Here's your "idea" that I described as the painful dilemma.
 
"If you do use two mono tracks it is a bit of a pain because if you insert a plugin on them you will have to insert two plugins. One for each track. Then you will have to copy the setting from one plug to the adjacent one too. Same goes for dynamics processing or anything really."
 
I simply replied "Bus"...
 
... and now we are at a point where somebody named "you" is being described as being of poor mind.
 
It's kinda simple. I don't think it's a bit of a pain at all.
 
I don't see any need to justify why I feel that way.
 
You are certainly at liberty to justify why you feel the way you do... and you know that. :-) The fact is you already had proposed your idea and now you are espousing upon facets that support your premise.
 
I think my idea is valid too. My idea only needed one word; "bus". So, I was going to leave it at that, but then you repeated and elaborated upon your idea and I responded to the parts I agreed with and the parts I disagreed with.
 
I hope you don't mind too much. I simply have some ideas that you have reacted to as if they are contrary to yours. 
 
 
 
 
The sound comes out at the end and that's where we all can meet up and listen to the results.
 
best regards,
mike
 
 
 
 
 

Beathaven
I recently had a discussion with a few friends (who have varying degrees of understanding of mixing and mastering - amateurs all) re. mixing and mastering. One of my friends said that he had read somewhere that to achieve the best mix prior to mastering was to record all tracks - whether instruments or soft synths - in MONO mode and then using pans to seat the tracks in the image - whatever that means. Is recording tracks in MONO really the best way to go when mixing?

An answer to this question, if this is simply a question about signal routing, is: I do not think it actually matters.
 
 
 
 
The question though, leaves a lot of room for interpretation and further consideration. 
 
Here's a question. What musical instruments are "stereo"?
 
Think about that.
 
Synths have been mentioned and indeed some synths are specifically designed to make good use of stereo while others are decidedly mono.
 
Traditional instruments can be harder to define.
 
For example; a pipe organ is often times experienced in "stereo" (it's also an early synth technology) because many pipe organs have separate arrays of pipes placed left, right, and maybe even center. (other smaller ones do not).
 
What about an acoustic guitar? Is the guitar mono? It seems to be... but we usually experience it in a room or environment that includes all sorts of spatial information that is more effectively described with stereo. What happens when you play the guitar in the middle of a big field? It starts sounding more and more "mono".
 
The same considerations apply to just about any instrument... and it is unlikely that people will always agree on the answer.
 
How about an accordion? Sound comes out both sides. How close do you have to stick your head to it for it to seem like stereo?
 
How about a piano? If you are listening to a piano in a room then the spatial info of the room may be more effectively described by stereo. I used to assume that a piano is so large that it is inherently stereo but, if you ever take the time to stick your head in a piano that is being played you will notice that the piano, as the sound source, over whelms the effect of the room. The experience feels more and more mono as you approach. The sound emanates as a whole and the physical location of each string does not seem to have as specific location in the sound field as one might anticipate.
 
OK.
 
So, now let's consider a few scenarios.
 
Let's say you want to record a bunch of instruments and then use stereo mixing to place all the instruments within an image of a sound stage.
 
Is it more effective to record each instrument in stereo or mono?
 
Hard to say.
 
 
1) You can record an instrument front and center in mono and easily pan it left or right later.
 
2) You can record an instrument front and center in stereo and pan it left or right later.
 
3) You can record an instrument in stereo and orient the placement of the instrument and the stereo array to place the instrument within a stereo image of the room so that you will not need to pan anything in post. The stereo array is recording the room. You don't move the room... you move the instruments in it. 
 
With choice 1 you get a lot of control in post. You can place the instrument anywhere and then you can add a sense of enviromental ambiance after the fact using reverb etc.
 
With choice 2 you can start panning as well but you may notice that the image of the room is also panning. What happens when you start mixing different images of the room into the master mix? Placing the instrument to the left or right seems simple, but placing the walls in all kinds of different places may undermine any spatial cohesion you are striving for. The more instruments you mix together like this the more you will notice the collapse of clarity. So, this approach works better with fewer instruments in the mix.
 
