Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

I was just reading stavs book 'mixing with your mind' and saw it mentioned here on another post.. He talks about spending a lot of mix time on a song, working in mono (and actually just through 1 speaker)
Do you pan all your tracks centre when doing the mono mix on the one speaker? Or do you work with the mix where stuff is panned already?
I have a bit of trouble knowing what is best.. i have a stereo out from my computer running ableton live, into some small powered monitors.
Now i cant just run one side of the stereo signal into one speaker and have stuff panned as that will give an unbalanced mix (eg if guitars are panned hard to the other speaker i wont hear them) -is the only way around this to go into a seperate mixer first?
I also have a small mixer/16 track hard disc recorder so i could run through that and out one channel into a monitor.. ok, but when you add stereo tracks together panned centre together doesnt that give the signal a unnatural sounding boost in volume and are there phase problems? I'm a bit confused as to the best approach and would appreciate a quick run down if possible.

(oh yeah, i wanted to say- i have some panning stuff automated in ableton on some songs i'm trying to mix, you know, crazy hendrix type guitar pans
Is it best to do this automation stuff before time spent in mono or after, when you go back to stereo?) Any answers will be appreciated

Shane,

Not to misinterpret the masters words, I'd suggest you email stav your question. He's very approachable and I'm sure he'd be happy to answer your question. I think he migfht also have a forum for his book. Just google "mixing with your mind" and you'll find him.

Cheers,


Paavo.

Thanks, yes i emailed him and got a friendly and prompt and informative reply..
He's a great and helpful guy!

Shane,

post his reply, please.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Bracelet Z

On the contrary Shane, you should only post any correspondence you have from Stav if you have clearance from him first. I would certainly not be happy if private correspondence was made public without my permission. You can, by all means, paraphrase his advice though.

Cheers,


Paavo.

Hi ,

One approach would be to mute everything that's dead-centre , and , if doing the RH side , also mute any LHS channels ... Switch off your LH speaker , and play with your right-panned instruments ...
You'd then repeat the process ( conversely ) for the LH side ...

Cheers ,

Evan .