This may seem like a very basic question, but it's something that I'm just now exploring, so I'd really appreciate some help.
I'm reading more and more about how it's a very good idea when mixing to start by doing your EQing while listening to your tracks in mono. I haven't tried it yet (I'm at work at the moment and not at my DAW PC), but I've heard there is an 'interleave' button on the master bus that I can press to switch all tracks routed to it to mono. Is this correct? Will simply doing this make all tracks play back to me in mono? If so, how is this different from just having all of the separate audio tracks' panning all the way to the right or left position?
Lastly, are the plugins that are specifically made to make your tracks mono somehow different from the interleave button in Sonar? If so, how are they different?