What's the Difference Between Mono and Stereo?

hey this is Joe Gilder from home studio corner today we're gonna answer the question what's the difference between mono and stereo if you know the answer you can move on but a lot of folks get into audio get into recording get some software get a microphone get some virtual instruments and a keyboard and there's all this terminology in our world that unless you know what it is there's no real reason for you to intuitively know what mono means what stereo means we have some understanding of stereo because we have a car stereo we have a home theater stereo but what is the difference and when do you use one over the other so real quick history lesson a long time ago when people were making records they were being played on you know the big record player in the living room and it had a single speaker and that was the way people listened so a single speaker would be a mono listening environment and since everyone was listening on a single speaker there was no stereo wasn't even a thought that was just how people listened so music for a long time was just recorded in mono meaning everything was right up the middle there wasn't a left channel and a right channel which is what stereo is it was all up the middle so we were all sitting around a single speaker listening to our music well eventually because we like you know human nature being what it is we thought what if we did more so then we brought in a second speaker okay now we can sit between two speakers and we can send some signals to the left speaker some signals to the right speaker and send some to both evenly and that's how we get a stereo mix stereo meaning to where we have some things on the left some things on the right some things up the middle I think originally it was used for like radio programs once they got to broadcasting in stereo where someone would walk across the stage from the left to the right and being a stereo you could record that with two microphones and it would sound as if the person was walking left to right you'd send one microphone to this speaker one microphone to this one and you would get that stereo image which if you've never experienced before or ever noticed or ever listened to like those kind of binaural record that are meant to put you in the space it's really cool it kind of freaky sometimes so once we began stereo began to be the norm now we have the options for recording things in mono and in stereo so it originally was just about playback like what are we playing back one channel or two is it just one channel three one speaker or is it two channels through two speakers which will give us the ability to vary what's happening in one over the other which gives us that sense of left and right and middle that we have when we listen to things on say our earbuds or on two sets of speakers or even in our car stereo so that part isn't all that confusing people tend to get that where people get confused and understandably so is when it comes to recording so I want to create a guitar track and I go into my system and I go to create a track and it gives me the option mono or stereo well a lot of people think well it should be stereo because stereo is better right not so fast turbo let's talk about that for a second so within the recording software something like studio one or whatever you're using any system will support this you have the option to have a stereo track or a mono track what does that mean in terms of recording here's a simple rule this applies to the stereo speakers as well as to recording mono means one stereo means two so if I have a microphone set up let's say this coffee cup is a microphone and I'm recording a vocal okay it's me if the microphone plugged into the system how many sources do I have one I have one microphone here go that needs to be a mono track let's say I'm recording acoustic guitar hold on and I'm using two pencil condenser microphones okay now I have two separate microphones two separate cables plugged into two separate channels on my audio interface now I would record to a stereo channel 1 2 stereo means 2 so on a stereo track this one will get recorded to the left side of that track this would get recorded to the right we would hear those back and so we can set these mics up in a nice XY pattern or something on our acoustic guitar and we get a nice stereo recording a couple of common things that people get confused about let's say you are recording that vocal with a single microphone and you record it in some people think okay I'm gonna duplicate that vocal and pan one left and one right and now I've got stereo that's not how it works remember when we have two sets of speakers and I send a vocal through it if I send an equal amount to the one on the left and the one on the right I'm essentially hearing it in mono it's gonna be right up the middle all you're doing by duplicating the track and panning it left and right is adding volume you're not doing anything to create any sort of stereo balance same with guitars you may have heard people say double your guitar part you know play one guitar part and then double it what people get confused is they think oh I can just copy and paste that guitar track to a second track pan one left pan one right and I've got this nice double track no that's not how it works when we talk about doubling and stereo in terms of doubling we're actually talking about playing that guitar part two separate times recording it on one mono track recording it on another mono track then panning them left and right the differences between those tracks are what allow us to hear something in stereo where it sounds like there's something coming out of this speaker something coming out of this speaker now some people will say just take