Week 167: Behold! Dual Mono Becomes Stereo! This keeps coming up as a forum question, and I answered it in a post briefly...but feel it deserves “sticky status” and a more thorough explanation. The typical question goes like this:
“I’ve recorded two mono tracks, like drum overheads. I want to combine them into a stereo track. I don’t want to bounce. How do I do this?” The request comes often, but not always, from Pro Tools users who were raised with stereo tracks being treated as dual mono tracks.
Here’s the answer. Let’s say you have left overhead and right overhead mics, recorded in two separate mono tracks—one for overhead left (OL), one for overhead right (OR).
1. Select both tracks (i.e., ctrl+click), then choose
Clips > Convert to Stereo.2. Unfold the OL track’s Take Lanes. Click the + to add another Take Lane.
3. Drag the clip(s) from the OR track into the new Take Lane. You don’t need the OR track any more.
4. Hold Ctrl and change one Take Lane’s edit filter to Clip Pan. This will put the clip pan envelope in both lanes.
5. Pan one Take Lane full left, the other full right (I use the Move tool).
6. Fold up the Take Lanes.
7. Go to the Console view and check that the channel interleave is set to stereo.
There are actually several variations on this theme, but this one requires no bouncing. Also, because the original tracks still exist in the Take Lanes, you can always get back to the original tracks.