What do you usually do with stereo samples? From what I understood recently it is a good thing to use mono samples, especially for kicks, snares etc. And it seems to me there isn’t a quick way to turn a sample from stereo to mono directly from Renoise, or am I wrong?
So do you usually open and edit it in an external program, or just don’t care, or what?
You are wrong indeed.
Click the Adjust button in the Sample Editor. Here you can convert you’re samples to mono, by either mixing the channels or only keeping one of them…
http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Sample_Editor#Create_.2F_Adjust_Sample_Properties
great. is this a new feature or I always have missed something? 
Or use a Stereo Expander (at start of DSP chain), Expand fader fully left is Mono, then choose between L-only, R-only or L+R.
But all Renoise processing is always in Stereo. It does not have mono tracks!
incidentally, while we are on the subject, could someone explain to me why people would advise using mono samples for kicks and snares, and why that works better than stereo? i have to read up on this subject a bit.
generally when i use a sample, i want to decide where to place it. if a sample is in stereo, it’s already placed. (in my opinion, this holds for any sample, not just kicks etc.)
Generally this.
Kick (at least the lower end) and bass people generally consider should be mixed in mono. Mainly due to the days of mastering for vinyl, where out of phase bass will cause your stylus to jump. Also arguments for it when you start thinking about wave cancellation and distance apart speakers generally are compared to wavelength. At higher frequencies moving your body a few feet will cause a large difference, with bass it will be out of phase for a much larger area, thus you will be expending a huge amount of energy for almost no affect.
@f+d+kazakore: thanks. that sounded pretty logical. i did get afraid from that bit about wave cancellation in rooms and whatnot… trying not to go there (yet).
absolutely nothing wrong with using stereo samples,it is ENTIRELY up to your own taste and what u hope to achieve(even with subass).There seems to be a common phobia of using stereo samples and how they affect your mix,my advice is to ignore this.I think it stems largely from sound engineers applying general rules of thumb to mixing.Ignore it.It is more destructive advice than constructive.Trust your ears entirely and never apply blanket techniques.Of course when your starting out and are not experienced enough to decide for yourself this rule comes in handy but once you have the nack,disregard it completely,as i said its completely down to what you hope to achieve.The very idea that a subass should always be in mono is absurd.Another thing that i was thought was to never apply reverb to a sub,bullshit.
Yes and no. I’ve got vinyl which are unplayable as people thought they’d try and push this rule too far (or didn’t send it to a mastering engineer who knew what they were doing) and it’s far from absurd!
Same with energy expended and wave cancellation/addition.
It doesn’t have to be MONO but it does have to be MONO TRANSLATABLE. Meaning if you do a L+R Mono sum at these frequencies you still end up with a strong signal, so there is not too much wave cancellation. At higher frequencies this matters much much less. (At 50Hz you change you distance by 3.4M and you will go from reinforcement to cancellation, at 2kHz you are talking 8.6CM. So in any free space high frequencies are going to have lots of peaks and troths, whereas low frequencies are going to be predominantly reinforcing and cancelling. Bear in mind you are not generally moving directly towards one speaker and away from another. This of course matters even more when you are talking to translating to large systems at clubs, festivals and stadiums.)
Sure,i know all this,but again it all depends on what you wanna hear,or what effect you want,sub in mono is generally just a rule of thumb thought to sound engineers while mixing.It caters very little for the creative process
@toybox: to me, the above comment says it all. i abhor rules as much as you do, and i have never messed with vinyl so all that is no issue for me. this comment is to me the most basic thing i needed to know, the thing before the rules, so to speak.
nevertheless, spam around with all your Khz talk and whatnot, i always enjoy reading that stuff even though i only understand half of it. 
theres really no need to get technical about it at all,just take the mono rule with a pinch of salt.Generally speaking you can do without it.Although the comment about placing a stereo sample confuses me,you cant place a stereo sample???i am sure that is wrong.Surely there is more freedom in placement with stereo than mono?i mean it doesnt make sense/
A stereo sample already has a position in the stereo field, a mono one does not.
Mono compatibility for bass should really be something for the Mastering Engineer to worry about. Thing is with so many bedroom producers, so many people playing their own or friend’s material, much coming without having been properly mastered things have been watered down to “easy rules.” As I said it’s not so much a mono signal that is needed as something that is quite mono compatible. Otherwise you may find it sounds great on headphones, even near field monitors, but it really WILL NOT translate well to a large system!
ah, i better understand what you said earlier now. it’s relevant to me as well, as i always compose on headphones. my wife will be in Rome for a week in May, and i’ve taken some days off work then, so i will be able to build an ad hoc laptop > HDMI > dolby surround DVD player -setup, enabling me to at least listen to some stuff in a room.
To convert a mono sample to stereo sample you can use the M/S theory. A stereosample will have two components: M=mid and S=side. Then you convert a stereosample to mono you get the M. The S is the stereo content in the sample. S = (S minus M)
In your case you got the M so you need the S.
You can make a fake S component by puting the mono sample left and right in a channel, and then invert the phase of the left or the right channel. You now have the S. For a check you can convert this sample to mono, and the right and left channel will cancel each other out, so you get a total silent sample.
Put the two versions of the sample (the S and M) in two tracks and add a 10-30 millisekund delay on the S. Now you have a stereo sample. This sample is also perfectly mono compatible because then it’s convertet to mono the S will dissapear, and you just got the M left.
The louder in volume of the S sample, the wider the stereo image, but it’s smart to check the mono compabillity with a goniometer.
To get a wider stereo image these two vst pluggins are good and free:
MSED, m/s stereo widdening:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/
Gonino3, to watch the mono compatibility:
http://www.uk-music.de/index.php?page=downloads