As a guitar play, I would do any to have stereo output coming out of my guitars.  But since the guitar is not a stereo instrument, at best I can only hope to fate it, should I choose to go that route. 

To my surprise, I played with countless keyboard players using a mono output and wonder what’s wrong with them.

When I finally got around setting up my home studio, I made sure that my two Yamaha Motif7, Motif8 keyboards were wired with stereo ouputs into a Mackie PROFX8 mixer and a pair of Mackie SRM 550 monitors.  The sound is just incredible.

GOD, I would kill to get that natural stereo image out of my guitars.

Frankly, there’s no point of owning any Motif without stereo ouputs whether it’s in the studio or stage.

JazzGtr - 02 October 2014 10:56 AM

As a guitar play, I will do any to have stereo output coming out of my guitars.  But since the guitar is not a stereo instrument, at best I can only hope to fate it, should I choose to go that route. 

To my surprise, I played with countless keyboard players using a mono output and wonder what’s wrong with them.

When I finally got around setting up my home studio, I made sure that my two Yamaha Motif7, Motif8 keyboards were wired with stereo ouputs into a Mackie PROFX8 mixer and a pair of Mackie SRM 550 monitors.  The sound is just incredible.

GOD, I would kill to get that natural stereo image out of my guitars.

Frankly, there’s no point of owning any Motif with stereo ouputs whether it’s in the studio or stage.

Huh? Your post is confusing. First you say you love the sound of the Motifs in stereo, then you finish with “there’s no point of owning any Motif with stereo outputs”. What’s your point, then?

Yes, “almost” no guitar is stereo - but there are a few with stereo outputs - Rickenbacker guitars and basses come to mind. That said, a lot of guitar EFFECTS are stereo - chorus,
delays, rotary speaker emulations, etc. And certainly, stereo amp/cab setups have been around for decades.

Please explain what you meant..

DavePolich - 02 October 2014 11:23 AM

JazzGtr - 02 October 2014 10:56 AM

Huh? Your post is confusing. First you say you love the sound of the Motifs in stereo, then you finish with “there’s no point of owning any Motif with stereo outputs”. What’s your point, then?

Yes, “almost” no guitar is stereo - but there are a few with stereo outputs - Rickenbacker guitars and basses come to mind. That said, a lot of guitar EFFECTS are stereo - chorus,
delays, rotary speaker emulations, etc. And certainly, stereo amp/cab setups have been around for decades.

Please explain what you meant..

My bad, typing error.  I meant “without stereo”.

JazzGtr - 02 October 2014 10:56 AM

Frankly, there’s no point of owning any Motif without stereo ouputs whether it’s in the studio or stage.

On stage, I usually play mono.

Stereo can be problematic at a live gig. The main PA speakers are, say, 20 feet apart. Anyone outside the “sweet spot” between them hears primarily one speaker or the other. (Often a good portion of the audience is actually to the left of the left speaker or to the right of the right speaker!) In these cases, people will generally hear a better sound if they are hearing mono from their nearby speaker, rather than hearing essentially one half of the stereo signal (for example, a bass-string heavy or treble-string heavy piano depending on where they are sitting). With mono, everyone in the venue hears the same sound and gets the same mix.

In theory, I could have stereo for my own personal monitor system while sending mono to FOH. But that puts me in the situation where what I’m hearing does not match what the audience is hearing, which can also be a problem since there are some sounds that may work well in stereo but not work so well when collapsed to mono. Also, stage space being what it is, there is the issue of needing space for placing two speakers rather than one, and having to pay attention to how they are placed to maintain the stereo where desired (as opposed to tossing one speaker up anyplace you can fit it), plus more gear to carry in and out and more time to wire/unwire. All for something that can often benefit relatively few people. (Just me if the speakers are faced toward me, or just people close to the stage and in the sweet spot if the speakers are behind me and facing out.)

Obviously, there are exceptions. Depending on the kind of ensemble you’re playing with (a semi-unplugged folk/jazz duo/trio is different from a 10-piece big band), the size/layout of the stage, the size of the venue, the position of the audience relative to the speakers, etc., you may very well be able to get great results from stereo. But it takes some consideration. Mono always works. And for most of my gigs, I have no idea what the stage/venue is like before I get there, and don’t have lots of planning time once I get there!

anotherscott - 02 October 2014 12:16 PM

On stage, I usually play mono.

