Which sounds need TRS to dual TS?

[drc]

Let's say I've got six sounds in a beat, and I want to use my 6 voice outs for recording. How do I know which sounds need to be stereo and which are fine just TS to TS? Basic, I know, yet I'm confused. Kick, snare, hat, toms...would they need a TRS to dual TS? They are mono sounds...

[idm]

The voice outs are stereo, so you need to use a stereo jack. Y-ing a stereo output to a mono input isn't a good idea as it will at the very least give you phasing issues.

What you can do is hard pan the sounds to left, then use a stereo jack to 2x mono and only insert the left mono jack into your mixer/soundcard. Maybe a mono cable will work in that case too, but it could result in it not sounding right. The former I use to output 2 sounds from one voice so I can process them separately.

[drc]

Thanks for the reply. I get this part - what is confusing me is, WHICH sounds truly need to be stereo, and which sounds are fine mono? Is it better to give the kick its own stereo track, or is it actually better to hard pan it left and only use one input on the interface? If I've got voices available, should I record the kick as a stereo track just because I can? I hope my question is making sense...

[MisterHemi]

Ok, I think I understand your question.... i'll try to give some advice...

No particular sounds "need" to be in stereo, it's up to you, it's a preference.

Now having said that generally low frequency/low pitched sounds have been used in mono as low pitched sounds travel further and are harder to differentiate whether they're stereo or mono.

I hope I said that right.....

On older vinyl records they ofter put the bass in the center for that reason and because songs signals (such as bass) would cause problems when they're cutting the master.

You could put the bass in the middle and pan the sounds to your liking.

Some like panning the toms across the stereo field - left to right, right to left, whatever sounds good to you.

You could mentally picture sitting behind a drum set and visualize the placement of the drum and pan they like that, i've done that sometimes in the past.

[drc]

Thanks for the insights - truly appreciated. I think we are getting to the answer I am seeking. If you'll indulge me further, let me go on... I am a big fan of really spacing out the stereo field. I do live shows running out of the mains, and in T's mixer, I've panned everything to my liking - kick centered, hat perhaps a bit left, toms going from left to right, just as you've described. But now that I'm wanting to record that very same project into my DAW (Logic), I want to use the voice outs so that I can process things separately (the reasons are obvious I'm sure - I might want to compress just the kick, flange the hat a bit, reverb on just the snare, etc, then sum it all and go from there). But my question is, "should" I give each pad it's own voice out in stereo, thus keeping my panning done in T's mixer intact, or should I run the voice outs in mono, which means I'll have to re-do all the panning once the tracks are in Logic (since running the voice outs in mono means I'll need to pan the sound hard to get it centered in Logic since I'm going mono). I don't mind having to re-do all the panning if in fact recording everything in mono is preferred/"better". I apologize for being long-winded here, but I'm trying to make certain my question makes sense.

[MisterHemi]

Of course it all depends upon your own preference.....

If it were me i'd use the stereo outs for the dry sound, use individual outs for sounds I want processed.

That would preserve somme of the panning. I've never used the individual outs as of yet.. if somehow they don't bypass the stereo outs i'd route them to effects them mix them back in with the dry stereo sound.



Excuse my typos in my earlier post: *often, *pan them

[muleskinner]

I would just output everything in mono personally and recreate your panning in Logic. I don't like the Tempest's internal mixer as changes in pan/level affect feedback and even the way the envelopes work (I was cynical about the latter at first but I have tested it).

So I've been all round the houses with various approaches and ended up with Y cables plugged into the separate outs of the Tempest except voice 6 which I leave for the main outs so I can use the distortion/compression if I want. Usually I use only the left channel unless I really need to process something separately.

I set all my levels on an external mixer and when I'm ready to record route everything pre-fader to my soundcard - it only takes a couple of minutes to recreate pan/level settings in Logic. It took a while to find an affordable mixer with switchable pre/post on each channel but I got a great deal on an unused Soundcraft M12 on ebay.

 

[drc]

Thanks all for the input. Muleskinner - last night I tried every option I could think of, and ended up doing just that - outputting everything in mono. To my ear, everything sounded optimal this way. I'll do my panning again in Logic and I think I'm pretty good to go. If anybody else has thoughts, please do feel free to contribute! For now, I'm panning all sounds hard in the Tempest and going out of the voices in mono. I then save that as a new project while keeping my original project with its levels all set for the stereo field. Now I've got a recording six-voice-out version of the project, and my original live-performance version, which will simply run out of the mains.