHost23:57
You really could, you absolutely could. Now let's move to an example where I really like a dual mono, unlinked compressor, and that is on the mix bus. Because now and it's not always, this isn't a rule, this is, of course, user years, but that's like. My instinct is usually to try dual mono first on a mix bus, and that is because we're now dealing with more than just one instrument. We could have a lead guitar that just spikes in on the one side for one part of the song, you know, or yeah, it changes dynamically so much and all over the stereo image and they're not necessarily related to each other like a drum kit is is kind of how I feel about it. Yeah, there's still an argument to be made that you're losing something in the middle, I guess, but I find that, like when a course kicks in and dynamically, things get a lot denser. I find that my mix collapse is a lot less if I'm in dual mono in most cases.
BenediktHost24:56
Yeah, yeah, Absolutely yeah. It leads to a wider result with a little more clarity. To me, Like it's a little interesting Even a slight movement on the mix bus you know, as you said, it won't be that dramatic anyways that the center shifts dramatically but even a slight movement is, for me, often desirable. It creates a sense of width and like a three-dimensionality versus like the linked thing Oftentimes just sounds a little too narrow and I don't want the left guitar to become a lot quieter when someone hits the floor tom on the right or something you know. So I want that, you know, little bit of movement and it actually sounds a little more dynamic as well, because some of the transients are still intact while others get tamed and there's it's a little more exciting overall to me.
MalcomHost25:37
Yeah it doesn't collapse like this. Yeah, I agree. A time when I don't want that, though, and that's when I want, like, a really pumpy mix. You can pump a dual mono compressor, for sure, but I think, like, the pump that I think sounds cool and exciting is a stereo pump, where, like, everything's just pumping. Yes, yes.
25:55
Everything's getting pushed and pulled in that elastic band kind of way, and that's when I'm like, all right, mono is going to be the way. This is aggressive and very noticeable. I mean stereo, mono Stereo. Sorry, yes, my mistake. Yeah, stereo I prefer for a like pumpy mix. Yeah. So yeah, the different, different tools for different jobs, I guess, yeah.
BenediktHost26:13
And also in those, in those situations where you want that pumpy mix it's usually something more vibey, you know anyways where where I also don't need the super wide image anyway.
26:24
So it's okay that it might be a little narrower, it that it might even like the stereo image might not be as exciting. But I want, if I want the pump, I wanted to feel like a cohesive sort of band thing. Anyways, that's not necessarily larger than life, and so I'm okay with the fact that it might sound a little more narrow and it's more glued together and it's moving and pumping. And yes, the guitars get quieter when the loud tom comes in. But that's what I want. That's pretty much the sensation you have when you're at a loud live concert and your ears do like some sort of compression actually, where when it's loud you know you hear that pump just because of the sheer volume in the room and you can create sort of that feel through a pumping bus compressor and so in that case for me it's totally fine if it sounds a little more narrow and not as like super wide.
MalcomHost27:06
So totally yeah, yeah, and it's really easy to just click on and off Exactly, just listen right, exactly now we just described like two common scenarios that are very logical, I think. But another scenario I want you to To apply this concept to is like problem-solving, and the example that I just thought of is like a really poorly recorded, spaced overhead drum mic setup. So you've got like One this is the classic where there's like one mic that's just like three feet lower than the other mic and that one's over the hi-hat. The low one is the worst because hi hats are already loud. Yeah, and so now you've got, yes, like your main stereo pair and the hi hats just like 12 DB louder than everything else.
27:55
That can be really well served by a dual mono compressor that when that hi-hat comes in, it just game reduced, is that side heavily and hopefully levels out our stereo pair a little bit. I mean, there's manual ways that you'd probably end up needing to do if it was that dramatically bad. But like that's the you know an example of like. Oh, we need to try and make these sides more uniform. Let's use dual mono to kind of fix the poor chord in absolutely.
BenediktHost28:21
Yeah, and you know the examples where I absolutely always go with dual mono just because everything, anything else just wouldn't make sense to me and I only discovered that not too long ago. Honestly, for the longest time I ignored that. Pretty much have to be honest about this. Like a few years ago I started really being intentional about this, but now I never.
