Should Sub-Mixes of Mono Instruments be Bussed to a Stereo Aux?

[Zacobe]

The title may be kind of vague, but that's as simple as I could put it on a subject line. Basically, I'm learning advanced mixing techniques, eg bussing groups of sounds together then sent to other groups for stem mixing then out to a final bus. Until now, all my tracks have been stereo because of some confusion I've had about routing Battery 3 tracks, but now I learned the proper way to do it and I have a question regarding mono tracks, and bussing them to a sub group.

For example, I've routed my 3 kick tracks from battery to their own mono tracks in Pro Tools (the sounds were originally recorded mono). I did this because I've read that there's no need to put a sound into a stereo track unless it truly is a stereo sound. So, I processed each kick the way I wanted it and then proceeded to bus all three to another track, so created a mono aux track since all the tracks going into it were mono, but it seems that mono aux tracks clip faster than stereo aux tracks (I guess because in a stereo track you get 2 aux tracks' worth of headroom?). I ended up sending the mono tracks to a stereo bus instead because I wanted more headroom for the kick, since it was an integral part of the mix. I guess I just thought that a mono bus would have the same amount of headroom as a stereo bus for the very reason I'm posting about. Kicks are generally mono, and they eat up a lot of headroom, so why would an aux bus be weaker than a stereo bus?

I don't know, I'm probably missing some logic here but I'm learning. I'd appreciate any info/advice on the subject. Thanks for your time.

Chris

 

[sleepy]

I don't know how pro tools works so I don't have an explanation for you. As far as headroom goes, there's really no excuse for having no headroom.

If you have 3 mono channels being sent to 1 group channel and that group channel is clipping, you turn down the 3 group channels. If you've already applied processing, then you turn down the group channel so that you don't affect your processors. If your aux channel is clipping, then you turn down the group channel. Cubase allows you to "send" as much, or as little signal to an aux (send) or a group channel. If Pro Tools doesn't have this, then just turn down the group. This may affect your processors at the next stage. So tweaking the single mono channels will affect your group channel, and tweaking your group channel will affect your sends.

As far as when to use mono/stereo, you have the idea of it. 99.9% of the time I will leave the kicks centered. As far as snares, I can see myself going from mono snares into a stereo group if the effects on the group are chorus, reverb, delay, or any type of effect that is in stereo. Otherwise, a mono track will do. I will usually do levels at the channel itself, processing on the groups, and effects on the sends. Once I have most of the mix done I will mix with the groups since I already have the snare blends that I want. This applies to other sounds, just that snare is an easy example.

So you don't have to use a stereo aux, but you might want to if the effects on there are stereo and only if you want those effects in stereo.

 

[Zacobe]

I don't know how pro tools works so I don't have an explanation for you. As far as headroom goes, there's really no excuse for having no headroom.

If you have 3 mono channels being sent to 1 group channel and that group channel is clipping, you turn down the 3 group channels. If you've already applied processing, then you turn down the group channel so that you don't affect your processors. If your aux channel is clipping, then you turn down the group channel. Cubase allows you to "send" as much, or as little signal to an aux (send) or a group channel. If Pro Tools doesn't have this, then just turn down the group. This may affect your processors at the next stage. So tweaking the single mono channels will affect your group channel, and tweaking your group channel will affect your sends.

As far as when to use mono/stereo, you have the idea of it. 99.9% of the time I will leave the kicks centered. As far as snares, I can see myself going from mono snares into a stereo group if the effects on the group are chorus, reverb, delay, or any type of effect that is in stereo. Otherwise, a mono track will do. I will usually do levels at the channel itself, processing on the groups, and effects on the sends. Once I have most of the mix done I will mix with the groups since I already have the snare blends that I want. This applies to other sounds, just that snare is an easy example.

So you don't have to use a stereo aux, but you might want to if the effects on there are stereo and only if you want those effects in stereo.

Thanks for the reply. I've seen a lot of your posts since I've been on this forum, pretty good stuff. Yeah like I've been mentioning in other posts, my gain staging methods are pretty bad... that's because generally no vocals go on them and they never professionally done, so I end up getting my important sounds as hot as possible before it reaches the master bus. And yes, pro tools allows you to send as much or little of the signal to the aux as you want. I guess what my real question was, if I send the kick group to a stereo aux at such levels so it just barely didn't clip, that same signal would clip if it were sent to an mono aux bus right?

