Abbey Road Studio 3 Mono Compatibility

Music Production
1

Hello there,
i’ve been mixing with Abbey Roads Studio 3 for some days now and think it is very impressive.

My question concerns checking my mix in Mono. As there seems to be no option in the plugin itself, what would be the correct way to do so?
I’m working with REAPER. Can I simply use the MONO-Button on the Master?

Thanks for your help,

Chris

2

Hi @chris_mor and welcome to the Forum!

Indeed, there is no mono summing control in Abbey Road Studio 3, by design.

If you wish to monitor your mono’s mix through the plugin - you should sum it to mono in your DAW and then load the plugin mono to stereo component on the mono channel, this will result in hearing the mono signal reflected around the room and hearing this response in stereo through your headphones.

Simply using the Mono on your master, post the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin, will squash the rooms stereo reflections and ruin the mix. Not intended to be used this way,

3

Hi @YishaiWaves,

thank you so much for your fast reply.

As I am often switching from mono to stereo when mixing - and dont want to use 2 different instances of the plugin - would this also work the following way:

  • Load the stereo/stereo version of the plugin as the last plugin on the master track and
  • BEFORE the plugin load a stereo width plugin collapsing the mix to mono when needed?

Kind regards

Chris

4

Yes that will work fine, you will be hearing the mono summed signal as played through two speakers in the actual studio. So due to acoustics and head position, you may still hear slight differences between your ears. That is expected.

5

Thank you very much!

I’ve tried it with Waves S1 and it works great.

Best regards

Chris

6

Yeah using S1 will solve this monitoring issue. You can always have one permanently set up to “mono” just prior to Abbey Road Studios and simply turnip off and on when you want to compare.

Although, @YishaiWaves, I think this would be an extremely useful feature to install into Abbey Road Studios and NX. It makes a lot of sense.

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7

I will pass the suggestion @simon.a.billington!

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8

I have an additional question on this topic. When I place a mono utiliy before Abbey Road Studio 3 and just listen to the side information after the plugin, I still hear side information that is produced by the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin. I feel like this should not happen @YishaiWaves? Or is this a feature, like you mention “…due to acoustics and head position, you may still hear slight differences between your ears”? For me, this is the reasion why a mono kick sounds strange with this plugin.

9

It’s because the Abbey Roads Studio is reproducing a real world space. Even pro studios aren’t perfectly symmetrical. The monitors and amps also aren’t exactly identical. It’s of course the idea to make a studio as perfect as possible, but in the real world we are working with imperfect parts, even those designed for mastering.

So as you send a mono into the plugin its going to react imperfectly just as the real world space would. That side information your hearing is these imperfections.

Perfect imperfections nonetheless.

10

@chris_mor – I’m not sure of your use case, but if you’re doing an initial mix in mono for all the benefits it provides, that’s actually my #1 use for the Waves Nx series of plugins.

As you know, doing an initial mix in mono is useful because it becomes immediately clear when your mix is too dense, or when the arrangement has too many overlapping parts.

It also encourages us to get our sounds EQ’d to work well on top of each other, which makes them work even better once panned (since frequencies bounce around a room and comingle, by EQing in mono first they comingle without mud.)

Lastly, it’s sometimes easier to judge overall tonal balance in mono than stereo.

You still get all of these benefits if your Nx plugin is in stereo. In fact — I find regular mono in headphones to be somewhat miserable, but it’s enjoyable through Nx (stereo.) This is actually what I find Nx MOST useful for.

All my old mixes before working in mono first were overly dense and my arrangements were weaker. Nx made a huge difference for me just by making mono workflow tolerable thanks to room simulation. I do that by folding the mix to mono with a plugin right before Nx.

PS. The real magic in Nx happens when you have it enabled long enough that you forget it’s on. Suddenly your ears/brain are calibrated to the “room” enough that it oddly feels natural to work in… But I also use all the different Nx plugins as different room/speaker checks.

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11

Thx for your insights. Very helpful!

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12

I agree with Sam’s comments on mono too.

A lot of night clubs still use mono setups so the music sounds the same wherever you are. Shopping centres are the same. Plus many PCs, TVs and sound bars have speakers placed so close together that they end up pushing most of the same air. So they may as well be mono to some respect as well too.

Mono referencing is still relevant.

13

Jsut tried the mono mixing approach and that is really great advice. Thx again.
I have an additional question about NX. Whenever I open an Ableton Live project with NX the Head Tracker Window is automatically opening. Is there any chance to block this window, as I do not use any headtracker.

1 Like
14

These days I just begin mixing the tracks as they come, often hitting the “mono switch” to see how things are going.

I’ll especially doing a check if I’m trying some kind of widening technique, especially when using the Haas approach. That can really introduce phasing issues, so I’ll usually tweak the delay time until most of the phase cancellation is working in my favour, if I can manage it.