Stereo, Mono & Left minus Right Here are some listening examples of the things that can happen to stereo. Try using some headphones or a stereo system. Trying to do it through your computer's speaker won't hack it. In example one, it's your friend and mine--stereo--everything is as it should be; The bass, kick and snare appear be coming from in between your two speakers (or the center of your head if your using headphones)--that's the phantom image. Panned to the left or the right is rest of the drums--cymbals, hi hat, and you also get a good sense of space with the reverbs. You can also tell that the piano was recorded in stereo--some of the strings sound like they're coming from the left while some others appear to come from the right. You can use this example to compare to the others here. You should hear a big difference in this one. It's mono. Instead of two independent channels of audio we have the identical signal in two channels--I just mix the (L)eft channel with the (R)ight. In other words; L + R = mono. Now this one's a bit different; Take a listen to it. Can you tell a difference between the stereo example and this one? If you guessed that this is the same as the first example but with the polarity flipped on one channel you're correct--but if you couldn't hear it don't feel too bad--it's bit hard to tell at first. But if you practice awhile you can get it. While the last example may have been subtle this one should not. This is the same as the previous example, the stereo with polarity flipped on one channel--except that now they have been mixed to together into mono. But this mono is not like the first mono example you heard (left plus right). Now you have Left minus Right. Some bad craziness! All the things that were in the center of the regular stereo mix disappear and only the things that were panned left or right remain. As I said in class this could be a Bad Thing™ if your mix came out this way. The thing is, you won't know (or it will be hard to hear) if you don't check how your mix is doing in mono every once and awhile. So you have to be careful--and be able to hear each one of these to get a sense as to how your mix is doing. I want to thank Jeff Miley and Code 3 for the musical examples on this page. If you liked the music and would like to hear more go over to this page.