Do you guys use your rig mono or stereo?
It is really hard to control stereo image on stage and a lot of PAs do mono which I recently found out.
So what do you guys think?
Is stereo worthed to try to get to?
I tried it a lot in the past but I was not impressed because it was a lot of hustle to carry 2 amps etc.
Now with NC, it iis a lot easier but then again the PA situation is not always predictable and most of the times I can not get 2 monitors for myself.
I don’t use stereo.
If the NC could route dry and wet, that would be cool, but stereo - I have no need.
Seems to me more like a living room and recording feature, only. imo and ymmv - please don’t flame me for saying this. lol.
I run everything in mono. I use external effects pedals with my QC, most of which are mono.
In my opinion, in a live setting, running stereo is a fool’s errand. So much effort to set up, only to have your audience not notice it at all. It’s only noticeable if you plan on doing some some really obvious chopping/swirling modulation effect across the FOH field. This also assumes that you got the venue’s sound person to agree to hook up a second line to run 100% left and right signals–not everyone is going to do that for you.
Stereo is useful for recording and mixing.
Well, that is what I found out 4-5 years back. I never knew this for years of performing and then we got into a chat with a sound person and truth came out. I was shocked. I said why mono for all this PA speakers. Sound man said most PAs are run bridged mono for more powerful output. He also said for open air concerts, there is also no point in running stereo since audience would not be able to perceive it. Especially if it is a wide stage.
I’m on mono Live too.
We don’t have a persistent FOH which we bring to gigs, so it’s a different person everytime. Using all mono signals (excpet Keys) is the easiest and fastest way to get a good stagesound.
But we have 6 people on stage. I think if you’re the only guitar player in a band (maybe in a trio) stereo should work fine (depending on the stage size)
If it’s a jazz club, it usually is a smaller size stage. So, I setup mono with my pedalboard going into fx return of a PolyTone or a JC120 without a CAB IR then to PA with CAB.
However most of the times I just bring a drive and a delay ( fits in my gig bag ) and no pedalboard.
On bigger stages, it is completely luck. We have a very detailed rider list but it is usually not what we get. We ask for a deluxe reverb and get a twin instead. Or we ask for an AC10 and get an AC30. It is not predictable. So devices like Nano Cortex will be a life saver for those gigs. If you skip on the stereo setup, then it is very easy. Bigger stages have mostly mono PA anyways. It is impossible to get the audience to experience stereo image. Imagine if your standing up 20-30 feet away from the stage and PA left and right speakers are 50 feet away from each other. 70% of the crowd does not even hear the stereo image.
On my main projects I’m running stereo, since 1) I’m the only guitar player (with a keyboard player); 2) all projects have a dedicated FoH engineer; 3) we run our own (stereo) IEMs desk; 4) smaller gigs we bring our own PA, bigger gigs whatever the rental company provides isn’t an issue.
So we basically leave little to chance, and here in Europe mono FoH systems are way less prevalent than on the other side of the Pond it seems.
With that said, if we’re 2 guitar players on a gig (as was the case when I subbed in an all-originals hard rock band), I run mono.
So…as always, horses for courses.
Never used stereo.
I’m so mono at this point, they call me the kissing disease.
Most pro live audio engineers that I work with prefer me to provide a stereo feed if I have it, which I always do. I guess they then decide if they want to retain the imaging or not.
Aye, I use stereo in almost every situation. I have done for over 20 years.
I use one side dry other side wet (with no reverb unless it’s a special effect). With the QC I can run the same rig in mono if need be (which is part of the reson I went down this route).
I don’t care that it gets summed to mono most of the time through PA’s. It gives my sound a lot more clarity than mono.
I run the QC through a power amp and 2 speaker which are miced. The sound engineers will blend the cabs together. They can also have more or less of the fx or add reverb to the fx to push them back in the mix.
I never go FOH only. I hate silent stages. The sound is like having a massive willy, but it’s only 2D!
To complicate my rig I play synth guitar (sometimes acoustic from the built in Piezo and acoustic rig) at the same time, so I have to blend my guitar sounds with my keyboard sounds. I am a bad sound engineers nightmare! 
In the studio, if I use the QC I use it as a mono amp. If I want stereo I’ll double track and have different settings, amps or speakers either side. I normally add effects later unless it’s a front of amp effect.
There’s no right or wrong, just experiment. I’ve been playing and experimenting for 35 years. I’ve managed to cram another 35 years experiments into the last 2 years of owning the QC. Love it!
