Hi! New user here, long time producer/guitarist and I’m in the process of demo’ing every Neural plugin atm to decide which to purchase. Killer tones!
My question is in regards to how “stereo mode” handles and routes signals.
When I use the plugs in mono mode, I can go to the cabinet section, place/mix the mics to my heart’s content and then pan them appropriately.
However, when I toggle stereo processing on, I am quite unable to pan the mics to either side, it simply seems to be altering the mix level of each mic when I pan it around as opposed to moving it L or R. (This is when routing a double-tracked stereo guitar signal through a bus with Neural plugs on it)
Is this intended behavior, and if so, is the only way to achieve true stereo mixing in this fashion for me to run two of the same plugin in parallel?
Hi @TonalDynamics. The Stereo switch is used to process stereo input signals. If you engage it, the panning knobs will be disabled because both signals will be automatically panned to the left and right (if the source signals are already panned).
As you suggested, you can alternatively use two separate mono instances to process two different signals.
@Gonzalo Well what I was noticing is that you can pan each mic from each cab hard L and R in mono mode, in order to flesh out a more unique sound to each channel, but yet in stereo mode the L and R cabs don’t actually correspond to the L and R channels, rather it seems both cabs/mics are being summed first, split and then applied to hard L and R channels, so you are more or less blending the 2 mics for BOTH channels at the same time in stereo mode, as opposed to being able to control which channel they end up in, if that makes any sense (I’m guessing this is by design for some reason?). So it’s a bit of a disconnect in the way that mono and stereo modes handles mixing/routing, and I think that’s what was throwing me.
But in lieu of another work-around, it looks like running the two mono plugins per stereo stack is going to be the only solution to be able to pan the mics around. Maybe this dual-panning functionality could make it into future versions of the plugins?
Thanks for the quick response!
TD
EDIT: Or possibly even another idea would be a “mix” slider between the two mics/speakers in stereo mode, or some sort of “auto-gain” feature that keeps the output level constant when trying to blend different mic levels. My issue as it stands atm when using an instance of the plugins in stereo is that it’s a bit tough to A/B IRs/mic positions since both channels are summed, so if you mute one mic to hear the other one all the sound falls out, so you have to manually ride the levels up and down, and readjust the main output level when trying to A/B which is probably not much harder than using two instances of the plugins in mono.
The particular song I am working on right now has loads of layered/double-tracked guitars played at different registers, so getting the frequencies/phase issues right is a bit of a balancing act. So far in my demo though, I have to say the tones are SO good. Best I’ve heard from sims frankly, and it seriously makes me excited that I can potentially get these kinds of sounds without having to re-amp a lot of stuff. Good job helping to move the state of the industry forward, keep up the good work!
All of us guitar guys/engineers/producers will tip our collective hats to you
That’s correct for the most part. The stereo mode will essentially duplicate the instance to be able to process two different signals at the same time. Once it’s engaged, the panning will be controlled by the source tracks. Allowing the plugin to override the original panning configuration of the source signals (assuming it’s even possible) would defeat the intended purpose of the feature.
As you point out, you can’t assign different cabs for each channel while in stereo mode, but there’s no reason to include that feature when the mono mode already works better for that purpose. For example, most DAWs (if not all of them) will assign one instance per thread. If you engage the stereo mode, the DAW will duplicate the CPU usage on just one thread. Instead, if you’re using two separate mono instances to process two different signals, the DAW will assign them to two different threads, resulting in better overall performance. Otherwise, if you want to do something similar with mono sources (stereo output on single guitars) you can already do it with a mono instance since the output doesn’t depend on the mode switch.
Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to stop by and let us know your ideas, we really appreciate your feedback. If this topic/suggestion becomes something common in the future we may have to reconsider it. Also, drop one of your mixes once you’re done on this thread to check it out.
Right on! I think the dual-pan/auto-gain would be a useful feature, bc obviously it would mean you wouldn’t have to keep copying settings from one instance to the other every time you made changes. Granted, it’s possible that for the majority of use cases most people aren’t using such intricate routing… but who knows?
Like I said I’m demoing every single one of your plugins rn but once I pull the trigger and get to work I’ll try to drop something that’s fairly Lit in that thread for y’all to munch on
Hiya mate, I’m wondering how to use two separate mono instances of the plugin to create a stereo guitar output? Is that possible? Likely a really stupid question but I’m completely new to guitar plugins.
Hey @MiloTheChooch. If you’re using a single guitar input signal, you don’t need to use two separate instances since the output will depend on the channel mode of the track.
For example, in Studio One, you can create a stereo track, assign just one input and then insert the plugin on it. You can also create a mono track for the DI signal, a stereo bus track with the plugin, and then set the output of the mono track to the bus track. In both cases, the mode switch has to be in Mono.
With the standalone format, you don’t need to worry about this since the output will be always stereo.
