Is stereo important to you?

[[Nathan]]

Are we talking plugs in general or amp sims?

"For plugins mixing stereo is mandatory (one instance of a plugin processing stereo channels)"

 

[Jarick]

For recording I rarely do stereo. I will often have stereo effects on sends to blend to taste (reverb and delay). But source tracks tend to be mono and panned off center, unless it’s a solo or intro or important track.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

A

"For plugins mixing stereo is mandatory (one instance of a plugin processing stereo channels)"

and how many stereo channels you got except busses?
Drum overheads, drum room, keys...
I sure haven't recorded guitars in stereo in like almost 20 years but then I printed the fx

 

[Jarick]

I think I may have recorded stereo guitars a couple times but it was very specific circumstances. Actually most of the time it was two mics on the same guitar (either electric or acoustic). Just to get a different thing going on.

One time I recorded keyboards through a pair of Fender HRD tube amps miked up. That was probably more out of "well I have a pair of similar tube amps, I wonder what this would be like."

But when I was recording full bands back in the day I didn't have enough spare tracks for stereo guitars if I had drums. This was a digital console that only had 16 tracks total.

 

[[Nathan]]

A

and how many stereo channels you got except busses?
Drum overheads, drum room, keys...
I sure haven't recorded guitars in stereo in like almost 20 years but then I printed the fx

None, it’s all to handle guitar bus processing. A typical track I do will have 2 or 3 guitar busses (feeding into a master guitar bus). But for each L/R guitar bus I just want one instance of a plugin there so you can dial in the left and right tone at once

There’s no upside to a plugin not handling stereo processing so it should be “mandatory”. Something like NAM or Tonocracy gets a temporary pass because the tech is pretty new and free and there’s obvious current limitations at play for now that’s pretty fair…. I believe the stereo processing feature in NAM is in a decent spot on the never ending feature list of things they’re adding which is cool

But if a new plugin got released that wanted to stand against neural dsp, stl and the rest of them and didn’t do stereo processing it’s just a major thing that’s missing and no matter how good it is I generally don’t want to use it in the long run.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

None, it’s all to handle guitar bus processing. A typical track I do will have 2 or 3 guitar busses (feeding into a master guitar bus). But for each L/R guitar bus I just want one instance of a plugin there so you can dial in the left and right tone at once

There’s no upside to a plugin not handling stereo processing so it should be “mandatory”. Something like NAM or Tonocracy gets a temporary pass because the tech is pretty new and free and there’s obvious current limitations at play for now that’s pretty fair…. I believe the stereo processing feature in NAM is in a decent spot on the never ending feature list of things they’re adding which is cool

But if a new plugin got released that wanted to stand against neural dsp, stl and the rest of them and didn’t do stereo processing it’s just a major thing that’s missing and no matter how good it is I generally don’t want to use it in the long run.

Ok. Fair enough but how does tonocrazy not do stereo processing?

 

[Mike Oliphant]

There’s no upside to a plugin not handling stereo processing so it should be “mandatory”. Something like NAM or Tonocracy gets a temporary pass because the tech is pretty new and free and there’s obvious current limitations at play for now that’s pretty fair…. I believe the stereo processing feature in NAM is in a decent spot on the never ending feature list of things they’re adding which is cool

From a technical standpoint, adding stereo processing to NAM is pretty trivial.

The main "upside" to not having stereo processing is that you don't confuse the majority of users with mono workflows, or get them into situations where they are using 2x the CPU processing two identical channels when they didn't intend to.

 

[JCW308]

I have never once used a stereo rig for any gig in my entire like. Also nobody I know has ever used a stereo setup for gigs and we've all been gigging together for over 35 years.

 

[[Nathan]]

Ok. Fair enough but how does tonocrazy not do stereo processing?

We're really getting into the weeds here but this is a typical workflow for me.
My guitar is feeding into an input (mono) and I load up a modern plugin like a NeuralDSP/STL/Mercuriall any of them really. Start playing, mess around, dial in a rough tone... start laying some drums, build out the session. For rhythm I'm always double tracking, so the first thing I'll do is make a bus for this. This is the basic outline of what that looks like:

If I'm using a MONO plugin like NAM then straight away its more like the below. At a glance its not annoying but any change make to one instance you typically want to have sync'd across the others. So every time you make a move in one plugin you have to open the other one up and just double up on the editing. If I have 3/4/5 L/R guitar layers it just starts to blow out and become an annoying workflow thing to keep doing things two at a time. Like I keep saying the whole thing is a lot more efficient when you're tweaking a single amp in a single instance of a plugin and that is what you're hearing in real time across both of your L/R tracks

Tonocracy is one step better than a MONO plugin but as far as I can see you still have to stack two amps and keep things balanced manually, is that right? If you can use one amp to do stereo processing then that would be perfect so let me know if it can do that. As far as I can see you also need to manage two amps (tonesnaps) for NAM profiles as well... if they figured out a way to have stereo NAM processing natively with one instance of the amp that would be a pretty big workflow saver.

