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Stop S1 turning my mono tracks to stereo

B

bassface

Member
hi all
Im finding it very inconvenient that S1 will turn my mono tracks to stereo without alerting me.
E.G coming to the end of a mix only to discover that my mono bass track is now stereo (which i dont want)
i understand that some plugins will turn a mono track to stereo because of the nature of the FX.
but my last daw (cakewalk) would not automatically do that (good for me, AFAIK ).
I dont want my kik snr etc to become stereo without me knowing.
Is there a way to "lock " a track to mono or stereo? or do i have to keep checking to
make sure S1 is not making some mix decisions without my permission?
thanks
 
Change the input on the Inspector to Mono, then bounce the track - and it should be Mono again. You can change the input to Stereo again for any FX in stereo.
 
thanks for the reply.
not sure if i made myself clear ..the track is not showing stereo as in 2 side by side waveforms.
its just the the 2 little circles now appear and changing this back to one circle (mono).
alters the sound of my bass track
but like i said its the end of the mix and by this
time all the bottom decisions kik/bass and other stuff
have been made..i dont want to have to redo this.
just want to avoid this in future
 
Had this "issue" several times myself, and it is a bit annoying.. true. Even had it for specifc parts, some stereo some mono. I guess I was playing around with different guitar effects or sth, dont remember.
 
A track's channel mode (increase track height to see the o/oo button) is either set to mono (one channel) or to stereo (two channels, left and right). Tracks set to mono bounce to mono files, tracks set to stereo bounce to stereo files. A mono (e.g. single mic) input or file on a stereo track bounces to a stereo file with identical left and right channel content.

You can use stereo effects on tracks set to mono, but they will come out mono in the mix because there is only one channel available to them. For stereo output from those effects you have to set the track to stereo (two channels, left and right). Bouncing will then be to stereo files too.

To have your cake and eat it too you can feed a mono channel to a stereo bus, and move all effects after and including the first one with stereo output there. Bouncing will be mono, effects will be stereo.
 
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But were you rendering or bouncing tracks ? That is how they would change to stereo or mono depending on the channel input (and FX in stereo).
 
As I picture it, bouncing consolidates tracks (e.g. after slicing/dicing), rendering consolidates channels (e.g. after EQ and comp). Both are affected by the channel mode. If you know that your channel will be mono all the way up to the panning then by all means keep channel mode set to mono, so that bouncing produces single-channel mono files. If you know that you'll use inserts on that channel which produce different left/right output (e.g. room reverb) then you have to set your channel mode according to whether you want that stereo effect or not. Or move the stereo inserts to a bus as suggested before :)
 
A mono track won’t randomly change to stereo. So there must have been an editing action that caused this result. The question is what exactly you did that led to a stereo track. Without that information, it’s nearly impossible to discuss whether this behavior is intended or not.
 
Thanks Lucas..
that is the question."what is it that will change the o/oo setting..
I dont recall doing anything to make my mono bass track turn stereo..
is there anything that will do it? insert stereo fx?
Are there any circumstances where it will change without user manipulation
Or will it remain in whatever state only until user changes is it.?
 
Adding a New Track (T) inserts the same type of track (audio mono/audio stereo/instrument/...) as the last one you added, unless you consciously change the settings to something different. So it is quite easy to accidentally create a stereo track for a mono input. Recording will be a single channel mono file so that will make you none the wiser, until you bounce the track that is. So the most likely scenario is that the tracks with the bouncing 'problem' were created as stereo tracks, only showing it when they were bounced :)
 
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its not that i have a bouncing problem..has nothing to do with bouncing at all
the problem is that i discover at the end of my mix that my bass
track is in stereo mode (??)and is much wider sounding than i would like..
when i mono it it comes more to the centre ...away form the sides
I then change it to mono only to discover all the bass element of my track has to be re thought
kick/bass relationship, low end of guitars keys snare etc.. i already spent hours setting those.
its like i have to recompose the mix...just un necessary
 
Unless you pay close attention it's easy for a Mono track to change to Stereo.

Example: Not seeing that a Bass loop is actually stereo when dragging to a Mono track and track height is too small to reveal it's stereo.

