Page 37 - The score

MALIK ARSHAQ
MIXING IN MONO

It was not until the late 1950’s that stereophonic sound was into their intended positions, collapsing the whole mix into
being offered for public listening and even after it was, not mono will let you focus on the other two aspects without
a lot of listeners had a device that allowed stereo playback. being distracted by the width.
What might come as a surprise to a lot of people is that, even Certain elements, you might notice, sound thinner and
today, our music is not usually heard in true stereo. Whether
it’s from your phone, Bluetooth speaker or even even car maybe a little lacking in the low end. For example, a guitar
stereos, you might either be sitting closer to one speaker or that was recorded with two mics, one right in front of the
you’re so far away from both the speakers, that by the time cone and the other a little further away from, it is possible
you hear it you might not be able to make out the stereo that when both tracks are played together in mono, they are
out of phase with one another. This causes them to partial
separation and are probably listening to the audio collapsed
into mono. This means that it is very important that sound cancel each other out. This issue can be fixed by simply
engineers check for mono compatibility while mixing. phase inverting one of the tracks. While you may not notice
the phase cancellation while listening to the mix in stereo,
Not only does mixing in mono make your mix safer across it becomes when collapse it down to mono. Since in a lot of
different listening environments, but it also allows you pin- cases, the listener might be hearing your mix either from
point certain issues with your mix that could ultimately help a mono system or in an environment where the stereo
in making your final stereo mix sound better as well. If your separation doesn’t translate well, it is important for to look
interface has a mono option, you can activate it or using for elements that are out of phase and correct them.
stereo width plugins and turning them all the way down can Finally, after switching to mono and making sure that the
also give you an accurate enough mono representation. You
might start noticing that a lot of elements that felt like they levels of the separate elements are just right, that each track
were sitting quite well in the mix, are now maybe a little is EQ’d so that it fits in its place in the mix and it sounds
loud and upfront or lost in the mix. The three things that pretty good overall, you can be assured that after you switch
back to stereo your end-product is going to sound amazing.
you need to look out for when you’re mixing are the volumes Regularly switching back and forth between stereo and
of the tracks relative to each other, the tonal quality of each
individual element and the positioning of each element in mono throughout the process of mixing will allow you to
the stereo spectrum. After having panned all the elements check efficiently for mono compatibility.

The Score Magazine 35
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