So yes Tonocracy does do stereo processing but if I'm still manually managing two instances of the amp then its the same level of maintenance as mono processing, maybe half a notch better. If they added a "link parameters" feature to Tonoc so I still had to have two amps like this but I only have to move "one" of them and they keep synched, then that would also be a working solution.

Look at NeuralDSP, this is as straight forward/confusing as things need to be, dead simple

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

We're really getting into the weeds here but this is a typical workflow for me.
My guitar is feeding into an input (mono) and I load up a modern plugin like a NeuralDSP/STL/Mercuriall any of them really. Start playing, mess around, dial in a rough tone... start laying some drums, build out the session. For rhythm I'm always double tracking, so the first thing I'll do is make a bus for this. This is the basic outline of what that looks like:
View attachment 22473

If I'm using a MONO plugin like NAM then straight away its more like the below. At a glance its not annoying but any change make to one instance you typically want to have sync'd across the others. So every time you make a move in one plugin you have to open the other one up and just double up on the editing. If I have 3/4/5 L/R guitar layers it just starts to blow out and become an annoying workflow thing to keep doing things two at a time. Like I keep saying the whole thing is a lot more efficient when you're tweaking a single amp in a single instance of a plugin and that is what you're hearing in real time across both of your L/R tracks
View attachment 22474

Tonocracy is one step better than a MONO plugin but as far as I can see you still have to stack two amps and keep things balanced manually, is that right? If you can use one amp to do stereo processing then that would be perfect so let me know if it can do that. As far as I can see you also need to manage two amps (tonesnaps) for NAM profiles as well... if they figured out a way to have stereo NAM processing natively with one instance of the amp that would be a pretty big workflow saver.

So yes Tonocracy does do stereo processing but if I'm still manually managing two instances of the amp then its the same level of maintenance as mono processing, maybe half a notch better. If they added a "link parameters" feature to Tonoc so I still had to have two amps like this but I only have to move "one" of them and they keep synched, then that would also be a working solution.

View attachment 22472

Look at NeuralDSP, this is as straight forward/confusing as things need to be, dead simple
View attachment 22475

Am I reading this right that you are putting 2-4 (or more) guitars onto a single stereo bus, and then in an ideal scenario such as the last image, are running that whole bus of multiple guitars through a plugin running a single amp model, but capable of receiving a stereo input?

 

[[Nathan]]

Am I reading this right that you are putting 2-4 (or more) guitars onto a single stereo bus, and then in an ideal scenario such as the last image, are running that whole bus of multiple guitars through a plugin running a single amp model, but capable of receiving a stereo input?

I dunno how you got that from my screenshots but no, only ever left and right going to a bus with an amp sim processing them. I may have multiple of those leading into a higher level bus but the only processing on that higher level would be some overall eq move or compression or something. The amp sim only ever processes one left and one right instance.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I dunno how you got that from my screenshots but no, only ever left and right going to a bus with an amp sim processing them. I may have multiple of those leading into a higher level bus but the only processing on that higher level would be some overall eq move or compression or something. The amp sim only ever processes one left and one right instance.

When you say "one left and one right instance" do you mean:

"I tracked a first guitar, pan it left. Then I tracked a second guitar, pan it right. Then I slap a stereo instance of a plugin that has one amp model in it receiving stereo input onto that pair of tracks"?

