Almost every book, article or what-have-you that I've read says tracks should be mono.
However, when I record tracks (MIDI or audio) they're always stereo by default in Sonar.
 
So. Should I convert them all to mono?
Does it matter?
 
For such things as EZDrummer, I'd lose the stereo placement of drums, granted, so I'd feel inclined to leave those tracks in stereo. But what about the rest?
 
With the Mackie board I use (402-VLZ3) it's possible to use two mikes and record in stereo with the results ending up in one track in Sonar. The one time I tried this, I separated the left and right channels into two tracks before going any further. Again, they could end up as stereo (just copying the single channel to both sides) or they could be left as mono.
 

Look at this recent thread:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Interleave-Mono-or-Stereo-educate-me-m2956296.aspx
 
Hope that helps, 
 
Bob Bone
 

Thanks, Bob. I'll take a look.

rontarrantAlmost every book, article or what-have-you that I've read says tracks should be mono.

 
I understand why it makes sense to use a mono source in mono, but why switch a stereo source to Mono?
 
You can use an effect like Channel Tools to change the stereo width of a stereo track if you feel the width is wider than you want. I guess I just don't understand why you want to take stereo to mono...
 
Thanks.

Tracks you record with a single microphone will by their very nature be mono.
 
Dual mic'ing techniques, say for acoustic guitars can be recorded as a single stereo track, but you might benefit from recording them as 2 mono tracks, though you have to be careful when mixing. I like to route these to their own bus where you can achieve better dynamic control by putting gates/compressors on the bus, but EQ them separately on the tracks.
 
Most soft synths have a stereo output so it makes sense to capture them in stereo, then adjust the width/panning with Channel Tools
 
Drum synths present a somewhat different situation - I set mine up so the different kit pieces send their output to individual mono tracks, then pan them appropriately, but these are augmented by the dedicated outputs for Overhead & Room mic which again, by their very nature are presented as stereo.
 
So, in my opinion, it all depends on the source and how you want things  to appear in the stereo field
 

Thanks Bristol Jonesey, gswitz and Robert E. Bone for replying.
 
So, the upshot of all these replies seems to be: it doesn't matter. If it's stereo, leave it as stereo unless you've got a really good reason to convert it to mono, such as using mono FX on the track.
 
Or am I misreading between the lines here?

Yes, Rontarrant, I pretty much never take a stereo output and record it in mono. Some times when I'm recording and I'm limited on inputs and a synth/keyboard has a stereo feed, I'll just give 1 track to it, but that's because I'm limited on inputs. The recordings in that case are just the left channel or just the right. It is not usually the stereo pair converted to mono. If I could record both the left and right channels I would. Now, whether I put them together on a stereo track or keep the left and right channels on two mono tracks is a bit of a different question. I would probably use them as 2 mono tracks rather than 1 stereo unless I was wanting to economize on FX by sending both through the same FX (which I could also do with a bus).
 
But I would never take a stereo recording and bounce it to mono to aid with my mixdown. That wouldn't be something I would consider.

Hmmm... Okay. I think I'm going to start over from the beginning; I think I asked the question wrong to begin with.
 
First, my assumptions and a bit of preamble:
 
Whenever I use the context menu in the Track view to add a new track in Sonar, whether MIDI or audio, Sonar always adds a stereo track.
But shouldn't these tracks be mono by default?
 
In books such as "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio" Mike Senior and others talk as if the default track type created by a DAW is mono. At least, that's the impression I got.
 
Well, most of the time when I record (for instance) one of my acoustic guitars, it's only being recorded with one mike through a single channel on my Mackie board, but by the time it gets to Sonar, it's stereo because the default track type is stereo.
 
And now the big question:
If these tracks are stereo by default for no (IMO) apparent reason, should I be converting them to mono? (Please note I'm not talking about recording stereo instruments, I'm talking about the same situation I cited at the beginning of this message, recording a single acoustic instrument with a single mike on a single channel, but it ends up being stereo because of Sonar's default track type.)
 
Please forgive me if I seem to be beating a dead horse here, but sometimes I simply don't express myself well and this seems to be one of those times, so I'm trying very hard to make sure I'm saying exactly what I mean.

rontarrant
So, the upshot of all these replies seems to be: it doesn't matter. If it's stereo, leave it as stereo unless you've got a really good reason to convert it to mono, such as using mono FX on the track.

I'd say it's just the opposite: use a stereo track only if you have a good reason to do so.
 
It's unfortunate that SONAR defaults to stereo, but that's just a minor inconvenience. You just have to get into the habit of verifying that the interleave is correct for the source, that you know your plugins well and take care to choose mono versions for mono tracks and stereo for stereo.
 

Although sometimes....
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Possible-MonoStereo-bug-for-test-Direct-X-only-m2956642.aspx