Connecting a stereo synth to a mono pedal and ending in stereo pedals/heat

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

Hi everyone! might be a noob question but here goes nothing:

I’ve kinda fallen in love with the shallow water pedal from fairchild circuitry

however most of my synths are stereo (vermona perfourmer, dreadbox typhon, prophet 6, analog four) and as far as I know are true L/R outputs, no L/mono.

I also have some strymon and OTO pedals (all stereo, reverb/delay) and analog heat.

How would I incorporate the mono shallow water pedal in this setup?

For example: if I want to route:
vermona perfourmer -> shallow water -> oto BIM (or strymon nightsky) -> analog heat.

its essentially : stereo -> mono -> stereo -> stereo

is this even possible? I’m in love but I’m not gonna buy 2 shallow waters haha

Hopefully you can teach me/help me out here!

Thanks and greetings from Amsterdam!

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#2

If you pan all your voices on the perfourmer left, you can just use the left output as a mono out into your shallow water. Obviously you’ll lose the ability to pan individual voices on the performer, but stereo imaging is overrated anyway, besides, you can use the stereo pedals afterwards to enhance the stereo image.

I don’t know about the BIM and the Strymon, but I imagine they are allow mono in to stereo out. The Analog Heat does if you use the L input, but only in the MK2, I believe, otherwise it will pass through in mono, but that shouldn’t be a problem, as you will have already made the signal stereo through one of the other pedals.

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#3

stereo imaging is great, especially if you have lots going on and need to make space for it all in the mix. but yeah, there’s nothing going on with these synths internally that’s going to be lost by going to mono and panning as needed in a mixer or DAW. plus I doubt you’d want to use the SW on every synth, for every track.

I dunno… I wrote a track recently with one P4mer voice going to a ZVex Instant Lo-Fi and another going to a Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl… warbliness for days!

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#4

thanks, that sounds fairly straight forward!

would this work the same on the elektron synths? e.g. the analog four? or the dreadbox typhon? just hard pan the synths sounds/tracks to 1 side, and use the corresponding output?

#5

maybe a dumb idea,

but at first I thought an easy solution would be a stereo cable (L/R) to mono cable (jack, so an Y cable). that way I thought you’d ‘sum’ L&R into one mono.

I feel that this is probably wrong/not the case, but I don’t understand it. Can someone explain why this doesnt work that way?

#6

or second probably dumb option: connecting the headphone output to the mono pedal?

#7

Such cables may well exist, but what’s the point when you can just sum it to mono internally using the pan settings and the L output?

You’ll only get one side of the signal, as the mono input will only be able to hear the TS (Tip/Sleeve) part of the TRS (Tip/Ring/Sleeve) jack, the TRS being what makes the headphone jack stereo (or balanced, but that’s another conversation).

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#8

thanks for the help.

Luckily its very easy to pan all the voices to one side on the perfourmer.

might be a bit more tricky on other synths, but doable ofcourse

#9

You can absolutely use the correct kind of Y cable but as stated hard panning essentially does the same thing.

#10

thanks but If I understand correctly (trying to learn fast here) even a ‘right’ y cable might lead to phase issues if a balanced input is expected.

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#11

Stereo is/can be used to take all your mono sources and move them around the ‘stage’ in your stereo mix. The more stereo sources you have, the more competition for space you create.

note: after about 20 years of trying to mix, I’m only just starting to figure that out :man_facepalming:t5:

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#12

If you have a mixer, and depending on it’s architecture, you might be able to run two parallel fx loops. If so, good odds you can do one in stereo and one in mono and re-sum via input channels.

#13

That could absolutely be true, that’s above my pay grade unfortunately. I know I have run a a stereo synth into a mono pedal like that, not sure if the pedal wanted a balanced input or not, it never sounded bad enough to stop me : )

#14

true. I was mainly referring to the first part. :+1:

#15

You could always get two Shallow Waters… :wink:

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#16

Exactly, I have two Shallow Water for this reason. It’s an expensive solution, but I’m always happy to support creative small businesses if possible.

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#17

You can damage gear this way. A splitter cable is for splitting, not joining. You can’t use them to sum (not correctly anyway).

The outputs are low impedance and the inputs are high impedance. Connecting two outputs to one input can cause current from the outputs to go “backwards” to the other output, because that’s the path of least resistance.

To sum two stereo signals to mono you either needs something designed for that (e.g. a mixer) or a summing cable which has resistors in to stop the outputs acting as inputs.

Edit: thanks to @llatsni for the link in this comment:

And this is the one where I first learnt about it (which links to the Rane one):
http://silentsky.net/wordpress/archives/624

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#18

Some mixers (e.g. Mackie) only have mono FX sends anyway, even though the return is stereo.

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#19

True, though I’ve done this with mackies by using the alt 3/4 assignable outs as stereo sends on the 1202 and 1402. The larger models often gain multi bus functions which give even more flexibility.

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#20

haha yeah, I don’t really find this feasible, but good you support your local haha