received mono stems rendered as stereo -question

[Michael Fogarty]

so many things I don't know, or at least question. Though recorded in mono, the drummer just sent me all his multitracked snare, snare bottom, hi-hat kick, etc as stereo tracks. If I import them as mono and delete one side, am I getting a true mono signal as pure as the original? Or should he re -send?

[michheld]

I'd just right-click on the clip, select "Convert to mono". Afterwards I'd switch the track to interleave = mono. Wondering if it works for you, too.

Please try a before-after-listening to avoid bad surprises

AllTheBest2U

[Michael Fogarty]

12 minutes ago, michheld said:

I'd just right-click on the clip, select "Convert to mono". Afterwards I'd switch the track to interleave = mono. Wondering if it works for you, too.

Please try a before-after-listening to avoid bad surprises

AllTheBest2U

Thank you. The bad surprises part is what I’m concerned about. Unless I get a positive confirmation, I will have him resend.

[Clovis Ramsay]

34 minutes ago, Michael Fogarty said:

Thank you. The bad surprises part is what I’m concerned about. Unless I get a positive confirmation, I will have him resend.

If you must have a mono waveform then right-click mono convert is the way to do this.  If you feel apprehensive about how this affects the quality, the only change to the audio tracks will be a gain of 3db.  
 

Or…you could just leave them as they came to you, stereo waveform, that playback sounding mono and everything will be perfectly fine.  You could switch the track interleave to either mono or stereo and it shouldn't degrade the quality of the audio files at all.

 You actually wouldn’t even hear the difference between the two since the tracks are mono instruments printed as a stereo wave.  This wouldn't be the case having a true stereo instrument whose interleave is set to mono as well as several effects plugins that are inserted per mono recording but may require the channel to be switch to stereo interleave.  
 

Or just inform your collaborators and clients to the basics of tracking and transferring high quality audio files if they expect high quality results.

[Michael Fogarty]

Thanks, yes, informed the hired gun. Just seeking a confirmation. Will leave as is. Didn’t want to overreact, but the overheads also came as a stereo file and it kind of threw me off that maybe his overheads were mono as well. 

[Will.]

6 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

so many things I don't know, or at least question. Though recorded in mono, the drummer just sent me all his multitracked snare, snare bottom, hi-hat kick, etc as stereo tracks. If I import them as mono and delete one side, am I getting a true mono signal as pure as the original? Or should he re -send?

The real answer would be to leave the files as is - after all they are in Mono. The reason why this shows up as a "stereo" waveform comes down to how the output was rendered. This waveform is just a display with the material still in "true mono." The Input to this is what you want to focus on.

Like the other member said,  you have an option to convert the file to "mono." BUT AGAIN: I wouldn't do that. 

First of all: As you will notice if you render these files  - it adds an extra +3db increase in volume. This comes with its own problems. 

1: You decrease the headroom of the original recording.

2: Potentially introducing artificial effects by collapsing the two channels to one on a waveform that is already in Mono just for a "Visual" purpose.

That's what converting a stereo track to "MONO" is. You're bringing the two channels centred by merging them together. 

Think of it this way. Say for reason you were recording the same instrument in two separate rooms. One in a dry room for the LEFT CHANNEL and another in a lively wet room for reverb to the RIGHT CHANNEL, where this is the intended effect.

Question: What's gona happen if you merge them to mono?

Answer: The right wet room recording will over power the dry Left channel by drowning it out and increasing the volume, by placing the right channel ontop of the left. Which leaves you with only one wet "roomy file" instead of having the two separate files with space and depth to it. Try loading 15 people of different age and size in to a Mini Cooper. So this you would want to avoid when receiving stems. ☺

If its playing back centered infront of you and nothing on the sides irrespective of what the waveform display - it's in mono. 

[Glenn Stanton]

if you use an audio editor (i use sound forge) you can just remove one of the stereo sides and leave it as a mono file. (as always, do this on copies of the original files as this is a "destructive" process). the only reason to leave it as the "stereo as mono" track is because there are effects on the source mono which are extended into stereo (in which case this is really a stereo file...). if the effects are the same on both channels, then as Will said, merging will have consequences - some of which may be unintended such as volume levels now causing clipping being one of the worst.

[bitflipper]

This happens all the time to me, receiving mono tracks as stereo files.

First thing I do is determine which, if any, of the files are truly stereo. You can usually figure that out just by looking at the waveforms. What you don't want to do is convert one to mono that needed to be stereo, e.g. drum overheads, synth pads or orchestral ensembles. But individual kick and snare tracks can almost always be assumed to be mono. You can select all of them and use the Convert to Mono utility.

Here's the catch: what Convert to Mono does is combine the left and right channels. Most of the time, it's perfectly safe. But if there are L/R phase differences you'll end up with a track that sounds noticeably worse than it did in stereo. To check for that, simply change the track's interleave to mono first. If you don't hear any change, then the track can safely be converted.

So why bother converting them in the first place? Panning is why. The pan slider works differently on mono vs. stereo tracks. Trying to get a nice, wide mix with only stereo tracks is an exercise in frustration.

[John T]

This is well worth a look, for anyone who has to deal with this frequently. $49, will check a batch of files and make sure it doesn't convert anything that looks mono but isn't, as Bitflipper refers to above.

https://www.soundizers.com/

 

[John Vere]

I would do like Glen said and just open the file in Wave Lab delete the left side and save as a mono file with a little M in the file name. Takes a few minutes. I would listen to the overheads with headphones on you'll soon hear if it's mono or stereo. 

