PLEASE explain the difference between mono and stereo!!

Neapolitan · 06-29-2019, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ulrichburke

Dear Everyone.

I'm a very beginner, wannabe music producer. I also have Aspergers which don't help. Anyway, I'm trying to understand the difference between Mono and Stereo. Here's how Google defines Mono.

"Monophonic audio is audio from one single source"

So if you got a GUITAR and a VOICE they're both mono.

Fair enough. At least till I asked an online mixing engineer who said....

One vocal track sent to both left and right speakers is, simply put, “mono” (technically put: two channel mono).
One guitar with reverb and processing and delays and stuff is “stereo” - as long as the “stuff” on the left channel is different than the “stuff” on the right channel."

"MONO" means "ONE". So surely TWO CHANNEL mono is an oxymoron?

And if you've put reverb and processing and delays (for argument's sake) on the VOICE and reverb and processing and delays on the GUITAR, why is the guitar magically now stereo and the voice still mono?

Another guy said to me if I had 2 instances of the instrument playing the same tune and panned slightly left and right THAT would then be stereo, which makes sense to me because you've got TWO instances of the instrument, one for each speaker. But you've still only got one voice. So the voice by definition, surely, must always be mono? And the guitar's only stereo because you've now gotten two instances of it.

I flat and totally don't get this.

Help???

Yours hopefully

Chris.

Put it this way. Mono is when both ears hear the same thing, stereo is when the left ear hears something different than what the right ear hears.

You have to think about the different stages in recording separately. Sound source, recording equipment, format, and sound reproduction equipment e.g. amplifier or a even phone. In time when you learn more about recording and producing, you find out when and why "stereo" & "mono" is applied.

Basically the electric guitar is "mono" both the output jack and the guitar chord/cable has a single lead and ground, there is only one signal path. The signal could be made stereo if it split e.g. with a delay pedal. Usually, but not always, the signal is split into two paths with one path that has a "processed" signal the other path has the original signal. Not to confuse things but the processed signal is sometimes called "wet" and the original is called "dry." Since the delay unit is stereo, you can run one cable with a processed signal to one amp and the other signal to another amp.

Now it comes time to record. You want to record a guitar with a delay that leads to two amplifiers, one with a wet signal and the other with a dry signal. You do a test run and record it with your phone. Your phone has one mic, and one speaker. Even though what you recorded could be stereo it is mono because the recording and playback on your phone is in mono. Now you uploaded the audio file from your phone to your computer. Let say your computer has a 2.1 system. You have a left and right channel/speakers, & a woofer. When you play it back on your computer it's mono, because the recording was in mono. (Both speakers have the identical sound, both ears hear the same thing.) Despite having two speakers it's considered mono.

Now you decide to do a better recording so you use two mics for each amp and recorded with a stereo recording device. When you play it back on a stereo device than it's in stereo, however if you play it back on a mono device like your phone then it's in mono.

Quote:

I also have Aspergers which don't help.

John Elder Robison: "Look Me in the Eye" | Talks at Google