I have a few mono tracks that need stereo imaging.
 
Would it be more efficient make a copy of the track and use two tracks for Stereo (two buss)?
Or
Create a Aux track for say left or right track, then to two buss?
Or
Bounce mono to stereo and  split at the Aux or buss stage?
 
From a  resource point of view?
 
Other ideas?
 
Thanks!

11Dreams
I have a few mono tracks that need stereo imaging.
 

what kind of imaging that the pan knob could not do?

You can use the Freeze Track feature and get the best of both worlds.  Take a mono track w/ Stereo Interleave enabled and then add your stereo imager plug-in.  When you have it sounding how you want it, hit Freeze and SONAR renders it down to the stereo waveform and writes this out to disk just as if you had down all that manually.  This will save plug-in resources with any plug-in -- not just the stereo imaging example.  You will find with some plug-ins that they are very resource intensive and so Freeze makes sense and you might find with others that they are pretty light weight and not worth the hassle of freezing/unfreezing.  
 

I like what Dave76 said; however, you also have the option to bounce instead of freeze.  I find myself bouncing to a new track after I have my plugins adjusted as I want them instead of freezing, because I have experience with freezing is not consistent; in other words, after a couple of days or weeks of recording, the sound change from how I first set everything when freezing.  Freezing does not always preserve the original way to how you freeze it, but bouncing works more consistent than freezing.

Any advice would be irrelevant without knowing what kind of stereo processing you intend to do. Do you have a plugin that doesn't work properly with a mono input? Do you need to process left and right channels independently? Or do you just want to add a basic stereo effect such as chorus or ping-pong delay to your mono track?

bitflipper
Any advice would be irrelevant without knowing what kind of stereo processing you intend to do. Do you have a plugin that doesn't work properly with a mono input? Do you need to process left and right channels independently? Or do you just want to add a basic stereo effect such as chorus or ping-pong delay to your mono track?

I'm not asking if I need to split the track. I'm asking which way would save the most resources.
I guess I was not clear on that. sorry... I need two tracks to buss. oh, yea! I could just use two sends/pre... maybe that will work the best way to save resources? :) I don't know... lol

a mono track, duplicated and panned left, right.....
nope.
 
to stereo image mono tracks,
you'll have to use a send from each mono track and send it to a stereo effect,
that takes each mono tracks and does something to it that creates a stereo effect (say, a doubler, or stereo delay)
 
be careful of phase issues.
 
 

batsbrew
a mono track, duplicated and panned left, right.....
nope.
 
to stereo image mono tracks,
you'll have to use a send from each mono track and send it to a stereo effect,
that takes each mono tracks and does something to it that creates a stereo effect (say, a doubler, or stereo delay)
 
be careful of phase issues.
 
 

Sounds like the plan for tomorrow... thank you!