Using 2 mono tracks to create a stereo signal

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#1

one thing is for sure, and that is if DT was supposed to utilise stereo samples at all they would be shouting about it now, not hiding it away. I can understand keeping A4s poly under wraps as it was a fine 4 part mono synth with tidy work arounds and not much competition out there. But when there’s 2 big sampler’s about to go head head (my retailer says they receive both same day) it doesn’t make sense (from a marketing point of view) to keep it a secret.

They already do a fully fledged stereo sampler and will probably update that before Introducing friendly competition in there range, which keeps in with there ethos of not cannibalising (in production) equipment.

Endless wrestling with the fantasy of stereo sample’s stands to become the new A4 sequencer midi out drama : )

Personally I’m grateful for the fact It makes my decision a lot easier. I need stereo file playback in a sampler not intended for drums alone… luckily there’s another tasty option looming.

EDIT - the competition doesn’t make DT any less appealing to me for what it is. Tho ironically it’s the sequencer I’m lusting for about DT more than the sampler itself… which says something about how great a stand alone sequencer from them would be.

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Introducing Digitakt
Introducing Digitakt
#2

I bet they’ll be some options to deal with this but you could always just take two samples, plug in one side at a time if you have to but I doubt it will come to that…
Probably be able to choose either input(or both, but not for this example), make two samples(possibly at the same time) loaded to two tracks, panned… Unless there’s secret stereo hush hush sampling…

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#3

Indeed but here’s the thing I struggle with in the context I implied earlier responding to Prints … the samples will be summed to mono, so doesn’t this defeat the effect of the original (wide, modulating, effected) sample… or am I misunderstanding ?

Hard Panned mono gives stereo results in every sense of the word but if your after preserving stereo dynamics of an original sample (for want of a better way of putting it) its not happening as far as I can interpret.

But maybe there magic in these boxes after all : )

#4

A stereo file contains the information similar to two mono audio files, one for the left, and one for the right.
If you were to sample from a stereo pair into a device that sums to mono, then the information from both sides will be combined into one mono file, stereo lost.
If you were to sample each side of a stereo signal separately(maybe at same time even), and pan them accordingly for playback on two tracks, your stereo signal will remain… Two different audio files, one containing only the information from the left side of the stereo source, one containing only the information from the right side.

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#5

No, in DT you would have 2 new mono samples. A mono example of the left side and a mono of the right side, panned. Any stereo modulation effect (chorus for example) of the original will be lost. But other than that, it’s totally possible to pan 2 mono samples.

But as you say we’re speculating (from the announced specs)

#6

Say you have a stereo sample that simply consist of the word “left” coming from the left speaker, hard panned, and the word right coming from the right speaker, hard panned.
Now sample the left side into a mono device. Upon playback you will hear “left” coming out the left and right speaker. Pan this track full left and you will hear “left” out the left and silence on the right.
Now sample the right side into your mono device. Upon playback you will hear “right” coming out both speakers. Pan this track hard right and you will hear “right” coming out the right speaker and silence on the left.
Play these two sample now at the same time and you will hear “left” out the left speaker and “right” out of the right, exactly the same as your stereo sample😃

#7

I understand what your saying. And how your implying it. Maybe my way is confusing or plain wrong?

I’ll try another way.

Think of a sound with lots of modulation (any panning time based effect) that effect is happening because it’s aplied in the stereo field… if you convert one side of it to mono, you will have a L + R sum of one side (mono)…

Serious question… if you do this to both sides, pan them L and R over 2 tracks (or with some unknown pseudo work around) do you think the modulation will still be accurate?! To my mind the answer is no. You will have 2 respective mono sums of the stereo effect (or mono samples)

If a sample has movement or desirable psychoacoustic effects intrinsic to the sample, you will lose it… But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be stereo.

All in all, this makes for a pretty awekward and inconvenient work around to me for what is confirmed a mono sample player. Not sure it really needs confirming it’s a mono sampler?

But I may be way off (it been known) : )

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#8

I agree. Lets say you had a sample of birds in a forrest chirping all around you and from a distance, you would lose the perspective of that sample if summed to mono. You couldn’t just take the sample and hard pan it left and right and call it good, you’ll still lose the intricate movement in between.

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#9

Indeed. It’s a tricky thing to envisage and/or explain at times … the whole L+R thing vs perspective. Your explanation is much more elegant than my waffle. Haha. I confuse myself half the time never mind my cats.

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#10

I should probably just leave this alone, but… In case you were referring to what I was talking about, I never mentioned summing to mono. What I was talking about refered to taking two mono samples, one consisting of just the left, and one consisting of just the right, and pan those accordingly on two tracks. No summing done with this method. Did you see my example of left/right sample? Does that not make sense? A stereo sample is two mono audio streams played at the same time, one for each speaker…
Not saying this will be fun to do on the DT, just that if no other options are available and you really wanted to play something back in stereo, you could with two (different) mono samples and a pan knob…

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#11

sweet explanation bro! please do compression next!

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#12

Alright guys I’m kind of baffled that you don’t understand this.
Say I have a stereo sample with a kick drum on the left and a snare on the right.
Plug the left side into a sampler and sample it, you should get just the kick.
Plug the right side into a sampler and sample it, you should get just the snare.
Now using one track play back your kick sample, panned all the way left.
Using another track, playback your snare sample, panned all the way right.

When you play back you here kick on left, snare on right, just like the stereo sample.

The same would go for right/left information for any stereo signal be it a chorus or spatializer on a synth or the two different streams of bird sample audio that when played back would sound like the birds are chirping all around you…

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#13

^ yeah this guy knows. Do some experiments. Stereo is literally just two mono signals, hard panned left and right. There’s no magical “space” that can’t be replicated with two mono sample tracks.

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#14

Play a kick on left is not right.
Should be middle panned.
:banana::banana:

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#15

I see a new thread being carved out of this monostereo chat…
Oreo Monster

Be nice to have a couple of flavours for the fx, types of delay/reverb with appropriate parameters.

#16

This stereo discussion is interesting, the difference between two exact mono signals hard panned and two microphones stereo positioned in a real environment is pretty night and day to my brain!

#17

I hard pan all my kicks left, bass right, 60s style

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#18

but they’re not exact? If you have a stereo signal (say, from a stereo chorus) and separate the left and right channel into two individual files (say, chorus-L.wav and chorus-R.wav) and then use them in two tracks, the first hard panned left (chorus-L.wav), and the second hard panned right (chorus-R.wav), then you’re doing the same as what the original stereo wav file contained…

#19

Exactly, and your two positioned microphones each record a mono signal, one for the left and one for the right…

#20

Apologies, I thought you were talking about using two identical signals.