Stereo can be problematic at a live gig.[...]

Obviously, there are exceptions. Depending on the kind of ensemble you’re playing with (a semi-unplugged folk/jazz duo/trio is different from a 10-piece big band), the size/layout of the stage, the size of the venue, the position of the audience relative to the speakers, etc., you may very well be able to get great results from stereo. But it takes some consideration. Mono always works. And for most of my gigs, I have no idea what the stage/venue is like before I get there, and don’t have lots of planning time once I get there!

I’ll agree that “Mono always works” when playing out, if you’ll agree that using it requires “planning time” before you “get there”.  :-)

Many Voices suffer badly when mixed to mono. If time is spent carefully choosing sounds and/or editing them as necessary to avoid excessive phase cancellation, etc., then mono works. Unfortunately, too many users think that by connecting to only the L/MONO output they’ve bypassed the issue.

Stereo monitors works better for the keyboard player regardless if the audience can hear it or not.

Stereo for recording is no brainer.

After extensive experimentation, stereo live is my preference far and away...both for monitoring and FOH (we’re talking about stereo-output keyboards here, obviously).

I think modern wide-dispersion PA speakers have changed things a lot in favor of live-sound stereo.  The old “voice of the theater” FOH cabinets were so directional in typical use that the problems with a good stereo experience for the bulk of an audience was more pronounced.

5pinDIN - 02 October 2014 12:49 PM

I’ll agree that “Mono always works” when playing out, if you’ll agree that using it requires “planning time” before you “get there”.  :-)

Many Voices suffer badly when mixed to mono. If time is spent carefully choosing sounds and/or editing them as necessary to avoid excessive phase cancellation, etc., then mono works.

I agree, but I think you need to do that planning even if you are setting up stereo! Because regardless of whether or not you play stereo through your own system, odds are very good that, some day, you are going to play somewhere where you’re going to go into a mono FOH system. And possibly this is something you won’t even know until you get to the gig. So… be prepared!

BTW, this is another benefit to mono. If you ever play a gig where there is a house sound system and house sound person, even if their system is stereo, if you give them a stereo feed, you don’t know what they are going to do with it. You are counting on them to make sure it is set up properly to avoid things like the phase cancellations you mention. If you send them mono, they can’t screw it up. ;-)

A little more for clarity… Sure, in the right environment, I agree stereo sounds better. If you’ve got a brass section patch, it’s much better if the sax, trumpet, and trombone are slightly (not extremely!) separated in space. It’s just I have a kind of doctor’s approach… first do no harm. If you want to use stereo, and you want your performance to sound good throughout the house, you really have to put some thought into where the speakers are and where the people are… and in many venues, you are likely to find that there is no good solution, no setup where stereo will sound good to the entire audience, and depending on the venus and your sounds, very possibly there will be sections of the audience who will be hearing something worse than if you played mono. In the right venue, if you’ve got the time to properly set things up, and you’ve determined that it’s a good choice, sure, go stereo. But if you need to show up, get your stuff up on an unknown stage, and start playing, mono will just work, and you’ll know what every seat in the house is getting.

Also, many of the sounds we use all the time are mono sounds to begin with. Single orchestral instruments, classic keys like clavinets, EPs, moogs, mellotrons… all mono. Well okay, some popular EP sounds put them through stereo effects, but again you have to be careful with that. The Rhodes had a panning effect that made sense when its speakers were right next to each other, but an autopan between PA speakers that are 20 feet apart is kind of silly even if you’re in the sweet spot, and nonsensical if you’re way off to one side.

Amen brother

JazzGtr - 02 October 2014 10:56 AM

As a guitar play, I would do any to have stereo output coming out of my guitars.  But since the guitar is not a stereo instrument, at best I can only hope to fate it, should I choose to go that route. 

To my surprise, I played with countless keyboard players using a mono output and wonder what’s wrong with them.

When I finally got around setting up my home studio, I made sure that my two Yamaha Motif7, Motif8 keyboards were wired with stereo ouputs into a Mackie PROFX8 mixer and a pair of Mackie SRM 550 monitors.  The sound is just incredible.

GOD, I would kill to get that natural stereo image out of my guitars.

Frankly, there’s no point of owning any Motif without stereo ouputs whether it’s in the studio or stage.

.