 

[sleepy]

It depends. Sometimes some of the sound may cancel out when you send it to a mono track and you'll end up with a lower volume because of this. I just sent a piano patch to a mono track to check the levels for you and I thought maybe I had a reverb on the group, but turns out the sound was cancelling out and sounded pretty bad. I did the same with a lead and it wasn't as bad, but the level was lower.

I generated a test tone on a stereo channel right now and from the looks of it, Cubase turns down the signal by -3dbfs automatically on the mono group. Signals are exactly the same if I send to a stereo group. Usually, people make the mistake of recording vocals unnecesarily to a stereo track and think it sounds "better" but it's only +3dbfs louder because that's what the sum of both mono tracks gives you.

 

[Zacobe]

It depends. Sometimes some of the sound may cancel out when you send it to a mono track and you'll end up with a lower volume because of this. I just sent a piano patch to a mono track to check the levels for you and I thought maybe I had a reverb on the group, but turns out the sound was cancelling out and sounded pretty bad. I did the same with a lead and it wasn't as bad, but the level was lower.

I generated a test tone on a stereo channel right now and from the looks of it, Cubase turns down the signal by -3dbfs automatically on the mono group. Signals are exactly the same if I send to a stereo group. Usually, people make the mistake of recording vocals unnecesarily to a stereo track and think it sounds "better" but it's only +3dbfs louder because that's what the sum of both mono tracks gives you.

Yeah since I'm an insomniac I just opened the session and did the same test myself lol. What I failed to realize was that when I bussed the kick group to a stereo aux, by default the pan pots are hard left and right, which like you said affects the output level. When I center the left and right channels of that group bus, the volume goes up, and that is why the stereo aux didn't clip at the same input level like the mono did. Now whether or not I felt the signal was more "focused" as a mono aux group, I don't know. Technically if the stereo pan pots are centered, it should be the same exact thing. But from now on, as good practice, I'm going to make sure mono sounds are on mono, tracks and stereo sounds are on stereo tracks. And yeah I understand about the possibility of the level going down on stereo tracks if it starts to cancel out. Thanks!

 

[Mersikil]

Why not do basic processing in battery and route the 3 kicks to a single pro tools channel? 4 channels for a kick drum is overkill, and i can't see what processing you'd need to do to the individual parts that can't be done in battery.

Also, theres absolutely no benefit in pushing everything as 'hot' as you can. Something, somewhere along the way is gonna clip when you are doing this. Pull everything waaaaaaaaaaaay back and turn your monitors up.

 

[JeanLukPigheart]

It does make sense to use mono outputs for Battery vs. putting mono sounds on stereo outputs. But this is for INDIVIDUAL sounds (that You know are mono). But here the plot thickens. While You may end up keeping the "meat" in the middle (bd/sd), the moment You put delays/verbs/fx that is stereo on Your tracks.............well, You can't if it's in mono. And when You pan individual sounds (or as mentioned in the last sentence, use stereo effects), You end up needing STEREO busses for the groups of sounds. So yeah, the OUTPUT of Battery, FOR mono sounds should be mono, but the RECEIVING channel should be put into stereo mode, in case You need to apply stereo effects (for example, pan the HPFiltered reverb of the snare to the right, while putting the delay of the HH on the left)..........You end up in stereo anyway, so why prepare for a clusterf**k of resetting channels to stereo every single time You want to use some stereo effect.

I use M/S splitting for busses a lot, where I treat the mono AND the stereo part of the signal differently and THEN "fuse" them together again.

Hope this makes sense to You, if not, just ask. Btw, Pro Tools recently changed the pan laws, so putting dual-mono into a mono bus should give You a signal raise of LESS than +3dB.

---------- Post added at 08:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:38 AM ----------

Why not do basic processing in battery and route the 3 kicks to a single pro tools channel? 4 channels for a kick drum is overkill, and i can't see what processing you'd need to do to the individual parts that can't be done in battery.

No. It's not "overkill". You will probably treat the different parts of the sound you want to get (e.g. 808 for the buttom, 909 for the "meat" and a pitched rim shot for the snap) differently, say, different eqs and different compression settings for the individual parts of the bassdrum, so putting them all on a single channel doesn't make sense.

Batterys effects, lets be honest, are sounding HORRIBLE. Most people don't even realize they run it in the "standard" resampling mode. Run a long 808 in "standard" mode and then set the mode to "perfect". Night & Day of a difference.

You may even want to use the different part of the overall bassdrum sound as a sidechain source for different sounds, so that makes sense as well, if you put them on individual channels.

