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I downloaded an instrumental made by a professional producer who made one of the top trending songs in my country.

I checked the average db (integrated LUFS) for a small part of the intrumental. In stereo its 8db. In mono its 9db (and sounds dead)

Is it normal for there to be some phase cancellation like this in songs?

James
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  • Stereo gives a lot of possibilities for producers. The producer might've done some kind of Stereo Widener. Not sure if them cancelling out is normal, but working in stereo is normal (important these days actually) – RishiNandha Vanchi Jan 12 '21 at 10:03
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    There is always phase cancellation to some extent in any stereo recording. Your experiment, as described, doesn't prove anything as regards cancellation. It only proves the pan law to mono doesn't add up to exactly the same as in stereo, nothing else. – Tetsujin Jan 12 '21 at 10:38
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    What led you to conclude there is phase cancellation? Just the data you reported is not sufficient for me to conclude phase cancellation. – Todd Wilcox Jan 12 '21 at 13:22
  • How do I detect phase cancellation then? – James Jan 14 '21 at 00:36
  • Is the difference really 1.0 dB, or perhaps it's 8.4 vs 8.6 dB? What I would worry more about is that in mono it sounds bad – user1079505 Feb 23 '21 at 18:13

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Depends on the destination of the mix. For radio play, mono compatibility is paramount. If you know it'll be played on stereo speakers, you can ignore it. You can even create a binaural mix that will only sound right on headphones.

But maybe this mix IS mono compatible. Sure, when compared with stereo playback it will sound 'dead' in mono. If stereo added nothing, why would we use it? But apart from that, are instruments disappearing? Is the musical balance affected? Maybe it's as good in mono as it could be.

Laurence
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  • I think you'll be hard pressed to craft a mix where the musical balance isn't affected at all, but the common practice of having lead elements be more narrow also has the side effect that lead elements are relatively emphasized when it's collapsed to mono. This is pretty nice in my opinion, since it balances out the effect of mono mixes sounding a bit more crowded. – Edward Mar 25 '21 at 17:54
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If there is no phase difference between left and right channels then everything is in mono. Are you asking why stereo isn't mono?

Daniel Davis
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