Will Stereo Sum Kill Your Signal?

"Should I run my pedals in mono or can I sum a stereo signal to have both as an option?"
This is a common question I get when talking through pedal order and keeping a pedalboard flexible for multiple venue types and setups.
As will all things in life, the answer isn't that simple. Sometimes the answer is 'Yes', sometimes it's 'maybe' and other times, 'no'.
Some effects sum better than others. Which ones? Check out the audio examples and decide for yourself!
Video Content:
00:00 - The premise
2:00 - Audio Example: Worst Case
2:13 - Next pedals
3:00 - Audio Example: Chorus
3:36 - Review and next pedal
4:37 - Audio Example: Flint Trem
5:01 - Recap & Reverb
5:29 - Audio Example: Flint Verb
5:47 - Recap & Delay
6:18 - Audio Example: Delay
6:42 - Recap and Summary
AUDIO EXAMPLE ANSWERS:
Dimension C:
A - Stereo Summed
B - Mono
Flint Tremolo:
A - Stereo Summed
B - Mono
Flint Reverb:
A - Mono
B - Stereo Summed
Digital Delay:
A - Stereo Summed
B - Mono
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[@ezymarquez5521]

Great video, crazy differences from true mono to stereo, thanks for making this! Definitely helps me re think my board

[@PinchTune]

Very cool Grant! This is eye-opening! Danny.

[@GoodwoodAudio]

thanks Danny!

[@Michael_Is_Avg]

One thing that kind of ruined the quizzes was having the underfacer light blinking telling which one was which 😀 still, loved the video.

[@GoodwoodAudio]

ha. agreed. and also the cabling gave it away it you were paying attention to that as well. My mistake!

[@Michael_Is_Avg]

@@GoodwoodAudio Thank you regardless for the video. It's definitely changed my plans as I'm acquiring and planning my next board build with basically running everything in mono except for delays and reverbs at the end, as they seem to sum well with the underfacer (and I don't do any ping pong delay stuff) and the underfacer is what I plan on using. To ensure I have a good buffer for my unbalanced outputs. Have a ua dream and a line isolator for the balanced out, which is pretty mind blowing once you get it dialed in how you want, but always prefer using real amps when possible. This will allow me to bypass the dream and run everything to either a stereo amp setup or sun and run it mono to the front of a guy. Have a stereo set up at home, but when goofing around live, you never know what you'll get.

[@GoodwoodAudio]

@@Michael_Is_Avg awesome! glad it helped!

[@joehart7573]

I play at home in stereo but with our band for gigs, mono. I have the Goodwood Output Tx and it does the trick. I did watch the Chairman’s of the Board episode about this and I suppose I should be creating presets on my 2 H9’s to be more accurate but so far it hasn’t impeded the sound too much. We have 2 guitar players in our band so no need for me to go stereo there…yet..lol

[@GoodwoodAudio]

nice!

[@darwinsaye]

I was hoping you were going to go more into the phase cancellation thing in this video. I have heard that some stereo pedals have one of the output signals phase-inverted (my ancient Ibanez digital chorus even labels the second output as “INV” instead of “B” or “Right”), but some stereo pedals do not invert the second output. But I’d like to know the “why”. Why do some pedals invert the phase of one channel, if it makes summing a problem? Conversely, why don’t all stereo pedals have an inverted second channel if there is some advantage or necessity to doing so? Also, questions like: If I run two stereo pedals that both invert the phase on the second channel, that should cancel the phase cancellation, so that they can be summed to mono without issue, no? So many questions.

[@GoodwoodAudio]

it's a huge topic. on a chorus pedal you might see this since phase is an essential part of chorus... but you wouldn't typically see this on a delay / verb. It would cause all sorts of issues when running stereo amps (that would now be out of phase with eachother.)

[@jimandcathep9915]

Great video- here’s a question not related to summing effects, but in summing the ACS1. Since the ACS1 can have 2 separate amps, one in each channel- how does running 2 separate amps into a box that can sum them into a mono signal sound? Curious as I’m very interested in the ACS1- and as someone who never runs stereo, I would love to be able to take advantage of being able to blend the 2 different amps into one mono signal- depending on how the would sound.

[@GoodwoodAudio]

struggling to come up with a good explanation... It would just sound like summing the combination of each amp and it's characteristics into one output... Or listening to those two amps in headphones but in mono rather than stereo. Does that make sense?

[@jimandcathep9915]

@@GoodwoodAudio Yes ! thanks for the response !

[@GoodwoodAudio]

@@jimandcathep9915 np!

[@kristenrocksfrags8584]

I’ve always ran everything in mono, but I would like to try going in stereo. Do you recommend I just go mono into my switcher, and then just connect the pedals into stereo if I decide to try it? It would be great to use mono for the most part, and then I could do stereo for bigger shows. I have a G3 and a Schmidt board on the way so I have a ways to go before I’m ready to set up everything. I was curious what would be the best way to go though. Thank you!

[@GoodwoodAudio]

I would do a lot of testing before you commit to one way or the other. But yes, sounds like that could be a good starting point. I'd probably put a few pedals on the ground, wire them up in stereo and see what you think. If you're mainly going to run mono and only stereo for bigger shows, then try and make it easy to patch / re-patch your stereo effects for the bigger shows!

[@ChrisTotster]

Great video! I’m planning to build a stereo pedalboard and trying to get my head around the sum to mono thing. I’ve got a CXM-1978 reverb which will be at the end of my chain. I’ve read that this reverb sums the incoming stereo signals to mono, adds reverb and then makes the signal stereo again. Would I be better off not running anything in stereo before the reverb if summing can mess with the signal?

[@GoodwoodAudio]

I don't think that's a fair representation of that pedal... you can maintain a stereo signal through it but I also might be misunderstanding you a bit ... either way, there is a benefit to running stereo before reverb / 1978

[@ChrisTotster]

@@GoodwoodAudio nice, thanks for taking the time to reply, much appreciated

[@DrJoshGuitar]

My simple solution: When running 1 amp, I just plug my stereo outputs from my pedal board into the 2 inputs on my amp. (luckily my amp has 2 inputs)

[@richpeltrick1492]

You can hear the difference but it would have been better to tell the actual dramatic difference if the audio would have been recorded in stereo. If it was indeed recorded in stereo it was mostly centered in the field.

[@GoodwoodAudio]

fair. good feedback.

[@lucasheidenreich7861]

Does this include if the summing is happening in the pedal? i.e. using the Flint in mono out of the left out per the manual.

[@AndrewMooreLearningLicks]

Great question

[@GoodwoodAudio]

yup! Let's say you had a chorus pedal in stereo running into the flint... if you run one output on Flint, the chorus will still be diminished.

[@DJLaFontsee]

What's the difference between summing with the interfacer and just running mono out of the last pedal in your chain?

[@GoodwoodAudio]

Depending on the pedal, it can behave very similarly. Some pedals don't allow a stereo in with a mono out (some do though!). Main benefits with Interfacer is everything else you get along side summing. So if you don't need isolation, output buffers, muting, multiple types of summing, then I'd just do exactly as you're suggesting... run mono out of the last pedal!

[@DJLaFontsee]

@@GoodwoodAudio thanks for the reply! Appreciate the insight. I'm going to give this a go with my Microcosm running stereo into my Keeley Hydra at the end of my chain and see what happens

[@redcomn]

All I need now is 1 mono for synth 2 stereo for synth 1 dry guitar 1 wet guitar And have 1 reverb for all synths And 1 reverb for guitar Tbh I might as well just buy a darn mixer

[@GoodwoodAudio]

intense!