28:39
I never use stereo on the following things any Guitar bus or rhythm guitar group where there's clearly different performances left and right and they are hard pen, where, like the left and right have nothing in common. I would never use a stereo compressor anymore. Because why would I? The two have nothing in common and it's like it's. It's putting a compressor on the left guitar and another compressor on the right guitar. You just do it in one instance and you link the control so it's easier for you, if that makes sense. But why would I want a stereo compressor if I'm not dealing with a true stereo source, which brings us back to what we explained in the beginning. If the two have nothing in common? It's just two mono sources playing individual things Independent, independent of each other. I want to preserve their natural dynamics and I don't want the left guitar to change because of the right guitar. That doesn't make sense to me. I mean, never say never.
29:24
There might be a situation where it makes sense, but usually those is, this is like typical stair dual mono for me. So my guitar bus, my rhythm guitar or my rhythm bus and my template gets a dual mono bus compressor. That, yeah, reacts differently to the left and right. Same thing is for if I have a backing vocal group, for example, yeah, where the individual, it's all individual backing vocal tracks, right, you might have a stack of harmonies, octaves, high, low, third, fifth, whatever harmonies, doubles or whatever, like a vocal stack. It's all individual performances and you have, usually you have you have them in pairs, you have one left and one right, and so I could put a compressor on each of these voices. Or I can put one on a bus and unlink the channels and then it would treat left and right independently. And this is, yeah, another example where I would definitely do this. I don't want the the quieter vocal to become even more quiet because there's a louder vocal on the other side, right? So right.
MalcomHost30:18
Yeah, now on the vocal example If it was, every track was doubled, you know. So there's like a high octave and there's a left and right, and there's low octave and there's a left and a right. Then I might be fine with just a stereo.
BenediktHost30:29
Yeah, because the two are very similar then yeah, the two are very similar.
MalcomHost30:33
They're probably going to be about the same, especially if they were compressed on the way in. But if I only have one of the Each, you know it's a very natural like band in a room harmony setup where there's, like you know, there's going to be a low third and a low fifth or something and I need to pan those apart from each other. The different frequencies of those voices will hit the compressor differently. So dual mono really makes sense there, right. Otherwise that baritone is going to just blow out the compressor 100%.
BenediktHost30:58
Yeah, exactly, also this is a Thing you can use and this is kind of one of the tricks to more loudness with less artifacts, by the way. So you can also unlink or slightly partially like unlink limiters or any compresses are useful loudness Because you don't have yet. This will make your limiter work less hard and you still achieve the same amount of loudness and it avoids the typical thing that happens sometimes when you limit something really hard and then the guitars start crackling or you know there's a loud thing happening on one side and then the other side starts to get like distorted audibly. This doesn't happen anymore if you unlink the limiter and so you can push the limiter a little harder because overall it's working less, because it's focusing on the individual channels more and it doesn't do all the limiting all the time, even if just one channel is really loud. So that way you can get a little bit of extra volume, extra loudness, by unlinking or slightly gradually unlinking the channels. That's why you see on, like fabfilter pro l2, for example, if you click the expert settings, you see transient and release unlinking.
31:57
You can unlink the transients and the release separately actually, and even just unlinking the transients to a degree will give you a little more room to push the limiter without Artifacts, without distortion and without the weird crackling that happens on the other side. So the same with compressors too, like sometimes if, like you said, that loud Voice on the one side, if that really triggers the compressor a lot, it might Like add some undesirable effect to the other side, although that is completely unnecessary. So if you unlink the two, you might have to squash that one loud thing but the other one can still remain like clear, and have all the room it needs.
MalcomHost32:32
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's like it is a simple concept but you just kind of got to think your way through it and then get familiar with the idea and then it will help you Just kind of make those decisions on the fly. The last Example I could give, because this does, knowing this helps you set up your sessions a little bit. And another common thing Like people run into CPU issues if they don't have like a powerful computer, and I think Benny and I have been doing this professionally for so long that we don't even remember that's a thing sometimes. Yeah, we're just like just open up neural DSP fly, but those they're pretty plug-in, you know, the CPU heavy.
