Getting reverb bass in mono without losing the 'juice'

[Dr.Techno]

Hi all,

Question about something that has been bothering me for a long time.
Most reverb plugins are obviously stereo. but when I try to get them in mono
with the Ableton utility for instance it loses a lot of it's juice. How can I get my
reverb bass in mono but still have the 'fat' effect. Any clues to how you guy's do this?
I usually send my kick channel to a return that i process to make my reverb bass.

Thanks in advance.

[Dubz]

Try bouncing the bass down duplicating and high pass one at 200 htz and low pass the other at 200. On the high pass version add reverb and saturate to taste.
Or just add a m/s eq and do the same.

[arkos]

Are you narrowing the width to 0% ? If so don't and just select either left or right channel.

[intrusav]

In Ableton, use Mid-side mode on EQ8.
Mono the lows (in mid) and keep the highs (in side mode).
Setting a utility to mono just cuts out any stereo info (signal that's not common to both l/r channels) so you lose a certain level. You could just a/b the diiference and bump the level up to match them.

Edit: I just reread Dubz post! ^^

[dubdub]

You could also try a plate reverb that's naturally mono, they don't lose oomph when you mono them, Valhalla plate has some algorithms like that.

[Evert]

Are you narrowing the width to 0% ? If so don't and just select either left or right channel.

Could you elaborate on this please? Why wouldn't you use the width of Utility to mono a channel?
I usually narrow to 0% instead of selecting L/R.

[disparate]

Are you narrowing the width to 0% ? If so don't and just select either left or right channel.

Could you elaborate on this please? Why wouldn't you use the width of Utility to mono a channel?
I usually narrow to 0% instead of selecting L/R.

AFAIK changing to 0% i.e. summing to mono can cause a lot of the frequencies contained in each side to cancel out, which wouldn't happen if you just select one or the other.

[arkos]

Are you narrowing the width to 0% ? If so don't and just select either left or right channel.

Could you elaborate on this please? Why wouldn't you use the width of Utility to mono a channel?
I usually narrow to 0% instead of selecting L/R.

AFAIK changing to 0% i.e. summing to mono can cause a lot of the frequencies contained in each side to cancel out, which wouldn't happen if you just select one or the other.

Exactly as disparate said, phase cancellation is the reason the verb sounds weak when you narrow the width to 0% using either just the left or right channel you avoid that and are truly getting a mono signal.

[Evert]

I see, thanks for the explanation. I've been doing it wrong this whole time, so it seems.

[Lost to the Void]

Ok, so ableton utility doesn't mono sum. It is true mid/side processing , so when you turn down to mono it discards the side signal, and when you turn up the stereo, it attenuates the mid signal.

So, when you are making your reverb mono with this plug, you are losing information in the process and the signal gets quieter.
This is why stuff like bx control is great, as the signal is level compensated as you discard information.

So the simple solution? Turn up the level of the reverb as you bring it down to mono.

[intrusav]

Actually it was Steve that pointed that out in a previous topic. Wouldn't have realised it otherwise. The fella knows.