If I wasn't planning on panning a track,, like snare and kick. I might just leave them alone as it wouldn't matter. But panning stereo tracks is a PITA. 

[Michael Fogarty]

thanks all. Here is the drill. The OH were stereo. That is what I was worried about. I got in touch with the hired gun and he says he always send files in stereo even the mono ones. Said nobody or hardly anybody ever says anything. Oh well. I just left them all as stereo, though let him know if I work with him again to send in mono. Hey, what if I don't like his panning on his overheads?

So if I ever felt the need, loading it into Sound Forge and deleting one side would be the best bet. Why would that be any different than importing as mono tracks and deleting one side in Cakewalk.

 

PS -edit. No worries about fx. All recorded dry.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Michael Fogarty

[Glenn Stanton]

CW doesn't have a true audio edit function where you can delete one side or the other. you could send one side to a mono track and record that to make a mono clip. but i think as part of the overall pre-mix session prep - why not just do the work there while cleaning up noise, etc - start with making it a mono track at the original level - clean up and otherwise prep, then do any volume leveling you like to do before importing into CW.

[John Vere]

Glen and I seem to share a lot of common workflow habits. 
 

I was going to say more of less the same things. 
 

Wave editors have better tools and for me do a much faster and better job when working with wave files. 
 

For sure when ever someone hands me anything in wave format it’s going to be looked at in Wave Lab first.

That way I can check for things like artifacts, peak level and overs. And in this case I would also save as mono all tracks heading for a multi track DAW. Even the overheads I would save the left and right separately.   
I find it very odd that engineer would think anyone would want to work with mono sourced tracks that have been exported to stereo. 
 

Everyone I know exports mono stems. 

[Michael Fogarty]

8 hours ago, John Vere said:

Glen and I seem to share a lot of common workflow habits. 
 

I was going to say more of less the same things. 
 

Wave editors have better tools and for me do a much faster and better job when working with wave files. 
 

For sure when ever someone hands me anything in wave format it’s going to be looked at in Wave Lab first.

That way I can check for things like artifacts, peak level and overs. And in this case I would also save as mono all tracks heading for a multi track DAW. Even the overheads I would save the left and right separately.   
I find it very odd that engineer would think anyone would want to work with mono sourced tracks that have been exported to stereo. 
 

Everyone I know exports mono stems. 

yes, I work this way as well. Been using Sound Forge since around 2003? And yes, I found it very strange that no one had ever brought this to his attention. He's not an engineer however, he's a drummer. Just as I am player/composer first and engineer I learned along the way.

  I actually didn't get a clear answer to my most recent main question.

"Why would that be any different than importing as mono tracks and deleting one side in Cakewalk". When importing a track there is an option to import as mono tracks. John are you saying that would result in different quality than doing the same thing in Sound Forge?  With my workflow I would consider loading up 80 tracks of drum stems into Sound Forge first an unnecessary step. I always end up in Sound Forge. I don't master inside Cakewalk, PT, or Studio One. But I don't check everything in there first. In this case I did because they were sent to me in stereo.

(FWIW the songs are finished and mastered, but always curious about this.)

 

[Glenn Stanton]

never used the import as mono function - so it would need some testing to determine if its simply stripping one side off or it's combining (which then runs the risk of increasing the audio file level and possible clipping). technically, if it simply strips off one side, it should be the same as SF doing that work. and if you're getting 80 tracks of drum stems for one song, maybe they need a better drummer 🙂 just sayin'  😉 

[pwal³]

can't you (re-)request them as mono? (get whoever to check before sending, possibly re-export)

/good luck

[John Vere]

80 track! . I would guess this is an album of 10 songs ? 
 

Yep. Sometimes it’s a lot of boring tasks to do the job right. 
Hey. I just actually thought of something 

I use Gold Wave to batch process wave files to MP3. I think it could also convert stereo to mono. I’ll go look 

Edited August 9, 2021 by John Vere

[John Vere]

Well here's a simple solution that will do all 80 (minus the overheads)  in one pass. Gold Wave , its free to try but only something like $50 for a lifetime license. 

Just make a sub folder and point the output to that. It keeps the originals and the mono ones will be in the new folder. I have used the Batch convertor for over 10 years now and it's rock solid. 

Edit: I just tested this and it works perfectly. Took 10 seconds for 10 stereo songs.  The Mono version is exactly the same peak level and LUFS as the stereo version as tested in the YouLean meter. . 

Check out all those options for the conversion. I don't even think Wave Lab has that many. 

http://www.goldwave.ca/ 

Edited August 9, 2021 by John Vere

[Will.]

I always try to keep things as how it was send unless the client agree with me.

People don't normally like it when you make changes to their work. This is why communication between you and the client need to be on point - really important. Like @pwalpwal said: Contact the client again and ask if it wont be an issue for him to resend every stem "clean" to you? The fact that he already said others dont normally find an issue with this - that's a barrier of causion if he was my client. 

It's easy to lose clients with this. I'm lucky enough not to ran into this issue. As I stated: I'm only there to clean/polish up the stems not to alter their work - unless it really is a problem in the mix itself. Though most of the time pushing it back or bringing to to the front by isolating it works everytime and maybe just widening it more, but i don't mess with their panning.

Just my 2cents. 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Will_Kaydo

[bitflipper]

On 8/6/2021 at 8:43 AM, John T said:

This is well worth a look, for anyone who has to deal with this frequently. $49, will check a batch of files and make sure it doesn't convert anything that looks mono but isn't, as Bitflipper refers to above.

https://www.soundizers.com/

 

You're right, that really is worth a look. It would certainly be a time-saver for anyone who regularly mixes other peoples' tracks.