How do I create a mono track?

[thebassbuilder]

I am sure this has been asked a million times but I am new to the program and forum. So when searching, I am not finding what I need.

Any way, I want to create mono tracks when recording guitar or bass or anything for that mater. Everytime I arm a new track it comes in stereo and I do not like that. The only time I get a mono track is when I import a drum loop. I play guitar and bass and use Jamup for the most part through AudioBus. Also to let you know, I am using iPhone5 with iOS7.

Hope someone can help.

[thebassbuilder]

You know what, I think I answered my own question already. Let me know if this is correct? I went into the sound source, being Jamup in this case and changed the settings to left track. So now when I arm a new track in mtDAW and choose Jamup as the source it comes through as a single track. Let me know if this is correct.

Also let me know if there are any advantages of doing mono vs stereo? I would think doing everything in mono, you can put the sound where you want it easier and get better seperation of sound, from track to track. When I do everything in stereo it sounds to live and old school, is the only way I know how to describ it.

[martygras]

You may only be getting half of the stereo signal that way. Stereo delays and chorus might sound funny.

What's your set-up? Are you going into the Jamup interface and/or using Audiobus to get to MT DAW?

Man, I love the sound (stereo) from the Jam-Up Pro app. I use Audiobus, and print all the effects from it when I'm writing for scratchpad purposes.

Oh, and nice Avatar.

[thebassbuilder]

I am running Jamup through AudioBus as the effect in the chain. My main goal is to get a really good clean sound that has great seperation from other instruments. To me, when everything is in stereo it sounds like mud unless I double all the tracks. That seems to give each track more focus. So I want to do things in mono in hopes this will help me get the sound I am after. I also do not use many stereo effects but when I do I will keep what you said in mind. If you can help me with how I should be setting up mtDAW to get that clean tone I am after, please let me know. If I need to make changes in the settings please let me know.

[thebassbuilder]

Sorry, just noticed what you said at the end about my avatar. Thank you! This is one of the basses I build. This is my current bass I am doing all my recordings with, which brings up another thread I need to start. I am a bass player but have the hardest time getting the sound I want once I record and try and mix it into the track. For some reason I loose all detail and get a boomy sound in the mix. I want that super tight all level tone sometimes and I cannot get it to save my life. Like I said I will start another therd for that.

[pwnified]

Audiobus is stereo only, so it seems JamUp has provided a way to duplicate a single channel onto both? There really shouldn't be any difference between mono and stereo recoreded this way, mono tracks are being split out to 2 speakers according to the panning. So essentially mono tracks are stereo anyway. The only difference is when the source stereo tracks actually have different information between the 2 sides. JamUp can provide this with effects.

As martygras mentions, combining the 2 sides (other than how JamUp could only do it) after the fact would probably cause weird aliasing or destructive interference. In fact, some guitar apps have a "feedback reduction" which makes the 2 sides 180 degrees out of phase, so combining them results in a completely canceled signal! Which can happen on mono playback systems. So it sounds like you're doing it right by using JamUp to select the output as duplicated mono.

BTW nice looking bass!

[martygras]

I think someone recently posted (on this forum) about recording this way with JamUp and getting phase cancellation. I gotta try this single channel thing tonight to see what I can hear.

Yeah, bassbuilder, I know what you mean about muddy tones. in many cases I will go old school and mic my amp for a more open sound.

The biggest cure for fixing the mud for me was to get some nice studio monitors to get a more accurate sense of what was actually being recorded. I'm talkin' about $180 for some old Alesis monitors. Not the best, but way better than home stereo speakers.

[Anorton]

I use the Hokusai app to make my stereo tracks mono. I don't remember what I paid for it, and many of its features are no longer unique, but I use it often to convert stereo tracks to mono. I think it may have been $10 for the upgraded version. It does a bunch of pretty cool stuff.

[thebassbuilder]

I tried tacking my guitar track and panning hard left and copy past into a knew tract. Like you all mentioned it did cause some weird effect to the sound that I did not like. It was a heavey saturated distortion but sounded thin and weak, once I used just one side of the track. I have not had a chance to record in mono yet but will see what that does. Thanks for the info.

[thebassbuilder]

I tried recording a guitar track and even though I selected left channel in jamup it came over into mtDAW as a stereo wave form. It looks like AudioBus is the issue.