tracking stereo mono panning inputs etc

[perfectprint]

so im tracking into sonar from my asr (2 outs) and in the past iv been panning each drum hard left and setting the channel input on sonar to 'L EMU SOUNDCARD in Left' and then sometimes for samples recording onto two tracks 'L in L' and 'R in R' and panning them hard left and right in sonar.

is this at all the right way to do go about it? how does using a stereo effect on the asr change the tracking process? and when does the sonar input 'stereo EMU SOUNCARD in L (or R)' come into play.

in the end i usually get the result i want but i was tracking in a kick drum last night when panning it hard left distorted it somehow. are there guidlines i should be following? thanks

 

[sleepy]

You should be good tracking in mono. I wouldn't recommend panning in the ASR since all you're doing is amplifying the output on that particular channel. This is why your kick distorted because the asr converters are clipping.

When applying a stereo effect in the asr if you want to maintain the effect then record to stereo. You can re-create the effect in sonar though by copying the track and then adding separate effects to each.

Let's say we have the ASR and we have a snare and a kick. The snare and the kick are centered. We can track these to the daw in mono because mono will give us a centered track. If you're tracking everything separately, tracking to stereo will mostly be the exception rather than the norm. You can always pan in the DAW. Tracking a kick to a stereo track will give you a track that has the same data on both channels. So you'll use twice the disk space and will get no advantage from tracking to stereo. If you're tracking a kick, a snare, and have some percussion sounds that are panned and are recording the whole drum track at once, then record to stereo since you'll likely want to preserve the panning you have already made.

If you have a string sample or something. Unless the sample has different sound in the left and right channel, tracking to mono should be good since you can pan in the daw.

I track to mono from most sound modules/keyboard. You'd have to listen to the sounds but the left channel is usually what you'll want since the right is often a copy with more effect on it to create a "stereo" sound. Most module effects sound too bad to be useable so I usually turn those off also.