Hi, just been watching Greg Townley's excellent sonic dimensions expanded. The technique Im referring to is using plugs ins such as Time adjusters to delay one side to create a widening effect and also stereo images to again widen the image. I use this technique all the time in my mixes and find it wonderful for creating the space I need, my only concern is how does this affect the mix when summed to mono. I have found tracks begin to disappear from the mix when in Mono and have begun to feel uneasy about using these delay techniques for widening. Can anyone offer any advice on this. Thanks.

Which DAW are you using? Maybe we can give you some advice on what plugins to use to make sure the mono sum ins't affected as much.

Hi. Im using both Logic and pro tools. If working in Logic ill tend to use the simple 'delay' plug in and tend to delay around 300 ms on one side. In Pro tools ill use the 'Time adjuster'. It was very interesting seeing Greg using the same technique which leads me to believe it is actually ok to use this method. (how often do we hear music in mono anyway really) But my thinking is, especially if Im writing stuff which may get used in a club situation, where the systems do tend to be mono, that I do have to be careful with this technique so that info does not get lost in mono. Is it normal that info can get lost with this method? Thanks for your help.

Hi Veygo, You sort of need to get to a happy medium betweeen the stereo delay and the mono signal. What you could do is start reducing the delay spread (and keep switching to mono to compare) and find a happy medium between the two. So you still have your stereo effect, plus when you sum it to mono it retains the delayed sound. Do you use and M/S plugins? As this could help as well. You could switch to the Stereo side and increase their level. Then when you sum to Mono this should help. I've been using this plugin: [url]http://www.valhalladsp.com/valhallaubermod[/url] It has a great feature that sums the delays. Here's the feature: [i]WARP InputPan(new in version 1.0.1) -allows for reversed stereo image, mono summing of signals sent to delays, or left/right panning of the input signal. This allows for ping pong echos, as well as ping ponging delay clusters, tape echoes, reverbs, inverse reverbs, and sounds that don't have names yet.[/i] You could also do some researching into the Haas effect and the Precedence effect. This will give you some theory behind the effects and steps to take to use it to your advantage. It is all dependant on the instruments you use, the frequency area they occupy and os... There's alot of factors to take into account. But after a bit of tweaking you should get a better result. I hope this helps.

Thanks for this Gary..Ill check your suggestions out..I use the brainworx stuff so maybe that will be able to help. I thought I must of being doing something wrong but as with all this mixing malarky I suppose its about experimentation and as you say getting a happy medium. Cheers..

The brainwork plugins will definitely help. Do you have the bx_control? With this there is a Mono-Maker parameter. Insert this on your master track. Dial this up to about 80-90Hz or more if you want. Now anything under this will be in Mono. This really helps with your masters and getting them to sound better on mono club systems. Try it out. Also the brainwork M/S plugins are amazing and with a bit of tweaking will really sort out your mono and stereo issues. You just need to really know how the M/S plugins work so do a bit of researching into them. Read the plugin manuals, and then test them out.