Pseudo-Stereo

Today I want to talk about the subject of ‘stereo’ or better addressed the subject of ‘pseudo-stereo’. It is a safe bet for me to say that literally all the mixes I get in have tons of pseudo-stereo tracks in the sessions. As many of you know I started out as a composer/ producer of dance music, and as ignorant and young as I was, I also made this common mistake of always tracking the synths and keyboards in ‘stereo’, as of course the outputs of every synth and keyboard come as a stereo pair. But let me ask you this: “Is what I’m recording really stereo?”. Please keep this in your head and think about this for a minute before you continue reading my blog.

We have been accepting ‘pseudo-stereo’ for decades and have blindly been recording ‘pseudo-stereo’ sound sources, and we continue doing this with every stereo instrument feed and all our effects returns up until today. We automatically think that it will work out at the end, but the truth of the matter is that we will end up with one big collection and compilation of mono (!!!).

To make sure whatever you track is stereo please be advised to listen closely to the sound source and determine yourself if it is true stereo. Then ask yourself the following question: “Would it work better to separate them into two mono parts?” (And NO stereo is not better than mono (!!!)).

Nearly every time I’m mixing a track I will separate my stereo feed into two mono parts and play around with it’s timbre and panning. The reason for this has just been explained above but other than that It gives me more flexibility and creative freedom to play around with the instrument’s position in the mix, add depth and movement. This way I won’t fill my sacred and most value real estate aural territory (which are; hard left, center (where we already expect our, kick drum, snare drum, bass, and lead vocal to be, and hard right) with every ‘pseudo-stereo’ instrument feed but create space for the essential instruments and feeds.

By playing around and changing the instruments timbre separately from each others part, you will create a stereo signal at the end and it will be more interestingly sounding then you would expect as a listener.

You will see the more experienced you get in this trick the more interesting and better your mixes will sound.

Signing off,

Yours truly