The importance of Mono for live guitar playing

dbonilla28 said:
My rhythm sounds are the close-miced on the left and on the right, a room IR. For lead sounds, I tend to bring the sound a bit closer to the center if the lead is not the main part (dual leads or embellishments) and for solos, the dry sound is in the center and the effects are stereo.
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nice, i guess that is in a 2 guitar band or?
what room IR are you using?
 
Paul Bradshaw said:
nice, i guess that is in a 2 guitar band or?
what room IR are you using?
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Yes, I feel more comfortable playing live with a second guitarist :sweatsmile:

For IRs, I try to use a room IR of the same cab I'm using for close micing. So far, I've used Audio Assault, which includes Room IRs for all their speaker/cab combinations; also I use the Mikko plugin for some cases, in which I just grab a 121 mic and pull it as far the distance can go an export the IR.
 
I've dealt with the mono in-ear mix by using a mixer in my rack. I have my monitor mix from the board with no guitar into my line mixer, then add in stereo guitar. I don't know if you sing at all or not, but getting my vocals and guitar separated that way really helped me hear everything I needed to. Of course, that assumes you're able to get a personal monitor mix from the board. You can do something similar directly in the III, but it requires that you touch individual patches to set up, I like this for a global solution.
 
IMO it really depends what else is going on; the larger the band, the smaller the space in the stereo image the guitar can occupy. For the only guitar in a 3 piece I'd work in stereo to fill out the space, but as soon as there's another guitarist or keyboardist I'd think about going mono.
 
Corinthian said:
IMO it really depends what else is going on; the larger the band, the smaller the space in the stereo image the guitar can occupy. For the only guitar in a 3 piece I'd work in stereo to fill out the space, but as soon as there's another guitarist or keyboardist I'd think about going mono.
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When I'm the sound guy, unless I'm starved for channels, I'd rather you send whatever kind of signal you want in your IEMs and let me worry about making space in the FoH mix. I can always pan both channels the same if I need to.

<end sound guy advice>
 
I run stereo to FOH, but we typically play small venues where someone sitting on the left side of the room can still hear what's coming out of the right-hand speaker, too. If necessary I can pan both channels to the middle. Also, the only time my left and right channels are different are when I'm using a stereo chorus or some type of ambient delay, which is only a few times per show. Stereo in those instances makes the guitar sound huge, IMO. Also, the wedge monitor in front of me is mono, so I make sure all of my presets translate well to mono.
 
If youre going to run stereo it needs to be subtle. What sounds cool and "spatial" to a guitarist just sounds confusing to the average person.
 
Sixstring said:
I play stereo at home because I can and in mono at my every Sunday gig (mono house)! I do have the occasional gig that I do that will be in stereo but that happens maybe 3-5 times a year. I have my 8 main presets duplicated for this reason.
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How do you run your mono setups? Do you just take the stereo spread of your time based effects and set them to zero? Or will you change out your stereo delays for mono delays? All other stereo effects just have a stereo spread I believe, no?
 
mesaman said:
I've dealt with the mono in-ear mix by using a mixer in my rack. I have my monitor mix from the board with no guitar into my line mixer, then add in stereo guitar. I don't know if you sing at all or not, but getting my vocals and guitar separated that way really helped me hear everything I needed to. Of course, that assumes you're able to get a personal monitor mix from the board. You can do something similar directly in the III, but it requires that you touch individual patches to set up, I like this for a global solution.
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the extra mixer sounds like a cool idea, i think our whole band could benefit by getting more separation in our IEM mixes (ie. stereo spread for instruments, vocals/bass center) it'll help us out overall, but it's another investment to make i think down the line, we might upgrade things eventually, but our IEM rack (based around the xr18) was already a little investment

Corinthian said:
IMO it really depends what else is going on; the larger the band, the smaller the space in the stereo image the guitar can occupy. For the only guitar in a 3 piece I'd work in stereo to fill out the space, but as soon as there's another guitarist or keyboardist I'd think about going mono.
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that's my current situation, i'm the only guitarist, but with mono IEMs, running mono atm, i'm also on the FM3 so stereo options are a tiny bit more limited to different cabs/stereo effects/enhancer, i'd love to try dual amps for example, which can open up more options , even having the same amp on both sides set slightly differently will make a difference i think

TG3K said:
I run stereo to FOH, but we typically play small venues where someone sitting on the left side of the room can still hear what's coming out of the right-hand speaker, too. If necessary I can pan both channels to the middle. Also, the only time my left and right channels are different are when I'm using a stereo chorus or some type of ambient delay, which is only a few times per show. Stereo in those instances makes the guitar sound huge, IMO. Also, the wedge monitor in front of me is mono, so I make sure all of my presets translate well to mono.
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are you running the same sort of cab/IR to both sides then or?
Thenewexhibit said:
How do you run your mono setups? Do you just take the stereo spread of your time based effects and set them to zero? Or will you change out your stereo delays for mono delays? All other stereo effects just have a stereo spread I believe, no?
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i've got a mono patch setup, ie. cab block summed/Center pan , mono delays (vintage digital being my favourite atm)
not running reverb, i've got a second delay setup in front of the amp actually for the few moments i have a cleanish tone going out (we play metal) it gives things more space/room but i don't have the cpu hit from the verb

if i was switching the patch to stereo on my fm3, i'd look at hard panning cabs/enhancer block maybe and then a stereo delay
 
RoshRoslin said:
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@RoshRoslin thanks for the video, really love your tutorial videos that you released, very useful

just wondering with regards to the output modes, any difference at all in say a mono preset (cabs panned Center, with say a simple mono delay) that is running with 'Stereo' output mode vs 'copy L->R' ?

i would think it's the same, just wanted to be sure, thanks
 
Thenewexhibit said:
How do you run your mono setups? Do you just take the stereo spread of your time based effects and set them to zero? Or will you change out your stereo delays for mono delays? All other stereo effects just have a stereo spread I believe, no?
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That's exactly how I build them! I am using a ping pong delay centered and set for a dotted 1/8th - 1/4 to get that Halo vibe and that works pretty good!
 
Depends on, if I’m the only guitarist, I play stereo and if I’m in a band with a second guitarist, I play mono.
 
I run output 2 as mono for the house, using a Mixer block to collapse stereo reverb effects.

Output 1, I add a pair of FullRes room IRs panned left and right, and run my ears from there.
 
I'm prepping to do a trio thing where on stage I'm using 2 amp stereo plus a leslie pedal out of L amp only (Out 1) and for the purpose of having the 2 amps separated for the house guy too (Out 2 stereo) to blend, as they sound different enough to make the trio sound bigger. Some of the time the 2nd amp spits out loops I played into it and the separation of the 2nd part is so much clearer. I would think making the 2 sounds separate so a sound guy can level and eq them is flexible mixing choices vs. 'that's what ya get'. Since they know it's there, maybe they'll give that tone some love. They can pan if they want.
 
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I feel this topic so deep. YouTube guitarist are always doing their videos in stereo, and yeah, it sounds nice, but I make all my presets in mono, for a few reasons.
One, saving space on the mixer, just one xlr and done. Two, a lot of venue sound guys are going to laugh, slap your guitar on one mono, and call it good. Three, something about guys that play live in stereo seems very, um, "oh look at my fancy rig, I'm going to need TWO inputs". At the end of the day, these little differences don't matter in the middle of a set when the full PA is blasting and the band is rocking out. In the headphones or the car yes you can really enjoy that, but live mid-song, nah.
My 2 cents.
 
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