Sorry I'm being obtuse --your images don't look like any DAW layout I'm familiar with.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

We're really getting into the weeds here but this is a typical workflow for me.
My guitar is feeding into an input (mono) and I load up a modern plugin like a NeuralDSP/STL/Mercuriall any of them really. Start playing, mess around, dial in a rough tone... start laying some drums, build out the session. For rhythm I'm always double tracking, so the first thing I'll do is make a bus for this. This is the basic outline of what that looks like:
View attachment 22473

If I'm using a MONO plugin like NAM then straight away its more like the below. At a glance its not annoying but any change make to one instance you typically want to have sync'd across the others. So every time you make a move in one plugin you have to open the other one up and just double up on the editing. If I have 3/4/5 L/R guitar layers it just starts to blow out and become an annoying workflow thing to keep doing things two at a time. Like I keep saying the whole thing is a lot more efficient when you're tweaking a single amp in a single instance of a plugin and that is what you're hearing in real time across both of your L/R tracks
View attachment 22474

Tonocracy is one step better than a MONO plugin but as far as I can see you still have to stack two amps and keep things balanced manually, is that right? If you can use one amp to do stereo processing then that would be perfect so let me know if it can do that. As far as I can see you also need to manage two amps (tonesnaps) for NAM profiles as well... if they figured out a way to have stereo NAM processing natively with one instance of the amp that would be a pretty big workflow saver.

So yes Tonocracy does do stereo processing but if I'm still manually managing two instances of the amp then its the same level of maintenance as mono processing, maybe half a notch better. If they added a "link parameters" feature to Tonoc so I still had to have two amps like this but I only have to move "one" of them and they keep synched, then that would also be a working solution.

View attachment 22472

Look at NeuralDSP, this is as straight forward/confusing as things need to be, dead simple
View attachment 22475

Use one amp and split after the cab or use two cabs after the amp.

The reason I was not following along is that the last thing I ever would want use double track identical sounds.

If it's played right enough it screams for having phase coherence issues and if it's tight enough it'll sum to mono.

But if that works for you cool.

 

[FuzzyAce]

So every time you make a move in one plugin you have to open the other one up and just double up on the editing.

Is there not a copy/paste settings feature associated with the plugin? Hopefully you're not manually adjusting settings to match the other instance (that would be a pain).

 

[[Nathan]]

When you say "one left and one right instance" do you mean:

I dunno how to explain it better I feel like its all laid out pretty clear. But a left guitar track and a right guitar track feeding into a bus with an amp sim on it (so 3 tracks in total). If I want "more guitars" in the song I would essentially make a duplicate of all 3 of these, I wouldnt be feeding more sets of left and right guitars into the same amp sim/bus instance.

Use one amp and split after the cab or use two cabs after the amp.

The reason I was not following along is that the last thing I ever would want use double track identical sounds.
If it's played right enough it screams for having phase coherence issues and if it's tight enough it'll sum to mono.

This sounds like personal preference because the vast majority (basically everyone) I know personally, and others I see online are doing what I'm doing, which is just using the same instance of a plugin to process left/right guitars. There is no phase issues or any issues with the same amp settings being used to process both tracks. Pro engineers edit guitar tracks to be in line with the grid and still don't have phase issues. To have phase issues without manually over editing something I'd love to see those DI's because that's some robot hands right there... must be a problem for 0.00001% of guitar players.

The discussion is not really weather one approach is better than the other. But when a single instance of a plugin cant handle stereo processing then its a drawback.

Whats the downside of a plugin handling stereo? If you want to have individual processing of left/right guitars then use 2x mono instances. If you want stereo processing of left/right tracks feeding into it then use 1 x stereo instance. The notion that a plugin "doesnt need" stereo because "you shouldnt work that way" is just using personal opinion on justifying why a plugin lacks a feature. In one scenario (mono only) half the people lose, in another scenario (having stereo and mono) everybody wins.

Use one amp and split after the cab or use two cabs after the amp.

Can you show me how thats done I can't figure it out? Just a single instance of a NAM or AMP block feeding out to stereo to process left/right.

Is there not a copy/paste settings feature associated with the plugin? Hopefully you're not manually adjusting settings to match the other instance (that would be a pain).

Not inside the plugin. You can continuously edit the Left DI and then copy that instance onto the right track every single time, or I guess you could dive into your DAW and setup parameter linking... no matter how you spin it its just more work to find a manual solution (when there could just be stereo and it just works how people expect).

The main "upside" to not having stereo processing is that you don't confuse the majority of users with mono workflows, or get them into situations where they are using 2x the CPU processing two identical channels when they didn't intend to.

Off the top of my head NeuralDSP / STL / Mercuriall all default to "mono" mode and then have an option to toggle ON stereo processing. This is surely the only safety net a person needs to accidentally prevent more processing. The functionality of having stereo in there far outweighs someone accidentally using 2% more cpu in their system because they pressed a button by mistake (and can remedy it by flicking it back to mono).

