Losing volume when summing L/R guitar channels to mono

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This is something that I've noticed in the past when I regurarly mixed other people's songs just for fun, and I'm facing it again now that I'm mixing a song from a friend.

They've recorded two takes of a guitar for panning hard left and right to get a wide guitar sound, and it all sounds good and balanced while in stereo.
But once I sum the song to mono (to do some better separation mixing) the guitars loses volume - even when solo'd.
I've tried the flipping polarity on one side, add latency to one side, as well as comparing circular/triangular panning law options, but the volume difference is the same when cycling between stereo and mono.

Are there any tricks to overcome this, or may this simply be bad recording technique, or maybe I've done something wrong?

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Sounds like a mono source going through an effect that outputs stereo, with one channel out of phase (somewhat). If additional (later) effects were also present with different effects across stereo channels, compensating would be a nightmare. Ideally, record the signal clean and apply effects in the box. (I say this as someone who never deals with incoming audio sources... just already recorded stuff with effects all over it... :D )

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The guitars were recorded with reverb in the verses, but the final chorus has guitar that are recorded dry, and it's the same thing there - good point though that I didn't think of, I'll keep that in mind for the future and specifically ask for dry recordings :)

I did some reading and realized that this issue is pretty obvious and that I should have thought about it lol (to my defense I'm getting back into hobby mixing after a 2 year break or so) - centered sounds simply have both L and R synced while a panned signal only has one side, so it loses volume when summed to mono.
Guess I'll just have to compromise with the volume and have it a tad louder when in stereo, and maybe add a 3rd version of the guitars that will be in the center and hope it supports it a little better when in mono, either that or add a 3rd and 4th one panned 50% L and R.

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Printed reverb phase?
Last edited by The Noodlist on Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:50 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Currently trying to turn noise into music. :neutral: Is boutique the new old?

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You know how to convert L/R stereo to mid-side? (Split L/R channel to two mono channels; sum to a new channel = mid; invert one channel, sum to a new channel = side) The "side" channel is then the "missing" loudness. (Um, maybe I got the "mid" and "side" around the wrong way - I lost the "cheat sheet" I used to have for it... :) )

I'd just check the peak amplitude on the original L/R and boost the mono to match; it won't be perfect in terms of loudness but it might be a better starting point.

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Are you sure they are 2 different guitar takes, or the same take replicated but processed differently? Hard to tell if it's phase cancellation or not (give us a sound example!).

Try putting your whole mix in mono (over the master) when setting the guitars' respective pan laws - one may appear louder than the other (use that one). Make sure each channel is 100% mono before the pan, too. Sometimes 90% pan is better than hard pan, also.

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I would try the functional demo of Melda's MAutoAlign with all other effects disabled.
Printed effect phase issues, maybe?
Currently trying to turn noise into music. :neutral: Is boutique the new old?

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