Making a mono guitar into a stereo one.

[allbaldo]

I did a record a while ago, with a very good guitarist that has VERY specific ideas of what he wants, and is very particular about the performance. He also wanted the guitars to be done in 1 performance, and not double tracked. I tracked the record with mock stereo guitars, done with 2 amps/cabinets, close mic'ed, with MS stereo out front, which did a decent job of giving us a stereo guitar sound with one performance.

We finished the record, but he decided that he wanted to re-do most of the guitars himself. I gave him the songs we'd done without the guitars in the mix, and he tracked what he wanted to track. The new tracks are mono, and he wants me to fit the new guitars into the mixes we already have, so the question is...

What is your favorite way to make a mono guitar performance into a stereo, or close to stereo one?

Thanks!

[JWL]

Depending on the music/sound/song, I probably wouldn't bother. I always prefer doubled parts to artificial stereo. That said, try copying the track and delaying one of them 10-25ms. EQ them differently (complementary) for even more fun.

I might thicken it up with a bit of delay or reverb, which essentially stereo-izes the part. Depends on what the song needs.

[suppositron]

The easiest way is to take a copy of the track and delay it by a very short time, like 20-30 milliseconds, and pan the original and delayed signal on opposite sides of the stereo field. If it's done on tape, use a delay unit, if on pro tools you can simply copy the track and nudge it. But make sure it's by a small amount. I used to do that when I first started making music and if the nudge or delay is too big you get phase cancellations and it sounds horrid.

[DrummerMan]

Something I like to do, when it fits, is have the raw track panned to, say, right to 3 o'clock, then have all the reverb hard panned left. It doesn't always fit the music or the song, but when it does it can be cool.

Alternately, you could reamp the track into another guitar amp and feed that back in to the mix, just nudging it around until it doesn't present a phasing problem.

[rwc]

For some reason that delay and put it to the side shit always sounds lame to me.

If the guitarist has a car, pan it hard left.

If he is typically a passenger, pan it hard right.

and be done with it.

[suppositron]

Yeah, reamping would be my first choice if he printed a d.i. signal.

[Ron's Brother]

I may not be able to explain it exactly... but here we go...

Leave track one of the guitar alone and pan it hard left. Create a new "blank" track and pan it hard right

identify parts of the song that are playing similar phrases. We'll call them sections a, b and c. Copy phrase A from the guitar track and paste it into the blank track when phrase B is playing on the original "guitar track". Take phrase b and paste it where phrase C is playing ETC.

Am I explaining this well?

[farview]

Take a dual pitch shifter and set it for 6 cents up one one side and 6 cents down on the other side. You end up with a 90's Van Halen sort of guitar sound, depending on how wet you make it.

It ends up sounding like a chorus that doesn's sweep.

[ashcat_lt]

I've mentioned this around here before. If you can find a way to pan it really fast - like at audio frequencies - it can sometimes create an interesting stereo impression. Since the sound doesn't go away, just bounces back and forth, you don't seem to get that ring modulated AM sound. Maybe "fill in" the spaces with a little light touch of verb.

[dsw]

you could have the dry original track on one side and then pre-delay verb track on the other.

[cgarges]

I love using an Effectron for this for a few reasons:

The sort of grainy, digital sound makes for a "not-exact" stereo companion to the original signal.

It's VERY easy to adjust delay times and output polarity to get the mono compatibility and width where you like it best.

The modulation parameters can make for something a little more exciting than just a delayed signal. You can be really subtle with it or really extreme. You'd be surprised at how often "really extreme" works.

There are, however, a million ways to do it. The Orban Stereo Synthesizer is another box that does this kind of thing well with interesting parameters. Sometimes, I'll just send the mono guitar to something like an SPX 90 (or 990 or whatever) and use the panning function in some regard to bring the signal back in stereo. Reamping is usually a possibility where you can tailor mic positions to fit your needs. Sometimes just using any type of effect that removes or reduces the center can be an interesting way to make a mono signal stereo. I'm just waiting for chorusing to become hip again.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[mattwhritenour]

I may not be able to explain it exactly... but here we go...

Leave track one of the guitar alone and pan it hard left. Create a new "blank" track and pan it hard right

identify parts of the song that are playing similar phrases. We'll call them sections a, b and c. Copy phrase A from the guitar track and paste it into the blank track when phrase B is playing on the original "guitar track". Take phrase b and paste it where phrase C is playing ETC.

Am I explaining this well?

I've done this with gang/group vocals, it can work very well and is like having the performances overdubbedl

[NeglectedFred]

I've found myself trying to emulate MS with a single mono track on a few occasions. I copy the track, and do very slight, almost inaudible tweeks. Maybe a slight reverb (only add like 4-6% effect), eq it brighter, add slight phase, flange, or chorus - emphasis on almost inaudible.

Now here's the trick, zoom really close to both tracks, so that you only see maybe a dozen or less wave modulations on the screen at once.

Now nudge the effected track so that it's about 45 degrees offset. Here's my logic, if at 180 one is at top peak while other is at bottom, then 90 would be one at top while other is at zero, so 45 would be half peak while other is a zero.

Now pan one left and one right (this is only step one) and mixdown a new mono copy.

Now reverse the phase of one channel while leaving the other untouched, and mixdown to a second mono copy.

Now take the new copys, pan one left, one right, and walla!!!! I promise it works.

[mjau]

I've fed a mono track into a stereo verb with really short decay times, and used the 100% wet signal as the guitar sound. Worked in that particular context but I wouldn't rely on it all the time.

Chris's effectron suggestion is also useful. Those things are too awesome.

[drumsound]

Could you send the new parts to the two amps you used on the old parts? Set up close mics and the M/S pair and then recreate the sound from the first sessions?