 

[ragingplatypi]

Just played another vineyard gig with the stereo setup and it wasn’t playing nice with me this time. We were in a different part of the room, and I probably would have had trouble with acoustics in mono as well, but stereo made it twice the fuss. It wasn’t a big deal, but it emphasized the importance of being able to navigate one’s gear quickly.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

I dunno how to explain it better I feel like its all laid out pretty clear. But a left guitar track and a right guitar track feeding into a bus with an amp sim on it (so 3 tracks in total). If I want "more guitars" in the song I would essentially make a duplicate of all 3 of these, I wouldnt be feeding more sets of left and right guitars into the same amp sim/bus instance.


This sounds like personal preference because the vast majority (basically everyone) I know personally, and others I see online are doing what I'm doing, which is just using the same instance of a plugin to process left/right guitars. There is no phase issues or any issues with the same amp settings being used to process both tracks. Pro engineers edit guitar tracks to be in line with the grid and still don't have phase issues. To have phase issues without manually over editing something I'd love to see those DI's because that's some robot hands right there... must be a problem for 0.00001% of guitar players.

The discussion is not really weather one approach is better than the other. But when a single instance of a plugin cant handle stereo processing then its a drawback.

Whats the downside of a plugin handling stereo? If you want to have individual processing of left/right guitars then use 2x mono instances. If you want stereo processing of left/right tracks feeding into it then use 1 x stereo instance. The notion that a plugin "doesnt need" stereo because "you shouldnt work that way" is just using personal opinion on justifying why a plugin lacks a feature. In one scenario (mono only) half the people lose, in another scenario (having stereo and mono) everybody wins.


Can you show me how thats done I can't figure it out? Just a single instance of a NAM or AMP block feeding out to stereo to process left/right.


Not inside the plugin. You can continuously edit the Left DI and then copy that instance onto the right track every single time, or I guess you could dive into your DAW and setup parameter linking... no matter how you spin it its just more work to find a manual solution (when there could just be stereo and it just works how people expect).


Off the top of my head NeuralDSP / STL / Mercuriall all default to "mono" mode and then have an option to toggle ON stereo processing. This is surely the only safety net a person needs to accidentally prevent more processing. The functionality of having stereo in there far outweighs someone accidentally using 2% more cpu in their system because they pressed a button by mistake (and can remedy it by flicking it back to mono).

Here ya go....

As for how guys on YouTube and professional guys do things.

I wouldn't know after recording for over 4 decades, mixing for over 3 and having taught production a few years as Professor at 2 colleges I have no reason for it.

That side my point was not that there's to use for plugs with the same source input played twice.

My point was that doubling guitar parts with identical tones is pointless, might as well use one track and throw a chorus on since that is literally what this does.

 

[[Nathan]]

Here ya go....

View attachment 22529


As for how guys on YouTube and professional guys do things.

I wouldn't know after recording for over 4 decades, mixing for over 3 and having taught production a few years as Professor at 2 colleges I have no reason for it.

That side my point was not that there's to use for plugs with the same source input played twice.

My point was that doubling guitar parts with identical tones is pointless, might as well use one track and throw a chorus on since that is literally what this does.

This doesnt work, the stereo signal coming in is summing to Mono at the Amp block. If you had this patch and disabled the amp block you'd hear the proper stereo signal but when you engage the amp it's summing to Mono and then doing some stereo processing "After" the amp block.

The only way I could get a proper stereo input / stereo processed sound through tonocracy is to have 2 amps running and fiddling around with the specific routing options, then it works but you're managing 2 amps manually (not ideal).

Compare this with NeuralDSP or STL Middleton where its as easy as one click and you're good to go. Dialling in one amp and its affecting the stereo processing.

Maybe i'm missing somethinig in Tonocracy but I've gone through all the conceivable combinations of settings and I can't see a way to do it with a single amp block or NAM capture. If you have a preset with all the routings setup can you send it over so I can take a look at what's going on. Either way this is all proving my point... how much time have we spent here trying to figure this out when other software takes literally 2 seconds to get going for this kind of thing.

Here's 4 examples for the same setup in reaper:

1) My recreation of your patch

2) The way I could get stereo processing / dual amp processing in Tonocracy

3) NDSP Nameless

4) STL Middleton

 

[gearJunkie]

I've yet to meet a mono PA in all my years of gigging. This mono thing is very much a USA thing it seems.

IME the boards may support stereo, but the power amps are often run bridged in mono.