Also, theres absolutely no benefit in pushing everything as 'hot' as you can. Something, somewhere along the way is gonna clip when you are doing this. Pull everything waaaaaaaaaaaay back and turn your monitors up.

This is another reason for using as many channels as possible. Mixing the sounds in your DAWs mixer is easier than always reopening Battery, finding the sound you want to pull back and then closing Battery again, in order to work on your other tracks in the beat.

Yeah, in the 24bit/44.1kHz world (or 24bit/48kHz if you work for video/TV), you have enough headroom and you don't need to record or play tracks as "hot" as possible.

Rule of thumb for drums is to put all drum-tracks down to -10dB, THEN start to re-mix the balances.

Hope this helps.

 

[Zacobe]

Why not do basic processing in battery and route the 3 kicks to a single pro tools channel? 4 channels for a kick drum is overkill, and i can't see what processing you'd need to do to the individual parts that can't be done in battery.

Also, theres absolutely no benefit in pushing everything as 'hot' as you can. Something, somewhere along the way is gonna clip when you are doing this. Pull everything waaaaaaaaaaaay back and turn your monitors up.

I agree about the hot signal thing, but I still make sure it never clips all the way through the chain. And no amount of kicks is too much as long as the signal sounds good. Up until now I have done all my processing in Battery then bounced the final to an individual track in PT. Problem with this is that if you want to use diff effects on diff sounds, you can't. Battery has one kind of EQ, one kind of compressor, one kind of reverb etc.. Now don't get me wrong, Battery's effects processors are good for certain tasks, but sometimes I want to use certain plugins on individual sounds, which I am not able to do unless I route each sound to a diff track in pro tools. Thanks for your input though.

---------- Post added at 05:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:43 AM ----------

It does make sense to use mono outputs for Battery vs. putting mono sounds on stereo outputs. But this is for INDIVIDUAL sounds (that You know are mono). But here the plot thickens. While You may end up keeping the "meat" in the middle (bd/sd), the moment You put delays/verbs/fx that is stereo on Your tracks.............well, You can't if it's in mono. And when You pan individual sounds (or as mentioned in the last sentence, use stereo effects), You end up needing STEREO busses for the groups of sounds. So yeah, the OUTPUT of Battery, FOR mono sounds should be mono, but the RECEIVING channel should be put into stereo mode, in case You need to apply stereo effects (for example, pan the HPFiltered reverb of the snare to the right, while putting the delay of the HH on the left)..........You end up in stereo anyway, so why prepare for a clusterf**k of resetting channels to stereo every single time You want to use some stereo effect.

I use M/S splitting for busses a lot, where I treat the mono AND the stereo part of the signal differently and THEN "fuse" them together again.

Hope this makes sense to You, if not, just ask. Btw, Pro Tools recently changed the pan laws, so putting dual-mono into a mono bus should give You a signal raise of LESS than +3dB.

Well they have mono to stereo variants of effects for this reason, which I think you alluded to earlier. I'm not worried about that, and if it is to become an issue once I start routing this way, I'll learn what works best for me.

Batterys effects, lets be honest, are sounding HORRIBLE. Most people don't even realize they run it in the "standard" resampling mode. Run a long 808 in "standard" mode and then set the mode to "perfect". Night & Day of a difference.

Not sure what "standard" resampling mode is, but I have to disagree with you here. Battery 3 has one of the most aggressive compressors I've used (well I guess that's not saying much, all I've really used is stock digi and a couple Waves). Definitely the best I've used so far for parallel compressing drums. The EQ is sharp as well, definitely has a different sound that I can't get from the other plugins I have. Don't get me started on their their lofi processor and saturator. One of the biggest issues though is that you can't use a high or low pass filter on the EQ at the same time as multiband EQ.. Many times I want to use both but it's not an option.. that I've seen anyway.

---------- Post added at 05:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 AM ----------

Yeah, in the 24bit/44.1kHz world (or 24bit/48kHz if you work for video/TV), you have enough headroom and you don't need to record or play tracks as "hot" as possible.

Rule of thumb for drums is to put all drum-tracks down to -10dB, THEN start to re-mix the balances.

Hope this helps.

This is something I will need to start getting in the habit of. Thanks.

