With regard to stereo
image width, is there typically a ‘cap’ you would place on tracks to
maintain a good mono sound? Perhaps there’s some kind of relatively
hard‑and‑fast ground rule (assuming a typical sort of track layout),
such as ‘never go beyond 50 percent either way’?
Via SOS web site
SOS
contributor Mike Senior replies:
There are two basic issues regarding
mono compatibility. The first is that panning any mono track off‑centre
reduces its level in the mono balance by a maximum of around 3dB when
panning hard left or right. From this perspective, the only ground rule
I’d apply there is to make sure that the balance continues to function
correctly in mono. If your main guitar power‑riff is panned hard left,
it may struggle to fulfill its musical function in mono, simply by
virtue of losing a lot of ground against things like the bass, kick,
snare and lead vocal (which all typically reside close to the centre).
The
second issue to be aware of is that any stereo recording or stereo
effect return in your mix may contain elements in one channel that are
out of phase or polarity-inverted compared to the other channel. These
can phase‑cancel when summed to mono, and although this might simply
result in a subjective level drop (as in the case of some M/S‑based
widening effects), typically the cancellation is frequency‑selective in
some way, so the tone of affected parts suffers as well. Stereo
drum-overhead mics and stereo piano recordings commonly fall foul of
this to some extent, on account of the widespread use of spaced‑pair
recording techniques on these instruments, but almost any multi‑miked
part can potentially come a cropper if you pan the individual mics
independently in the stereo field
Flux
Audio’s Stereo Tool is the pick of the freeware stereo vectorscope
displays currently available, and can help you head off
mono-compatibility problems, especially if you’re working on headphones.
The cast‑iron remedy to uncertainty here is to
make a point of comparing your mix against commercial productions in
mono. Conventions on stereo imaging vary a lot between styles, and even
between engineers, so it’s tricky to generalise with any validity.
However, what may help you is to get hold of a stereo vectorscope
display for your DAW, such as Flux Audio’s fantastic freeware Stereo
Tool plug‑in. Once you get used to how things look on there, it can tip
you off to impending mono phase‑cancellation problems, especially if
you’re working on headphones, which don’t give the same funny ‘outside
the speakers’ stereo effect that’s usually a clear warning sign
on nearfields.
All that said, there is one
little panning‑width rule of thumb that I do tend to follow personally,
but this isn’t as much related to mono compatibility as it is headphone
listening. When you pan something hard to either side in headphones, it
gives the impression that it’s right by that ear, because there’s no
crosstalk between that earcup and the opposite ear. I’ve always found
this a bit distracting myself, and it can make it tricky to blend the
sounds in your mix convincingly, in my experience. For this reason
I rarely pan mono sources beyond about 85 percent either way, because
this makes them a little less dislocated in headphones and actually
affects the stereo presentation very little, especially if you’re
feeding a selection of stereo effect returns into your mix anyway, which
will still guarantee that the stereo picture is painted right out to
the edges. Bear in mind, though, that this is very much an issue of
personal preference, and there are lots of very famous engineers who
actively prefer the extreme‑panned presentation. The only way to make up
your own mind is, again, to compare your mix to your favourite records
on headphones and decide which sounds best to you.
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