Process of changing mono vocals to stereo

F

fayah_bun

New member
Hi
As a beginner still this part is bit unclear to me. Do i need to change mono vocals after recording into stereo before final mastering?
Basically after whole process of editing vocals (compression , EQ etc) vocals are still in mono. Should i change them into stereo by some plugins before mixing with instrumentals. Or leave it for mastering process. (btw not sure if mastering can change signal of vocals from mono to stereo) . Thanks in advance !
 
If you're talking about a single lead vocal, there's no reason to "make it stereo" unless that is the effect you are going for. It is actually highly irregular. Every track, for the most part, that you put into your production that will be a mono source, that you mix as you like with panning, volume, EQ, and the like. The whole final mix, as an end product, is in stereo.

GJ
 
I think lead vocals are usually mono but you can try to duplicate it to another track pan one hard left the other hard right and if you move the sounds on one side a few milliseconds so its not playin exactly at the same time as the other you get a cool stereo effect. If I remember correctly its called the Haas effect
 
coolmint said:
I think lead vocals are usually mono but you can try to duplicate it to another track pan one hard left the other hard right and if you move the sounds on one side a few milliseconds so its not playin exactly at the same time as the other you get a cool stereo effect. If I remember correctly its called the Haas effect
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great!,obviously i didnt kno that
definitely will try that
 
That's what I meant by "unless you want that effect." There are plenty of things to try, but the gold standard against which they are measured is a mono lead vocal, panned center...

GJ
 
The width of a track is not only caused by the amount of perceived modulation on each speaker, but also by the perceived difference in modulation between the two speakers. What this means is that you might easily assign too much signal to lead vocals just to get the width to where you want it because there is nothing else that produces the perceived width. This can in turn mess up the low end and high end because you get lots of additional vocal frequencies in the low end and high end that compete with the modulation you need present in the low end and high end of other sound sources. So lead vocals in mono can turn into an overall mix balance issue, but not necessarily.

You can for instance assign different reverb and saturation combos in dual mono on each channel to slightly alter the modulation. Then you can spread the pan knobs a little. This can be more effective to the mix as a whole than just turning up the volume, simply because you can avoid that volume boost and still have as much perceived modulation left, hence now you have more room left for the modulation of other sound sources, especially in the low and high end. Getting a lot of signal released from the vocals while ending up with much enough vocal modulations, is a key thing in order to improve the sound of a mix. You can for instance shelve the vocals a little in the lows to release even more signal and focus the perception of the modulation a bit higher up. Be careful though because this moves the vocals up in the height dimension and can make it more challenging to balance the sound sources together, but can be a good way of getting the average frequency and loudness closer to where you want it.
 
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