Always use stereo live when possible (when I played guitar in the band with choruses, delays, reverbs, multiple amp models, etc.). However, with bass, mono is fine. We run our own sound, so fighting with soundmen is not an issue. I play keys and run them stereo, though. Just sounds bigger and better to the audience. You could argue that it sounds BEST if you’re right in the center, but unless you have entire parts panned hard left or right, the stereo effect will be effective in the whole room. It sounds great no matter where you are.
I simulate a tri-amplification setup: everything from the input to the cab runs in mono and goes straight to the PA. Then I take the signal from the cab and from there I run in stereo for everything that involves modulation and delay, with the wet signal at 100% and controlling the effects mix with an expression pedal. In the PA the channels obviously need to be hard-panned, otherwise you can’t achieve a proper stereo image. As for personal monitoring, unfortunately the aux-sends on mixers are, of course, mono, so either you have the option of two monitors, or you find a compromise. For me, though, this aspect is secondary, since the PA gets the signal exactly the way I want it
Yes, this was what came up when I was talking to sound engineers. They also said, it is very hard for the crowd to get the stereo image for open air concerts and bigger stages. Only 10-20 % of the people get the stereo image since they sit/stand at the right place. And… because of this, many PAs are run in bridged mono to get more power and cleaner sound.
When I heard that, I gave up and never carried two amps and set up all my rigs mono.
If I can not enjoy it, if only a fraction of the crowd can hear it, there would be no point for me.
I enjoy stereo for recordings.
I always run stereo and love being able to play with the sound field. Granted, the places where I play generally have the mains no further than 15-20 feet apart, so this allows the luxury of stereo.
I also run my own sound everywhere I DJ/play since my mixer is on my pedalboard (tabletop).
Guys, I have a question. When you say you use mono, do you mean you use a mono amp instead of a dual amp, or that you also use a mono amp and effects (like chorus, delay, and reverb)?
For a mono FOH setup, do you think it’s necessary to use a mono delay on my preset, instead of the circular delay/dual delay/multitap delay I usually use?
Do I need to swap my stereos delays/chorus for mono delays/chorus in my presets?
What about reverbs, which I usually use last in the signal chain? I usually use room reverb or, at most, a tape with the mix very low, just to avoid that extremely dry sound. How do you handle these reverbs in mono? I also usually use chorus in stereo after the amp.
And finally, if I have a preset with the amp in mono, but all the effects in stereo, and I’m playing in a venue with mono FOH, what would be the best alternative? If I connect only the Quad Cortex’s Left/Mono output, will all my effects be combined?
Thanks everyone
I think I can answer some of your questions about mono…
1 & 3: All amp blocks are mono, but of course you can add stereo effects after that on the grid. If you do that, then your outputs should be stereo as well–for example, outputs 1 & 2, or outputs 3 & 4 according to how you’ve set up your preset.
In that case, if you’re playing a venue that insists on only giving you one cable to connect your QC to FOH, and you plug into output 1 or 2 only (for example), then you’re only sending half of the stereo image. If you’re trying to use stereo ping pong delay, then you would only hear half of the delay repeats.
I’m not sure if the QC automatically sums to mono if you manually set the output to a single jack–output 1, or 2, or 3, or 4. Other folks may be able to speak into this.
2: There should be mono versions of all of the reverbs; just dial up the one you would like to use.
It doesn’t, but that’s actually a good thing, as some effects such as Doubler (it’s the main offender in that regard) would induce massive comb filtering, as L and R sides, being offset by a few milliseconds, are very much out of phase.
Better create dedicated mono versions of presets than sum stereo ones to mono, it’s MUCH safer and cleaner.
Very much agreed on that. But all of my presets are mono anyway. 
Hello! Thank you so much for the tips.
For example, I play in a band with only one guitarist (me), bass, and drums. So when the venue I’m playing has a stereo sound system, I really like it, because I think a reverb with a very low mix and other stereo effects help the band sound “bigger” and fuller, due to the lack of a second guitarist or keyboardist, for example. So in all my presets, I usually use stereo effects like reverb, chorus, and delays after the amplifier block. And also when playing quietly at night with headphones, a preset with mono effects sounds horrifying to me, haha!
But the venues I play aren’t always true stereo. In this case, if the venue I’m playing has a 100% mono system, should I create a dedicated preset with delay effects and mainly mono reverb? Or can I leave the reverb in stereo, for example, and just send the mono output to the mixer and not worry about any loss?
I also have an Ampero 2 Stage and a Tonex at home, and on them, for example, I can’t find mono reverb options, only stereo. What happens when I can’t add a mono version of the reverb I like most? What can I do?
Thank you very much!!