Using 2 mono tracks to create a stereo signal

Ez now. Chill ya boots and read carefully. : )

The confusion wasn’t originally (or shouldn’t have been if people actually took in what was said) that L and R is stereo. That is the basics of audio recording everyone can easily understand. But something is missing in translation of the original point due to folkes jumping the gun and refusing to see it.

The confusion is that you cannot preserve the stereo field of (for eg) a field recording where there is natural movement between left and right (or any perceivable depth) already in the recording (sample) by using 2 summed versions … it will be summed to mono thus removing the movement … panning L + R is indeed stereo (I didn’t see anyone try to say it wasn’t… I certainly didn’t even imply it purposely)

Here is the But … what you have is 2 mono versions with an artificial representation of the original (natural) stereo field, and even if you could (as open Mike suggested) record the L and then the R separately, it will all still be summed to the centre…

Try this yourself and tell me the movement of (for eg) a car passing recorded in stereo, is retained after being summed and then spread L+R afterward. It won’t be there. It will be static.

The depth and in many ways beauty of a stereo recording summed to mono will be dead and centred, that’s a fact of recording audio. It’s also not what DT was intended for which is why we’re here, as people can’t understand why this limitation exists… best guess is that it’s designed for mono drums.

L + R is stereo congratulations Everyone for following this but that wasn’t the original point … open Mike clearly misunderstood. Sorry but it’s written in the thread already.

EDIT - it is also worth noting the original post of open mikes that disputed what I said was removed whilst I was replying, leaving a brand new but still off point, replacement underneath.

Not intending to break balls at all. But it’s getting a bit silly now (as you pointed out) all in the name of confusion and probable ego in not wanting to see the point… (because yet again everyone wants “what it is” to be “what it isn’t” as it’s more convienient I guess)

cheers x

Ya know, this is silly. I have nothing wrong with you and I’m not inflating my ego. I appologize for any misunderstandings. I don’t even want a Digitakt, I have an OT. Honestly I thought I was just trying to help…
One thing must be clear though, you keep referring to me saying to use two summed versions to create stereo and how I’m wrong about that. If you read my posts you’ll find I never said that even once, been trying to say almost the opposite of that, every time…
Again, It’s all good, nothing personal, respect all Elektronauts… But please stop misquoting me…

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Roland S-330 manual, 1988 :grinning:

As you can see if you care to look, the original post I made was simply replying to prints who wanted to preserve the 80s style “tape effect width” he has in his samples by using 2 summed versions (of said stereo sample) and panning them. My point was If you sum them all the organic movement of the ordinal sample will be moved to the centre and there will be no more 80s vibe that was intrinsic to what he wanted from the sound. That’s all I originally implied.

Another EG jus for the sake of not looking like I’m arguing for the sake…

If you take the overheads of a drum kit L+R (using 2 mics) you will have an honest representation of the room and anything that happens in it when you play it back in stereo… if you put that into DT whatever happened on the left side of the room (acoustic oddities, somebody farting loudly) it will find itself bang in the centre… that means that panning them L+R although still stereo will leave the fart in the centre, yes still stereo but not accurate to the original. Is this incorrect ?

I’m saying if you sum stereo movement (or anything that happens off centre) to mono the movement is gone and everything is centred… that’s all… am I wrong ?

Does DT have stereo outputs ?! This will certainly give you stereo sound between speakers, but this still will not give you acurate representations of stereo recordings after they’ve been summed. Right or wrong ?

Forget L+R put it in 5.1 and said LOUD FART will still be in the centre… not in its original place on the left.

Hope I don’t get picked on anymore tbh. I’m spent. :blush:

Right back at ya mate. No hard feelings at all. Simple language barrier.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Introducing Digitakt

It’s incorrect if you presume that the DT will only do summing, there is no basis to presume that, one could reasonably assume that Left or Right or Both(summed) could be tapped into a mono buffer, so a Left input will be captured separately from a Right input, exactly as you can on the OT (simultaneously), except that the OT always works with stereo files (even if capturing a single channel) … even if the device allows you to present the Direct inputs in the centre (say for two separate mono synths) it’ll still permit you to record those two channels in isolation, thus preserving the stereo image at the expense of two tracks

There is no way the DT will come shipped unable to record from L / R / L+R selectively per buffer

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Was just going to reply with an explanation, but Baddcr has done so in great detail and probably better than I would have. If you don’t get or agree with what being said in said explanation, then there’s nothing more I or anyone else can say to try and convince you otherwise.

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i didn’t mention recording into DT tho or did i ? The initial thought was that of a sample imported into DT, or am i loosing my mind :blush:

Does DT not convert the sample to MONO on import? if not then of course im incorrect, which is fine by me… Never intended it to be this whole LR vs Preserving stereo field stuff, that came off the back off miss interpretation.

Will DT import and play back a PRE recorded stereo sample accurately or will it convert it to mono first ?

this isn’t what i was meaning at all… if you mean me. I was replying originally to prints who wanted to import a sample… Not record.

thats convenient init :slight_smile:

no

i always was talking of preserving the information of an imported sample…

Bit of a witch hunt all this tbh.

It’ll do as the AR does and discard a channel, I very much doubt it’ll have the ability to be imported and split across two tracks, it’s just too messy, it won’t happen (besides the option to split the sample beforehand is always there for the end user, as per AR)

This reminds me of how frustrating the “Mastering” conversation we had months ago was.

the stereo field of a recording has information spread over the entire spectrum (info that has already been recorded)… info that will be lost if converted to mono? I dont see why thats odd, its correct, just my language is a little misleading, maybe.

Basically prints was querying how DT would treat a stereo sample with lots of organic movement, and i was responding to him… nothing about recording at all.

this is exactly my point all along … but i didnt want to be so obvious about saying it. My bad i guess :confused:

edit - hence “witch hunt”

indeed you where confused about the difference in mastering and master buss processing and attempted to put it down to voodoo if i recall… but this isn’t one for here, eh pal.

I don’t know man. Based on our track records, I wouldn’t be so quick to point an accusatory finger when it comes to communication lol.

This … so my mistake is how i think of it as info ? ill bare this in mind. Thank you .

i hardly think this is the confusion at all tbh… The confusion was you thought i was struggling to comprehend stereo “recording” and went into great detail of why i was wrong, but it wasnt at all what i was saying and trying to split hairs to make out the word "information"caused that is equally daft. :slight_smile: