Yea. I play with piccolo Guage strings playing alot of chords and using loops. Just wanted that wider not mono sound for this and effects.
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Help to achieve stereo sound
- Thread starter benchpress11782
- Start date
Thank you for all your suggestions friends. I can't really study them now but will later. I have a feeling that I may just get another duplicate. Will keep you posted though
- Nov 24, 2008
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- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
Is Michael running his cabs in stereo? I hadn't realized that.
Several years ago I exchanged a few e-mails with him, and he was using high end PA speakers, specifically two MarkAudio AS602 speakers and one AS101 sub. I think he prefers a "flatter" frequency response than most bass cabs produce, so that no parts of the spectrum are over- or under-emphasized... probably because he pretty much uses all of the spectrum. (Side note: My cat's favorite CD is Michael Manring's "Soliloquy".)
If the main goal is a "stereo image" with different notes/parts separated laterally, then stereo is pretty much the way to go. If the main goal is tonal richness and ambience, there are arguably other ways to get there, and dual mono might work better.
- Nov 24, 2008
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- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
Same signal going to both cabs. In most PA systems, the mains are run in "dual mono", despite looking like a giant stereo system. Otherwise people on the left side of the venue would have a hard time hearing instruments panned over to the right speaker, and vice-versa.
The bass plus the effects are the sound source, so splitting can make things interesting...
Roland GR 88
Commercial User
...... as in every 'stereo' recording ever made. Stereo is simply placing a mono source somewhere in the stereo field. You can achieve this with microphone placement or DSP algorithms. The end result is the same.
All this, and the point about this being two mono outs instead of stereo are right. Since there is one source of sound to split (instead of a multi-instrument sound), to really leverage a two-amp setup, I'd do some of this:
- Have stereo reberb/chorus/delay equipment that enables you to "move" (panning) the sound from one speaker to the other. That will make the listener perceive a "3rd dimension" to your sound
- Core frequencies must be sent to both amps; otherwise you will have 1/2 your audience receive 1/2 the content. "Core" base sound (your low end and mids" should go to both amps
- If you could split the high trebles from your source, add reberb/delay and mix that back with different eq settings to each amp, it will give another dimension to the sound when perceived from the centre
While I agree with those who suggest that stereo bass actually tends to give you LESS sound - if you are actually playing SOLO and filling all of the space sonically you definitely want the two sides to be the same - however you do it (one stereo head to two cabs or two identical combos).
Unless it was in small intimate clinics, I'd be willing to bet what the audience was hearing was a properly summed version of the two signals (if it was actually stereo - meaning something different on each side) or simply a line from one of them if they weren't. The stereo was likely for HIS benefit - give him the sound HE wants to hear on stage. You get to do that kind of thing en you're Manring. In the real world it only works on record where you can control what is coming out of each channel. Live, more than half of your audience is getting either only one channel or a phase-cancelled version of the stereo signal. And of course, bass sufferes the most from phase cancellations.
We're not talking about "stereo" in an audiophile sense where you're trying to create the impression of physical space or whatever. In this context stereo effects are stereo, not that complicated!
As others have said, there is no such thing as "REAL" stereo as all instruments are inherently mono sources - so it is always an effect or something "creating" the illusion of stereo.
Even a stereo instrument is just taking different pickups to different amps - but those pickups are sensing "MONO" strings on one instrument. Even if it is something like the old Hamers (or the Brian Bromberg basses) which had separate pickups for the different strings so you could shoes your an position for each in a stereo mix, ultimately, it is still an artificial exercise. The only true stereo is going to a live orchestra where there is enough natural separation between instruments that your own ears each gets a different signal creating a "3 dimensional" soundscape similar to how your eyes se 3 dimension - and similar to the way that all 3D images are to greater or lesser extents artificial ways of creating the same effect.
So, don't get too tied up in "real" vs "fake" stereo - that's a false dichotomy - worry about what works and sounds good - which may be stereo, may be mono. Same as the "digital" vs "analog" dichotomy. Some digital pedals/effects ROCK and there are lots of analog pedals that suck - what REALLY matters is if what comes out the other side is what you want to hear - if it sounds good, who cares how it was made or if it's "REAL"?
The Hi-Fi term is "Sound Stage"
Where you can close your eyes and point where in the room each musician is playing.
To keep lows from clashing use a single sub for lows, and satellites for mids/highs
Movie theaters take it to another level with surround sound.
For stereo the Spacestation by Pittman is good alternative if you don't want to carry all the speakers
Stereo doesn't seem to work so well in bigger venues unless FOH spends some time and effort setting it up for the room, and it's not ideal for everyone in the hall.
Where you can close your eyes and point where in the room each musician is playing.
To keep lows from clashing use a single sub for lows, and satellites for mids/highs
Movie theaters take it to another level with surround sound.
