recording synths mono for clubs

[marc]

Originally Posted by Gopal

Hey guys, I've been DJing for approx 8 years in all kinds of clubs and venues and I can only name one rig I've ever played on one that was in mono. The only reason it is set up in mono is that there is a fucking spaghetti of cables going into the back room where the amps are set up and no one knows quite where to plug things in properly (and I don't have the time during the day to go in and pull it apart and rewire it). So what happens is, if you run the rig in stereo, the left sub is dead, switch the mixer to mono and it comes alive! Hence the rig gets run in mono even though it sounds fuckin aweful. So, don't worry about it in the producing side of things. Do everything above the bass frequencies in stereo and if the club wants to run their rig in mono, all they have to do is flick a switch on the mixer and voila! you have mono :P

in my experience, it is not so much that the clubs play tunes in mono but mixing a track for a club involves that you should take care of stereo signals. one reason is that most listeners won't enjoy the benefits of a stereo signal anyway. maybe they even would enjoy the opposite. imaginem you're standing next to the right speaker and you can hear something that only would make sense rhythmically if you hear the left speaker - which you obviously don't. and another reason is that (without proper equipent to measure the phase' correlation) it probably will just sound better for most of the clubbers.

marc

[MADSTATION]

I've been djing to more than 150 events(120+ raves and about 30 club nights) in the past 3 years and at least 80% of the time, the sound system is setup in mono.

[MacQ]

I guess what a lot of people don't understand is that mono systems are not set up for sound quality, they're set up for power output. If you bridge an amp to mono, you effectively double the power output for the channel. So, fewer amps gives you louder output.

It's not about how good it sounds, it's about how LOUD you can make it! That's what all the drugged out kids care about anyway, right?

~MacQ

[technomonster]

thats very intersting MADSTATION,

the thing is, in my LOGIC AUDIO 5.5 when i click the output to change from stereo to mono, on say the piece "sing it back" by MOLOKO

HAVE YOU HEARD THEM? goergeous female voice.

******anyway there is hardly any change in the sound.
makes me think that everything was recorded in MONO.

when i do that to a piece that i am working on, there is quite a difference.

one particular part-track that i used WAS A PRESET HIHHAT from a ROMPLER synth and it was programmed set to have prominence on the right speaker. it is an effect by the ROLAND programmer.

when switching the LOGIC OUTPUT to MONO this part when haywire, and had what could be described as out of phase type of sound.

i then decided to re-record that HI-HATT part and have the LOGIC INPUT in MONO mode - therefore end up with a MONO track.

THIS IMPROVED the sound of my piece when switching to MONO OUTPUT no-end.

i was wondering if just choosing the OUTPUT MONO option is a good way of testing whether the piece will sound good in MONO.

or should i try to test it via a mixer (no pan to left and right, just flat bang in the middle) to give me an impression on how my piece would sound in MONO.

[Gopal]

Thats interesting MAD, cause my experience would be at least double that, but completely opposite. Must be different on this side of the world.

Also, bridging amps to run in mono will give you more power, but doesn't mean that the rig is running in mono. It just means that one amp drives one speaker rather than two. Its not always an effective way of getting more volume either cause you will need twice as many amps to power the same amount of speakers and amps are alot more expensive than speakers. It probably will sound better though. The problem is that you will be running a very high current rig in that case and because 99.99999% of DJs can't resist running the mixer up into the red, chances are you will be up for a weekly speaker re-coning bill.