33:05
Really they're great plugins but they they take resources and a lot of these kind of mono instance plugins actually have. They call them stereo mode, but it's really dual mono mode where you can throw one instance of A neural DSP amp sim, for example, on a bus and then switch it into Dual mono and now you can feed it to other hardpound left and right Di and it's going to give you, like you know, two individual sounding guitars off the one plug-in right. I hope that makes sense. Am I explaining this well, benny?
BenediktHost33:35
Absolutely. I'm not so convinced, though, that it's actually more CPU friendly it might be probably not.
33:41
It's probably just running the processing twice yeah if I had it's like a, I might be wrong in my head. It should be. The way it should be is like a mono instance, only Like processes one channel and the stereo instance processes two. So it should be double the doubling the amount. But I don't know, maybe even, maybe even the fact that you don't have to have the graphics and all that, maybe that helps. So right, it's probably. It's definitely not more, not hungrier than the, the one, the mono, is definitely not more hungry.
MalcomHost34:07
No, no, and it's. And it's a lot easier to manipulate, like you know, like you just then are just tweaking one plug-in and you don't have to group them together or whatever, or accidentally forgot that you ungrouped and shit. Yeah, that's wearing for no reason yeah.
BenediktHost34:20
I totally get the swearing there, because this is annoying as hell and like there is. I don't know for why that is, but especially with some of the Neural DSP plugins, which I love, by the way. But with some of them, even if I link two channels and because I want to tweak one amp but hear both sides change, sometimes this doesn't work. Sometimes some of the parameters don't, you know it. Just whatever reason, the knobs still only move on one side, and so this gave me trouble sometimes, and it took me a long time, honestly as well, to realize that I could use one stereo instance of an amp sim on 2D eyes and I have all my rhythm guitars covered and it's really two amps. Like I didn't even realize that, because it looks so weird to have one amp that 2D eyes go through. But it works perfectly if you want the same settings.
35:01
That's the way to do it. For sure, yeah, totally. Yeah, all right. So I think I think that's really it.
35:07
Remember, next time when you look at a compressor plug-in and it says it has linking options, know that there's two different things. This could mean linking the controls or linking the sidechain, or both like this different, different things. And I'm thinking I say this because I can think of a few plugins that I use where I thought I unlinked them, where I, when I actually just unlinked the controls but the sidechains were still linked because it's two different buttons for those things. So this is one thing to keep in mind. Then maybe go over this whole like stereo versus mono thing again what that actually, what the difference actually is and then think about how you want to treat your stereo groups or signals and like how much they have in common, if anything, and if it makes sense to let the compressor react to both sides the same way at once, or to let the compressor act like it was two mono instances on two different channels, just summed together on one group. So I think that's it.
MalcomHost36:04
Awesome, yeah, hopefully that demystifies it a little bit for you all out there. All right, it really will make sense if you play with it a little bit, I promise.
BenediktHost36:11
As always, send us questions If you have any comment below. If you're watching this on YouTube, this is also available as a video podcast. So if you go to YouTube and just type in the self recording band, you'll find out channel. So you know. Put your comment below. Let us know what you're struggling with or there is anything unclear that we said there, or maybe we said there was something that was actually wrong. So please correct us.
36:31
And then, yeah, and then also, of course, like I said in the beginning, if you need help implementing this stuff and you don't want to figure it out on your own, just go to the self recording bandcom slash call and schedule a free clarity call with me. You have to go through an application process because we can only take on so many students, but you can apply for our coaching program and if we decide it could be a good fit for you, then we jump on a completely free first call and we talk about where you are right now, where you want to go, what a potential roadmap could look like for you, and then we're going to come to a solution. We're going to recommend a solution for you, and that could be go figure it out on your own. That could be do it with us. That could be hire a pro. Whatever the goal is, to get to a solution that will help you achieve your goals.
37:13
And this, yeah, let's do that on a completely free call and, if it is a great fit, we're happy to work with you and help you implement all this complex stuff that we're talking about on the podcast all the time. All right, see you next week. Bye, bye, okay, take care.
MalcomHost37:28
Bye.
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