Hi Everyone, following on from a post in the r/monohearing SubReddit, I am going to add a quick blog post about mixing in mono and what I have learned now that I have an Osia implant in my left ear.
Okay, so the first part of the blog will detail how I used to mix in mono including the plugins I used and how they helped.
On the master channel, I would always include a plugin that can convert a stereo signal to mono. This immediately helps get all sounds in one channel. For this, I use Mastering the Mix – Levels (link) which can often be picked up relatively cheaply during sale time.
Levels contains a mono button towards the top centre of the plugin and also, a stereo field analysis button towards the top right. While mixing with one ear, I would have this placed on master bus (final channel in your DAW) with mono switched on. Towards the end of the process, after writing a track, you can turn this off to make sure that your stereo image looks fine.
Due to only having one working ear and mixing in stereo, I also add a limiter to prevent sound going beyond a certain threshold. This could be DAW limiter, Waves L2, Fabfilter L2, Sonible Smart Limit or any other decent limiter that can stop a mistake that could potentially create a really loud, deafening sound.
I would then place the free Izotope Imager (link) on the master channel. That way, you can solo a sound and see if it is mono or stereo.
During a mix: While there are variations, the basic theme of mixing follows that bass, kick, snare, lead vocals and sometimes a hi-hat such as an open hat are centered mono in the mix forming a solid column. There are differences pending genre though. In Imager, these will be a straight line down the centre. Other elements such as synths, pads, backing vocals, harmonies, percussion will be stereo or slightly more to the left or right. Using Imager, you can see where an instrument located in the stereo field. More ot the left, more to the right and then use panning tool to shift it over.
At this stage, you can look up music theory to gauge amounts of left/right stereo panning based on convention for your genre.
When working in mono, I did not realise that if you have a mono sound and pan it left, then take the same sound and pan it right, you could phasing and can make it cancel out. You have to add an effect such as a delay, distortion or something else to make it different – in order to make it stereo. So sample packs contain false information. A mono track copied twice to two stereo tracks. If you track and split the sound to make better panning, this will cause a problem and it caught me out before being able to hear in stereo. However, combining both tracks to a bus and placing an Imager plugin on the bus would have revealed this – if I had been aware of it.
Also, while working in mono, I did not realise that adding panning can help balance a mix because sometimes you get two instruments that share the same space. By moving one a little to the left and one a little to the right, you create a space for that instrument to live inside that can be shared with another. It is a little harder to determine this in mono but add a few percent here will go a long way and probably enough to do the job for a lot of mixes.
Towards the end of them mix, head back to Mastering the Mix Levels. Switch on the stereo image and take a look. If the meters are in the read, then you have to look at the image to see which area/instruments are causing it go red. You can solo each instrument and build it up bit by bit until it turns red.
Finally, after getting all of the meters looking healthy, you can send a track of for mastering which is common in the audio sphere. A mastering engineer can use tools to adjust the overall stereo image and clear up smaller elements missed on mono.
In relation to other meters to help with mixing, I can recommend SPAN to feel the overall spectral output of instruments and copare to your favourite artists. Schulz Audio megascope to help see how a compressor imacts on a waveform (or the free sMexoscope). Free Bertom Audio Curve Analyser to show EQ curves from classic hardware console plugins such as SSL and Vision 4x to see decays times and energy used in an instrument.
I found that with a mono ear, while my left/right stereo perception was impossible, my front to back perception was really good. This is really useful when applyin delays and reverbs (or stacking up a delay with a reverb inside).