With choice 3, if you had a solid pre production plan... you may end up with exactly what you hoped for, but eventually, if you use a lot of tracks like this, the room ambiance will be over whelming even though it remains remarkably cohesive. It can work great for one or two feature instruments.
 
 
 
What ever way you choose you'll probably work it out so it's ok in the end. In my experience most people mix and match and just do what they think is working best for any particular goal.
 
 
 
 
Having said all that. One may also record in stereo with a near mic technique that minimizes the contribution of the room. I do this frequently because, for what ever reason, things seem to sparkle when you close mic in stereo. Instruments that you may choose to regard as inherently mono, are still experienced by us with 2 ears. Somehow, if you close mic an instrument in stereo it seems to sound more familiar and I find that it is easier to recognize the best part of the sound I was hoping to capture. You may not hear much room and the mics may be so close that there is no discernible left or right differentiation but, IMO, it always sounds more sparkly and musical.
 
If you close mic in stereo like this you may pan in post more freely without as great a concern for the room content interacting amongst your tracks and you will be able to effectively use reverbs etc. to create or manipulate an image of a sound scape more effectively in post. It's a lot like choice number 1 and it has a magical sparkle too.
 
 
 
Wow. That's a lot of different considerations and just a small insight into the various ways you can approach your work.
 
I found it hard to infer what your specific question was so I have tried to hint at some of the various responses that may have applied.
 
I hope some of it is useful and I expect that most of it had nothing to do with your question. I hope that the stuff that doesn't seem to apply jump starts an interest in considering when and where stereo recording will be useful in your projects.
 
all the best,
mike

We have mis understood each other. This is a great example of why the internet can be such a poor communicator when emotions are involved and why people read something completely differently to how it was intended. Same can be said for emails I guess too. Real friendships can only come out of personal interaction, anything else is imaginary. There is too much imaginary personal stuff going on today and it is causing problems that did not exist when only solid personal relationships are involved.
 
Posting on forums is better for ideas than anything else because those ideas can usually be clearly explained. Especially when one is good at explaining them. When it comes to the personal stuff it can get murky and that is when people make mistakes and misinterpret. We can all be guilty of it that is for sure. That is why I prefer ideas to anything else. They are easier to convey and understand. When people become obsessed with how something was said or the emotions behind it, that is what I mean of poor mind. When you are wasting time talking about an individual (in a negative way) you are also of poor mind. The ideas to me are exciting, the other stuff is just plain boring.
 
For the benefit of the OP, here are the ideas so far to sum up:
 
Never reduce a stereo signal to mono before recording. You can always do that later.
Dual mono tracks or a stereo track for recording, stereo seems to be the way more so these days.
Ease of working with stereo tracks as opposed to multiple mono tracks.
Buses are one way to help with the issues of multiple mono tracks.
Buses don't need to necessarily be used if one stereo track can do the job.
Channel tools can perform very similar functions to a stereo track as to what can be done with dual mono tracks. (panning and level, phase etc)
 
See, more fun and more useful too.
 
I find it much more interesting when people stick to the ideas as Mike has done in the previous post. Well done Mike! Interesting reading. But the stuff in posts #9 and #11, boring!
 
I have found from experience that sometimes having a lot of close miced instruments in stereo can pose more problems than they are worth and mixing a lot of sources recorded that way can in fact be hard. Often it is necessary to either convert some or many of them to mono or narrow the image somewhat. But I do agree with Mike in that stereo recording even mono point source instruments can still sound better. But if you have a good idea as to how complex or dense a mix might end up and what you might be hearing in your head for the finished sound then you can also save yourself some trouble and tracks. Don't forget mono came first and they did very well with just that and for as long as they did too.
 
Some engineers swear by and mix in mono. But for me I am not as convinced. I love how stereo sounds and prefer it by far. But there are some great things we can take from mono recordings though. Like very well balanced mixes and also the extra work often required to separate instruments.
 

it is easier to automate a BASS BUS for mixing, than to automate a individual track that MAY have a limiter on it (mine always does), the levels change into the limiter depending on how you route the track into the master bus

Good point batsbrew. I also do this for vocal tracks too. Even if I have one vocal track I route it to a bus then out to stereo. Vocal compression is best NOT inserted on the vocal track itself. It is working hard the whole time or working the same way regardless of where the fader is. When the vocal compression is applied on the vocal bus instead, any automation on the vocal track pushes nicely into the vocal compressor on the bus. ie you are actually automation before the vocal compressor and that is nicer way to do it. It always sounds nicer to my ears this way. You end up with a nice even vocal sound that never sounds pushed compression wise.