Mono Track becomes Stereo.png
 
Thanks Trucky...
i think what i want to be sure of is...
is there a way that the mono/stereo thing can change without me being aware..
e..g will it change if i insert a stereo fx etc
 
I would only be guessing what your workflow is and how your use of FX differs from me or others.
Do you use templates or a consistent workflow for your songs?
If you can provide these I'm willing to test on my system for any possible Mono to Stereo issues.

I'd also recommend changing track height to "Medium" for all your tracks so you will always see stereo waveforms.

Medium.png
 
again,, its not stereo waves im concerned with..
its the track status o mono... versus.... oo..stereo
if i record my bass track in mono i dont want to find later on in the process
(sometimes days) that that bass track (or any other) has somehow without my being aware
changed status to stereo....
if the status changes from mono to stereo the mono wave I originally recorded still
shows as a single wave however it sounds different from its original mono status
 
I'm not having the issue you're describing.
Post some screenshots that show what's happening.

Like @Lukas posted earlier, we need more details from you...
Lukas said:
A mono track won’t randomly change to stereo. So there must have been an editing action that caused this result. The question is what exactly you did that led to a stereo track. Without that information, it’s nearly impossible to discuss whether this behavior is intended or not.
Click to expand...
 
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bassface said:
its not that i have a bouncing problem..has nothing to do with bouncing at all
the problem is that i discover at the end of my mix that my bass
track is in stereo mode (??)and is much wider sounding than i would like..
when i mono it it comes more to the centre ...away form the sides
I then change it to mono only to discover all the bass element of my track has to be re thought
kick/bass relationship, low end of guitars keys snare etc.. i already spent hours setting those.
its like i have to recompose the mix...just un necessary
Click to expand...
AFAIK audio tracks don't change channel mode on their own accord. The point I tried to make was that you probably created them as stereo tracks to begin with, accidentally. It won't show at all during recording (a mono input records as a single channel track, even on a stereo audio track) so it's easy to miss. Until in your case you use inserts with stereo output on those channels that is.
 
Thinking out loud. To test :
create a new mono track
Record some audio.
Now add a stereo effect to the bin.
Observe what happens to the tracks status. Is is still marked as mono or stereo?

It brings up the question to me about what certain effects are going to do. On a bass track I normally only would be using EQ and compression. Are they stereo or mono?
But then say you add something different like The bass professor. Does that create a stereo image?

When I think about any channel strip I think that there’s the mono signal coming in from the track. From there it is more or less subject to becoming stereo because unlike an analog mixer, a Daw’s track output will become a stereo image the minute a stereo generating plugin is added to the signal path. So choice of plugins will become crucial.
 
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Thanks John
I,too am a Cakewalk refugee....
So to your suggestion...
No, placing a stereo effect on a mono track did not change the o/oo icon at all.
As i expected the stereo effect (in this case a reverb ) did not sound stereo until i changed that icon to stereo.
However changing the track status from mono to stereo increased its volume by about 3db and there were indeed
2 sides to the waveform (although not visually represented ) as i could put one side out of phase...
This behaves differently to how cakewalk handles the mono/stereo track shown by the triangle/ butterfly icon (in cakewalk)
In cakewalk there was no increase in volume.....i guess thats why i noticed that in my Studio one mix (volume increase) requiring
rebalance...
Anyway the real reason i moved from cakewalk was because my exported mixes usually had some small audio artifact..
a little clik or glitch which i had to listen for...sometimes i heard it and sometimes i heard it weeks later.
so i couldnt rely on Cake anymore
And yes i tried for months to find the cause and used all available export methods ..real time ,big buffer /small buffer
couldnt eradicate it....
but so far with Studio one..what hear in the mix is what gets exported...YAY!
 
@bassface Yes I have moved over here for a number of reasons. Not just the fact that I can own Studio One, it's also that I feel the latest release of Sonar is regression in quality and it now will crash when I open many of my projects. The crash for some reason is due to Pro Channel modules.
Also I can not stand the graphics. I wear special glasses for computer work so it's not a matter of pour vision. The new Sonar will go down in history as the version that killed Cakewalk. There's barely anyone left on the user forum.

I have not spent a lot of time with S1 yet as I'm rebuilding my studio but so far I feel it's a solid professionally designed Daw that is growing.
I'm sure there will be little things that are different but different can be a good thing. If it only had a smart tool!
 
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