After a long time of having my whole setup plugged in stereo but never touching pan settings, i recently started doing so and got predictably great results with separation and overall mix. Considering most live music scenarios involve mono sound reinforcement, should I just forget it and resign to center pans? Anyone here mix for stereo live setups?
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I donāt play live, but IMO you should make full use of stereo when composing and playing.
However, itās still worth checking that the mix sounds good in mono.
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Iām also becoming more and more into working in mono. Once you get a good mix in mono, its easy to āstereoizeā anywayā¦ A mono mix will always have healthy phase 
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Yes. Good practice to do it all in mono and make it sound good. Then pan stuff at end to give stereo field. Then your track will sound good played in stereo or on mono speakers
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I disagree.
a) I donĀ“t think "most"live music scenarios involve mono sound - youĀ“re talking about (dance)clubs.
Even though those usually have stereo capabilities, the stereo image gets lost due to architecture. I have yet to see a club that runs in all mono, but it IS true that for that (night club) scenario, you should make sure your stuff sounds good in mono AS WELL.
in my experience, a lot of gigs (even electronic ones) are played in bars, live venues, youth centers - all of which probably will be set up like a classic āliveā venue since that layout is more versatile for different kinds of events. And then youĀ“ll have stereo speaker placement.
which brings me to
b)
as a rule of thumb, I personally always make music so it sounds great on headphones. that means I make full use of stereo.
THEN I go back and hit that āmonoā button on my monitor controller (your DAW has one too) and make sure it sounds good there.
If something disappears, I fucked with the phase too much, so IĀ“ll go back and try to fix that.
If you start out all mono, and ājustā pan stuff out, it will still sound good in mono, yes - but itĀ“ll be (and this is my opinion) super boring in stereo, as nothing will be āwideā , just placed throughout the stereo field.
In the end, I would recommend you learn to do BOTH:
Have your setup/setlist and when you arrive at the location youĀ“re gonna play, check if playing with a wide stereo field makes sense.
If yes, pan stuff out, put that widening stereochorus on stuff, etc.
If itĀ“s a club with 3 separate rooms and 90% subwoofers, then for the love of pete, stay mono 
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I used to play out a ton and sound guys would always be like āyeah Iāll give you two DI boxes, but Iām just gonna sum it to mono anyway.ā mono live is important; if youāve got a packed crowd and a dude standing directly in front of the speakers on one side of the stage, and youāre playing in stereo, he wonāt hear half of your mix. is that what you want?
anyway, yeah I usually donāt start panning things until Iām nearing some final stage of mixing. I structure songs out in mono though so if things are getting muddy, I fix it during the sound design phase instead of the mixing phase.
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Actually I have been producing awhile and just started checking in mono, so I have been thinking about this a lot. Itās helped a couple tracks here and there, especially if you are mixing on cans.
There may have been a couple gigs where I couldāve gone mono and helped me mix, but each venue is different, different systems, reverb times, etcā¦
I believe most soundguys just sum the stereo anyway, but itās something I keep in mind.
I have some gigs lined up and one of the guys on tour needed to know if it was a stereo or mono PA. I guess he had experienced a dropout with some stereo stuff they were using, though I had never personally had experience with it.
Live is not the studio, itās controlled chaos. Cables go bad, fuses blow, instruments mysteriously stop working, so collapsing channels is an easy fix, really.
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Wow. This was worth asking. Lots of different opinions and insights.
Workflow wise, I like the idea of working in mono first and then āpanning outā toward the end of the project to ensure reverting to mono wonāt introduce problems. But does anyone else agree with this comment?:
Deducing and fixing issues after working in stereo and then collapsing to mono sounds a lot trickier to me.
I agree with xenosapien to some extent yepā¦
You can use the stereo field as another compositional element, for example sudden changes in width or call and response between parts in opposite ears. That sort of thing canāt really be an after thoughtā¦
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And I agree with toot who agrees with xenosapien. I do use things like call and response from left to right, ping pong delay, panning fx, different fx on L and R channels, etc. as part of my compositional and sound design stages. Doing all that at the end would seem strange to me. To each his own though.
