Question: The use of Stereo Tracks within a Project.

Things that  produce stereo should be recorded in stereo. Things that produce mono should be recorded in mono.  

What Craig said. If the sound in stereo gives a sense of placement, you'll want to capture that in stereo.
 
Regards,
Dan

i only ever record in mono.
 
even my 'overheads' are mono and panned.
 
if i want stereo 'effect', i use a tailored reverb (panned) or stereo slapback.
 
on rare occassion, i'll do stereo overheads, or a stereo mic pair (usually for acoustic guitar, a leslie cab, that kind of thing)
 
 
it's wonderful to capture the sound of an excellent recording space..
and no better way to do that than with several techniques of stereo recording..
(AB, X-Y, ORTF, MS, blumlein)
X-Y is my favorite, just cuz it's the easiest.

This topic is also going in another thread.
 
I think with synths you can use a similar approach to acoustic instruments.  For example if the synth is doing a bass sound then yes it may not be a great idea to record a really wide stereo patch onto a stereo track.  You also need to investigate what effects are being used also on say a bass patch.  It may sound better with any modulation widening effects removed for example and just recorded onto a mono track. Some synths like the Juno 106 are basically mono except for one effect right at the end of the chain. But it is well worth recording the chorus effect. It is quite unique. As was the ensemble effect in the Roland JP4.
 
With synth lead sounds this may also apply but then again some leads may sound killer in stereo and it may be well worth recording them that way too.
 
With mid range sounds eg pads etc then stereo options may be best for sure.  Not all synths rely on modulation effects either in order to create a wide sound.  Some use the concept of stacking say 4 or 6 (or 32 in the case of the new Kurzweils) layers in order to create the stereo imaging.  Layers are panned here there and everywhere.  (in Emulators for example individual voices/layers can be panned or modulated in pan position to create the most sublime effects)
 
It would be seriously silly to ignore an effect like this and record in mono.  You would just be missing out on a beautiful wide sound for no good reason.
 
Don't forget you can always record in stereo and use a plugin like Channel Tools to narrow things down or bring back to mono later on if you feel the need. And if things don’t sum well here then you can try manipulating the phase of one side of the stereo while summing to mono. There will be a point where L and R will sum and still sound robust.
 
Like all things use your ears and judge. If a synth sound sounds magnificent in stereo, record it that way.
 
Also you can mix multiple stereo synth outputs to create huge wide effects.  What you don't do in these cases is pan every stereo synth output to hard L and hard R.  A good trick is to pan some that way but others from hard L to C and others from C to hard right. Others from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock for example.  There are many ways to combine multiple stereo synth sources.
 
 

Count me in the mono-by-default camp. Reserve stereo for things that truly need it, such as recording acoustical and vocal ensembles. I don't like to have more than 3 stereo tracks in a project because contrary to intuition, too many stereo tracks can make the full mix sound LESS stereophonic, not more.

codamedia

Anderton
There's very little I don't record as stereo tracks these days, but then again, I use Channel Tools to pan the right and left independently so I'm not limited to a Balance control.

I tend to lean the opposite way and record everything in mono. If it's a stereo part (ie: synth, piano with two mics, acoustic with two mics, overheads, etc...) they get recorded on two separated mono tracks labeled left/right. 100% control of panning without the need of channel tools. If I want to share EQ and/or FX I'll just buss them.
 
It's just a work flow I am more comfortable with but next year I may feel differently

I prefer stereo tracks for all non-true mono sources and use plugs like WAVES S1 to place them where I want them and get them as narrow as I need them. 
 
Using double-mono for stereo as described here IMHO causes too much overhead in terms of routing and over complicates the setup (becomes error-prone) i.e. I want to EQ the stereo guitar track and not a guitar buss (or aux track) that feeds another bus (with all guitars) that feeds master bus etc.

i've often use a 2.1 setup (not using LFE channel though) on a surround master buss to allow me a lot of flexibility for setting width on stereo tracks (which may start as mono but using stereo effects etc like modulation etc) as well as placement. allows fine tuning of the overall delay and reverb busses as well...

bitflipper
Count me in the mono-by-default camp. Reserve stereo for things that truly need it, such as recording acoustical and vocal ensembles. I don't like to have more than 3 stereo tracks in a project because contrary to intuition, too many stereo tracks can make the full mix sound LESS stereophonic, not more.

I agree totally...If the degree of separation in each stereo source is not the same the end result may be surprisingly narrow.

Rob[atSound-Rehab]

glennstanton
i've often use a 2.1 setup...

now this is an interesting idea. never touched the surround options. never thought of anything like that ... what are the drawbacks???

no drawbacks per se but does require more attention to detail since it's not going to simply be LRC given you can set width, depth, and angle (including outside of 90 deg or 120 deg etc) - so watching phase esp for outside placement is important - as always, mix initially with mono monitoring :-)