 

[JeanLukPigheart]

View attachment 33301

I agree about the hot signal thing, but I still make sure it never clips all the way through the chain. And no amount of kicks is too much as long as the signal sounds good. Up until now I have done all my processing in Battery then bounced the final to an individual track in PT. Problem with this is that if you want to use diff effects on diff sounds, you can't. Battery has one kind of EQ, one kind of compressor, one kind of reverb etc.. Now don't get me wrong, Battery's effects processors are good for certain tasks, but sometimes I want to use certain plugins on individual sounds, which I am not able to do unless I route each sound to a diff track in pro tools. Thanks for your input though.

Easy solution. Route Your sound to a channel, as usual. Put the effects You want to have on it in PT. Record/bounce the sound to a file. Re-load the now edited sound with FX on it into Battery. Done.

Not sure what "standard" resampling mode is, but I have to disagree with you here. Battery 3 has one of the most aggressive compressors I've used (well I guess that's not saying much, all I've really used is stock digi and a couple Waves). Definitely the best I've used so far for parallel compressing drums. The EQ is sharp as well, definitely has a different sound that I can't get from the other plugins I have. Don't get me started on their their lofi processor and saturator. One of the biggest issues though is that you can't use a high or low pass filter on the EQ at the same time as multiband EQ.. Many times I want to use both but it's not an option.. that I've seen anyway.

To each their own. I come from the world of digital consoles like the Sony Oxford or the Euphonix models, so "plug in" has a (literally) different sound for me. Btw, the Sony Oxford algorithms are available in plug in form, You should definitely check them out; it will be an ear-opener, so to speak.

The interpolation mode refers to the HQI (High Quality Interpolation of samples) option, that every cell in Battery has. ALL cells should be set to "HQI: perfect"; by default, they are set to "standard". The difference in quality is huge, the most detectable it will be, if You take a sine-ish, low freq sound like a long 808 tail. Or use a sound that has a big reverb on it and listen to the sound/tail. Huge difference and these days, doesn't cost You much, as far as CPU taxing goes.

View attachment 33301
View attachment 33301

 

[Zacobe]

Easy solution. Route Your sound to a channel, as usual. Put the effects You want to have on it in PT. Record/bounce the sound to a file. Re-load the now edited sound with FX on it into Battery. Done.

I don't like bouncing files till I'm pretty much done with the mix because I'm constantly tweaking settings. Either way this new way of routing is working really well for me.

View attachment 33301To each their own. I come from the world of digital consoles like the Sony Oxford or the Euphonix models, so "plug in" has a (literally) different sound for me. Btw, the Sony Oxford algorithms are available in plug in form, You should definitely check them out; it will be an ear-opener, so to speak.

The interpolation mode refers to the HQI (High Quality Interpolation of samples) option, that every cell in Battery has. ALL cells should be set to "HQI: perfect"; by default, they are set to "standard". The difference in quality is huge, the most detectable it will be, if You take a sine-ish, low freq sound like a long 808 tail. Or use a sound that has a big reverb on it and listen to the sound/tail. Huge difference and these days, doesn't cost You much, as far as CPU taxing goes.

I'm not sure what you mean about the SO algorithms, but if there's a simple cheap way to make my music sound better I'm always open to suggestions. Regarding the "perfect" setting in Battery.. where is it? I just looked through the options menu and didn't see it anywhere...

 

[JeanLukPigheart]

Buttom, left: "Sampler-----Reverse-DFD-HQI:standard.

http://www.delamar.de/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/B3-Full-Shot-1_01.jpg

The "HQI:standard" should be set to "HQIerfect"

 

[Zacobe]

I changed it on an 808 I had running out of there.. Couldn't tell if there was a difference or not, but my room/monitors are not the best. I changed all my settings to that. I have an i7 processor, 6gb ram, and all my samples on a 6gps SATA HDD, as well as my projects on a separate internal HDD, as well as my OS on a separate HDD... would always running my samples as DFD free up any resources on my CPU? I mean I don't really need to, mines running at 3.56, but the whole purpose of putting everything on a separate HDD was to make everything run as smoothly as possible. If this is another thing that would help, I'll do it.

 

[JeanLukPigheart]

... would always running my samples as DFD free up any resources on my CPU? I mean I don't really need to, mines running at 3.56, but the whole purpose of putting everything on a separate HDD was to make everything run as smoothly as possible. If this is another thing that would help, I'll do it.

No, not really. And it just takes a piece of the lifetime of the HD. Most drum kits are just a couple of MBs in size, so it doesn't take up that much of space on Your HDs either.

DFD only really makes sense, if You were to use a lot of big, orchestral patches in Kontakt or whathaveyou and they would use the majority of Your RAM.