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I was just thinking that it would be cool to get a bit of discussion on the whole mono versus stereo thing.
It seems to me that people always have their own way of doing things, but it also seems that many people record, for example, bass - in mono, and actually mono drums can be surprisingly effective as well. I have found that sometimes mono parts can provide clarity and punch - does anyone else use mono? If so what for? And can the gurus shed any light on the benefits/drawbacks of mono/stereo.
Finally, i wanted to ask what are the differences when it comes to panning mono and panning stereo?

pseudojazzer,

I only put a source to a stereo channel when the source is stereo. Doesn't make sense to split it up, untill there's some stereo trick to it. And a mono bus can be pan to whatever position suitable in the stereo mix, so having mono tracks doesn't mean you have a mono mix eh.

I usually pick stereo aux effects, except for a spring verb that's mono anyway, and a couple synth or 2 may be stereo too. Later in the project, as stereo effects are applied to mono tracks, I mix them also to stereo ofcourse.

Drums are mono instruments here, kick and snare panned dead center, other instruments with slight offset, and the odd hh's and/or percussion on a stereo bus/submix.
Bass also panned in the middle, it carries a lot of energy and should come from both sides with same volume, except for some chorus on it sometimes that can add a little motion.
The other synth's often end up on stereo busses cos of the effects applied to the individual tracks or on the submixes. Not ment as how-to, just how it usually turns out here

It doesn't make sense to split up a mono track to stereo with 2 identical inputs. It would be a waste of CPU power , DSP power and/or disk storage...

my 2c,

at0m.

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