Originally Posted By: JohnJohnJohn
I always export all tracks as mono. This gives me more control of where to pan them in the final mix.

My basic approach is drums, bass and vocals dead center and everything else full right or full left.

On simple songs with only vocals and a single guitar part I will dupe the guitar track and shift it a few milliseconds. Then put one guitar track full left and the other full right. It makes a lovely full mix with only two tracks!


The issue with duplicating a track and shifting it a few MS is that it introduces phase issues. This is much more apparent when mixed down to Mono (such as playing through your phone or a mono bluetooth speaker) but can still be apparent with stereo speakers especially if you shift your head a bit as you're listening. The only way to avoid these phase issues is to record a double track, which I do on probably literally every song I record.

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