I donāt play live so I donāt have to worry about that part. I do check my mixes on a lot of different systems though, including tiny single speakers. I guess Iāve always heard of mix engineers checking the mono mix at the end on those avantone cubes, etc.
It is interesting to hear people doing the reverse of all this though. Maybe Iāll give that a shot.
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YouĀ“re right that you could potentially run into problems with phase (read: mono compatibility) with some of the more extrem āstereoā fx and tricks people do.
But in my (limited) experience, you REALLY REALLY have to mess with a signal to fuck up its phase in a way that is not easily fixed with a Mid/Side Equalizer plugin or something.
I just try to stick to the general rule that (for me) anything below 150/200 Hz needs to be as mono as possible.
So for any tracks that I want to apply (after-the-fact) stereo processing to, i.e. that wasnĀ“t already recorded in stereo, I usually split the track into āmono low endā and āfuture stereo mid and top endā, or just filter out all the low end anyways if it is not needed.
that usually works for me - and then I just flip my master mix to MONO and back a couple of times and just use my ears to hear if any elements ādisappearā in mono - if they donĀ“t, sweet! if they doā¦ re-visit the problematic track. usually it works after that second touch-up.
edit: kind of forgot that OP was asking mostly about live use. obviously that eliminates some of what I saidā¦ canĀ“t really go back and ātouch upā live hahaā¦ my bad
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ā¦er, what are u talking about hereā¦?
low end is always mono anywayā¦ bass frequencies spread without clear directionā¦
u will never see a soundsystem without a frequency split under at least 80 hz that worx in stereoā¦
and u better never have any stereo information in ur low end within ur recordingsā¦
mono mid is a must down thereā¦
and anything beyond low mids should fly around and spread out as much as u like to get a nice and open stereo stageā¦thereās a reason why we all got TWO earsā¦
@reeloy I was replying to Analogic, a few posts up.
But yes, bass frequencies are hard to locate, but itĀ“s not like they just automatically ARE always in mono.
āu better never have any stereo information in ur low endā, yes I agree.
And yes, most decent soundsystems using subwoofers have a crossovers that filter out above 80Hz for the sub and vice versa.
but I guarantee you - the second you RELY on that always being the case will be the day you play a Youth Center with a 2-Fullrange-Speaker āsound systemā and then you are FUCKED if you never bothered to clean out the stereo info in your low end.
(IĀ“m thinking mostly about reverbs and other bus-effects that can easily generate stereo info in bass frequencies if youĀ“re not careful)
Iām sorry? Youquestion his advice on mono low end and then you say itās a must?
My few cents in mixing for a wide range of sound system and also ESPECIALLY if you plan on sending the final version to vinyl production is yes, check your phasing in mono. Yes, low end bass is very hard to discern where itās coming from, but phase cancellation exists in the lower spectrum as well, and in electronic/dance music the bass parts are often of high priority, they need to punch clearly.
An example: I record my Prophet 08, or A4 maybe. I have a wide stereo pad in the lower mids. There will surely be some LF content as well that I will have to check for phase after processing (if that has been done ofc), and also clean up the lows on the sides with a Mid-Side configurable EQ.
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heh, thanks for the backup - I donĀ“t think he was questioning my advice so much as that he didnĀ“t see what/who I was replying to.
all good!
Interesting, topic. I would love to just go out and jam on different systems to see how different approaches would sound. Unfortunately not possible
I would love to just go out and jam on different systems to see how different approaches would sound
might not be completely impossible, there are software solutions for this, like AudifiedĀ“s MixChecker: Disrupt the Sound - Audified
I donĀ“t use this, but heard good things about it.
IĀ“m pretty sure there are similar things to simulate āclubā PAsā¦