a single guitar track duplicate it and then delay this one a little bit so it's not happening at exactly the same time that will give you a sense of a stereo image but you'll have all kinds of phase problems you'll notice that while it does sound wide it also sounds like it's twisted like you want to turn your head a little bit when you listen to it that is not the right way to get a stereo sound out of guitars it's not it's not it's not it's not I just it's not there's two ways to kind of what I would say proper ways to get a stereo sound out of something like a guitar the first is to use two microphones I put two microphones on the acoustic guitar now I'm getting a stereo image if I space the microphones out I'll get a little bit wider stereo image it's not gonna be super duper wide like doubles will but it will be wider than a single microphone which may be appropriate for a certain circumstance the second way to get a stereo sounding guitar is to record the guitar part to separate time pan one left and pan one right those are the only two ways now there are plugins that kind of will give you a little bit of stereo with you can mess with stereo delays and things like that but as far as proper recording getting mono and stereo I want to make this super clear if you want it stereo there has to be two of something if you take a guitar track and you duplicate it into a second track that's not technically 2 of something it's the same part twice that's different than having two separate things remember how I said mono is one stereo is two if I have a single microphone it doesn't do me any good to record that to a stereo track it's a single microphone it is a mono signal by definition so recording it to a stereo track doesn't give me anything if I record two microphones now we're talking do I ever stereo mic a vocal no it's not wrong I just don't see any point but acoustic guitars sure or maybe I'll put two microphones on a guitar amp sometimes and then have both maybe on separate track so I can mess with the panning or just leave them up the middle to have a come combination of tones common places in recording scenarios where you'll see stereo acoustic instruments a lot of times that XY thing on a cello or a guitar can be really great overheads for drums a lot of times you'll have a X Y or space pair for overheads percussion sometimes you'll have two mics set up so you have a little bit of width to the percussion that you're recording the big instruments like piano you might have two instruments on there anytime you plug in a keyboard that has two outputs left and right that would be stereo if you have something like a Wurlitzer which is has just a single output that's a mono instrument you'll plug it into one track you won't get any stereo nests out of that now Wurlitzer samples inside a software those tend to be stereo okay last thing every recording system has a different way of showing whether a track is mono or stereo sometimes you can tell by looking at the meters if there's just one one meter going up and down that's typically mono if you see two little meters side-by-side and they're slightly different that's usually stereo another way to tell is usually somewhere on the track there'll be a section with a circle or two circles so if you have it with just one if you see that section has just one circle that typically means it is a no track if you see it with two kind of interlocking circles almost like links of a chain that's usually the symbol for stereo in Studio One for example I can on a track I can click this and it'll turn into this so I can transform it from a mono channel to a stereo Channel now remember if I already recorded a mono signal on the track that's not really gonna do anything but there are instances where maybe I have a mono signal but then I want a stereo delay where this the vocal is mono but then the delay stereo things like that that's where I might want to transform between the two thanks for watching all the way to the end of this video I try I've been running home studio corner for over a decade and it's really easy for me to just want to get into whatever is new and exciting that I'm working on a new EQ trick a new way of routing things in a mix mid/side processing or something like that but it's important that we always circle back to the basics things like this what is mono what is stereo if you have other basic things you have questions about first of all there's no shame in that we all start from zero knowing nothing about this and then we develop skill over time we develop knowledge we learn new things we apply that we get better so if you have questions about basic things you'd like to know about please leave a comment below I will collect those ideas and work those into my schedule for future videos because I want this to be the single best resource for you as you're making your music I want you to watch a video or two of me and get so excited to go back in the studio and make music that's the goal ultimately the goal is for you not to watch me and just go make music but let you can keep watching for now alright that's it for me thanks for watching by the way if you haven't seen my recording cheat sheet it's really cool talks about a lot of different habits and tricks that I've developed over the years for my recording game to make my productions a lot better you can get that for free at recording cheat sheet calm thanks for watching see you the next one

Channel: Joe Gilder • Home Studio Corner

Views: 44,863

Rating: 4.9519925 out of 5

Keywords: mixing, gear, home recording, equipment, joe gilder, presonus, studio one, home studio, stereo, mono, recording, double, guitar, left, right, balance

Id: RVgc7v-4n8k

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2020