Clip Gain Envelope

Yes Clip Gain Envelope is an option and I did not mention it. But I wonder how many people like bringing up the clip gain envelopes especially when there are many clips on the track. It is not a great place to do it IMO. But I like the way Pro Tools and Studio One handle clip gain. They do it visually. You can just cut a clip and tweak the clip gains visually by eye. It works, and it is way faster than clip gain envelopes.
 
Bear in mind that many of the techniques I suggest are best under pressure and working fast. Something that many people do not do around here. Vocal compression still sounds better to me after any automation and it is quicker because you are only working with one automation curve, it is easy to see and faster as well. To be honest I have a different approach to vocal compression. I start by using the method above (vocal compressor on a bus) then I send it out to fader on my digital mixer and ride it manually most of the time. Sounds even better that way.
 
They say a mix will just take on some form of human element if you are manually riding something during the mixdown. I tend to agree. It is an old fashioned concept but a good one IMO.

A very stimulating exchange, a lot to ponder and will definitely experiment on your themes - thanks to all esp. Jeff Evans and Mike_mccue - very much appreciated!!

I thought Mike's post #12 was fantastic and just about sums up the way I feel about it very much so.
 
With synths though as I am a bit of a synth expert and also I have come from the early days into now as well I can offer some advice about mono/stereo options.
 
Some (hardware) synths had only one output and it was mono of course. So mono is a good option there. Interesting I did not worry about it back then pre 80's. Like a massive polyphonic Oberheim beast having only one output! I used to do a lot of stereo processing after the fact. I developed my widening skills bigtime!
 
Then came the synths that have a stereo output but as Mike says were essentially in mono only until you switched on either the chorus (Roland Juno 106) or Ensemble switch (Roland JP4) Now these are worth recording in stereo if you want to capture the sound of those effects but mono will work with later processing too.
 
Then we have things like the Roland JD800 which is also essentially mono too except for all the effects processing that takes place at the end of the signal chain. Now this baby sounds very nice in stereo and is definitely worth capturing that way for sure. (BTW the Roland JD990 is a true stereo instrument)
 
Then you have things like (new) Kurzweil and many of the actual raw samples are in stereo. (beautiful stereo micing now being used) Stereo effects processing and just stereo all the way to the bank! So I would not mono any of that instrument under any circumstances. Organ patches just sound killer in stereo too with all the Leslie stuff going on.
 
VST's are interesting too and you have to evaluate them on a one by one basis. Some sound great in stereo eg Absynth/Prism/Alchemy others just tend to use their effects that are built in. I like to bypass effects in various forms here and there and listen to what happens as a result. Many VST's can have ordinary effects processing and can sound way better by applying all that later too with much nicer effects we have available to us on tap now within our DAW's. You can save some CPU horsepower too in some VST's by switching their effects off. (not in others though, they still use the same CPU resources even if you kill the effects, not nice)
 
Watchout too as to how some (hardware, eg Korg Wavestation) and VST's collapse into mono. Sometimes they do not fair very well under those circumstances. It means they are doing some silly phase angle stuff in the effects in order to achieve the width. When this happens record them onto two mono tracks (or a stereo track and use Channel Tools) to flip the polarity of one of the channels before summing. Sometimes when you do this you will end up with a much nicer sounding mono track.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I don't know a lot about this but I have found in my experience that if I have too many stereo synth sounds then my mix gets cluttered and unfocused pretty quickly. So I try to limit my stereo synths to the one sound (usually a pad) that has the best stereo effect, and add the others as mono instruments. For example, right now I'm playing with a resochord instrument in Reaktor that takes a sound source (in this case drums) and uses it to trigger 6 "strings" that resonate according to an input of MIDI notes. You can pan each string anywhere you like and it really is the most wonderful sounding effect. So that's my stereo synth, and the others I'm keeping in mono. If I introduce other stereo synth sounds, it kind of detracts from the effect of the resochord.