A lot of well-known engineers talk about how important it is to mix in mono. MixedByAli, for example, says he spends 80% of his time on a mix in mono and the other 20% finishing it in stereo. In the last few years, though, you hear more and more that headphones and stereo systems have won for good and mono compatibility doesn't matter much anymore. We have our own view on this.
Does mono compatibility still matter?
We think it's important to work on the mid channel separately and get the main instruments working together there, above all the vocal, bass, kick and snare.
At the same time, today's tools let you listen not only to the center (Mid) channel but also to Left, Right and Side separately. Working with each of them gives you a better feel for the stereo image and lets you shape it more precisely. In our tier list, mixing in mono is S tier, and mixing on a single channel, L or R, is even higher: L tier, our top one.
LR mixes and Mid-Side mixes
- LR mixes: the left and right channels differ a lot because some instruments are panned aggressively. You feel width and movement, and every instrument has its own place in the space. Examples: Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On"; Peso Pluma, "Hollywood"; Hozier, "Nobody's Soldier".
- Mid-Side mixes: common in hip-hop and related genres. The mix is essentially symmetrical: everything is focused in the center, and the side channel is a bed where choruses, reverbs and delays live. Examples: Pharrell, "Cash In Cash Out"; Post Malone, "Wow".
Depending on the arrangement, you can pick one of the two approaches:
- Left-Right, with wide panning, where instruments are spread across the stereo field. Obviously this doesn't apply to the lead vocal, kick, bass and snare. Those are best kept in the center :)
- Mid-Side, focused on the center, with width coming from phase-based effects and mid-side processing (EQ, stereo imagers, reverb, delay and so on).
You can and should combine the two, as long as you know what you're going for.
What to listen to in each type of mix
- In LR mixes it helps to listen to the left and right channels separately. That catches frequency clashes you won't notice listening in stereo.
- In a Mid-Side mix it makes sense to listen to Mid and Side separately. One handy plugin for this is the free MSED by Voxengo.
Pan-demonium
You can learn a lot by analyzing music from the second half of the last century. Listening to records from the '70s and '80s, you always notice how radically engineers of that era panned instruments. Much of that came from the gear: an LCR console (the Universal Audio 610, for example) only let you put instruments in three positions, Left (left speaker), Right (right speaker) and Center (both speakers). And it led to some interesting results.
On Marvin Gaye's "What's Happening Brother" you can clearly hear the congas in the right ear, the bells panned hard left, and the vocal, bass and drums dead center. Because of the radical panning, the song sounds very wide and, as a result, loud.
We have far more technical options now, but the LCR approach still works great in all sorts of genres. In modern hip-hop and R&B it's not always justified (especially when there are very few instruments in the track), but where it fits, it gives a track the width and character people know from classic records.
Five ways to push an instrument back
Working as a duo, we often question each other's decisions, and for that it's great to keep several ways of solving the same problem in your head and try them to see which one fits a given track. There are loads of ways to push an instrument back, for example:
- compress it with a fast attack;
- turn it down (LOL);
- cut the highs and lows, which pushes it back psychoacoustically;
- narrow it by taking out the side component;
- use a plugin like Auburn Sounds Panagement, which does all of that at once.
Low end: mono, within reason
We keep the very bottom of the bass in mono, but that means the area below 100–150 Hz, not the whole bass: in the tier list that's S, because mono down there makes the mix translate. Cutting everything below 100 Hz in the side by default is a bad idea, though: on live material, rock and acoustic music you lose the size and weight of the mix, so that technique is D for us. If the bass vanishes or booms, that's a separate article.
FAQ
Should I mix in mono?
We work on the mid channel separately, because that's where the vocal, bass, kick and snare interact. But we also listen to Left, Right and Side on their own, not just Mid. In our tier list, mixing on a single channel sits even higher than mixing in mono.
What is a Mid-Side mix?
A symmetrical mix where everything is focused in the center and the side channel is a bed of choruses, reverbs and delays. Hip-hop is often mixed this way, for example Post Malone's "Wow" or Pharrell's "Cash In Cash Out".
What is LCR panning?
Panning in three positions: left speaker, right speaker and center. Much of it came from the gear of the '70s and '80s: LCR consoles like the Universal Audio 610 only let you put an instrument in those three positions. An example is Marvin Gaye's "What's Happening Brother".