For stereo the Spacestation by Pittman is good alternative if you don't want to carry all the speakers
Stereo doesn't seem to work so well in bigger venues unless FOH spends some time and effort setting it up for the room, and it's not ideal for everyone in the hall.
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
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- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
I'll ask my friend who was mixing the bigger shows; I think capacity was around 250 and at least one was sold out. See my comments on modulated time based effects and Bassmec's about high passing one side (or both) though. The old saw about "only hearing one side" just isn't ncessarily so, IME. I'm not taking about true stereo, I'm talking about mono--> synthesized stereo effects. The better units of that type (ie rack units like many Lexicons) have high pass filtering and wet/dry mixing that translate just fine through the FOH. But even if all of this is just for the player, so is all sorts of other stuff, often including the amp and cab.
I have had problems with subwoofers and satelletites. As fast as any stereo chorus is kicked in the subwoofer disappears, with no bass. The swriling occurs in the sattelites only and the resulting sound is to thin, combfilter and crossover effects, i e just the high treble and high mid are heard.
Fake stereo in my opinion is what most early digital 80s reverbs, chorus, and delay had:
If you sum them up with the balance knob and sum the left and right into one single MONO channel and the signal will disappear entirely. If it was "real stereo" you should be able to sum them up in mono and still be able to hear them. I remember blockbuster hits of the 80s heard on the radio and as fast you had mono radio or something like that, you heard that something just sounded out of tune with pitch wavering. And some freqencies lost. I think it was some Roxette hit, but I can't remember. Sounded like "zero through" flanging but wasn't zero through flanging. Now we're getting deep. But all things disappeared because they used phase shift. But their take was : "Who's listening to mono these days?"
We have also those reverb algorithms and manufacturers who make shortcuts onto their reverbs when making "true" stereo. Digital delays just stuck on top of each other. And we have manufacturers with cocky attitudes who claims that just their own gear are true stereo reverbs, and can't even be made a copy of with convolution reverbs as IRs and so on. It's not Bricasti, Lexicon, or anyone else known, but small German boutique manufacturer Q.R.S who makes over the top expensive hardware units. Quantec Room Simulator. They have a funny and peculiar warranty policy: 30 years. That's why they make sure they're expensive so it will have insurance so the company will not go bankrupt. You can't still use them on bass though, and you shouldn't.
But mainly it is about this: the Cologne Dome Cathedral has a reverb when you're inside it. It has sounded like that for 300 years, and will do so for another 300 years. The acoustics are the same. And yes, it's in stereo... if you clap your hands or yell in there...
No phase anomalies anywhere. SOB everything's real!
- - - - -
Tip: Don't use these BOSE systems to think you can get stereo by just spreading it around with that "pipe" speaker.
Fake stereo in my opinion is what most early digital 80s reverbs, chorus, and delay had:
If you sum them up with the balance knob and sum the left and right into one single MONO channel and the signal will disappear entirely. If it was "real stereo" you should be able to sum them up in mono and still be able to hear them. I remember blockbuster hits of the 80s heard on the radio and as fast you had mono radio or something like that, you heard that something just sounded out of tune with pitch wavering. And some freqencies lost. I think it was some Roxette hit, but I can't remember. Sounded like "zero through" flanging but wasn't zero through flanging. Now we're getting deep. But all things disappeared because they used phase shift. But their take was : "Who's listening to mono these days?"
We have also those reverb algorithms and manufacturers who make shortcuts onto their reverbs when making "true" stereo. Digital delays just stuck on top of each other. And we have manufacturers with cocky attitudes who claims that just their own gear are true stereo reverbs, and can't even be made a copy of with convolution reverbs as IRs and so on. It's not Bricasti, Lexicon, or anyone else known, but small German boutique manufacturer Q.R.S who makes over the top expensive hardware units. Quantec Room Simulator. They have a funny and peculiar warranty policy: 30 years. That's why they make sure they're expensive so it will have insurance so the company will not go bankrupt. You can't still use them on bass though, and you shouldn't.
But mainly it is about this: the Cologne Dome Cathedral has a reverb when you're inside it. It has sounded like that for 300 years, and will do so for another 300 years. The acoustics are the same. And yes, it's in stereo... if you clap your hands or yell in there...
No phase anomalies anywhere. SOB everything's real!- - - - -
Tip: Don't use these BOSE systems to think you can get stereo by just spreading it around with that "pipe" speaker.
But I know few Reverb pedals that's for bass only. If any. You have to ramp up to the expenisve reack ones to be able to program presets with HPF (high pas filters) and crossover, where you have different reverbs for different frequencies, or really, no reverb at all in the low range. But that's reverb only. Most choruses, flangers, and delays have to be dedicated bass effects.
Back in the late Eighties I ran a stack on each side of the stage. Generating a stereo image from my pedals, my sound was wonderful. Swirling bass all over the stage. Out in the room this was lost and all that I could hear was a mish mash of sound with no clarity. From that time I have just run into one amp/cab system.
