NI Cuba Mono Percussion

[PhaedrusHH]

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and new to recording. I did something which seems to work, but I don't know why. And I'm also afraid it may not really work but I'm just hearing it wrong. And even it does sound good, there's probably an easier way.

I use Reaper. I have a simple pop tune with a drum set (AD2). I wanted to add Congas and I used Native Instruments Cuba for that (playing a midi track). But the congas sound like they are panned all over the place. When I play only the congas by themselves, that sounds pretty nice, but in the overall mix, it's rather distracting. That's why I want it to sound more in one place, or rather mono. I didn't find any setting in Kontakt / NI Cuba to set the output to mono and I don't know how to do it in Reaper - the track does not seem to be stereo, but I'm not sure.

But I managed to get it to sound mono by putting Amplitube on that track, without any content so to speak: Amp and Cab on bypass, no effects. Now the percussion has a specific place in the stereo field, like I wanted it to.

But I don't think that's the way to do it.

I know: "If it sounds right, it is right", but I'm not experienced enough to even know if it really sounds right and even if it does - I want to learn how it's done the proper way.

Long story, thanks for following.

Greetings
Phaedrus

Edited for clarity

[thecontrolcentre]

You could save the percussion track as a mono wav and re-import it into the project, or perhaps Reaper can bounce in mono (?)

[PhaedrusHH]

Thanks for the kind suggestion, I will definitely try that. But it still seems like a workaround, doesn't it?

[ShawnG]

A lot of DAWs will include a utility plugin that handles stereo/mono and mid side conversions as well as a whole bunch of other useful things like phase correction etc... Reaper doesn't have a whole bunch of plugins included, so see if you can hunt for a free or cheap utility plugin that does those things. I usually use whatever my daw has available, and I dont use reaper, so I cant really make a recommendation there, though. A good utility plug is a godsend when you get more into things.

However, you did something on your own that is more important than having all the tools to hand easily. You saw that you had a solution available in the form of Amplitube, and you applied a creative solution. That tells me you are farther ahead than a lot of the people that come here to moan about how their software is broken because they ran into a problem. Keep that up, and you will get tracks finished while other people quit.

Now I wouldnt want my percussion mono, I might just want it to be narrower in field, so I would open up Cuba and look at the bottom of Cuba's window within Kontakt, and click the Mixer tab (next to the ensemble tab that you are on by default) and re pan the instruments. (Also there you will see Cuba's method of making it mono if you still want to do that, just turn the "width" knob fully to the left, that changes the output to mono)

[PhaedrusHH]

Thanks a lot! That's exactly the solution I was looking for (and I also tweaked a few settings on that page that I wasn't even looking for, like compression and tape). And also thank you for your encouraging words!