Stereo Tool V3

stereo tool is free. you can have as many activations as you want. at least i have 3 activations.

for the paid plugins you're right.

ps: you might delete all your "reviews". add them as comments. they're not helpful as reviews and don't explain the bad value of 5.

Can it go the other way? Meaning can it make a mono track of a stereo?

No, it cannot create a fake stereo sound out of a mono signal. It only can boost the existing side parts of a stereo signal. If there are no sides, it will stay mono.

Ok-but that wasn't the question. The question was can I make a mono track from a stereo track?

ups, sorry... It can, sort of. Turning down the width knob all the way down creates a mono signal, almost. It's so narrow, it sounds pretty mono, but my sound field meter (Insight from iZotope) still shows a little "width-ness".

I was able to fully do it by finding an old program again that I used to use all the time called "Monomaker" by Destroy FX. I find that to be very, very helpful in checking out how all those "wonderful" stereo efx will sound when people listen to them on their single speaker devices like their smart phones or portable speakers-eg. will the entire instrument just disappear?

Every DAW has a plugin that can do the mono thing. No need for an extra plugin. Except you need some special processing for that purpose. For instance, only the left side, or right side, etc. At least I haven't yet seen a DAW that has no such simple plugin. Logic's called Gain, that has a 'Mono' switch.