Guitar in Mono, Dual Mono, Stereo AND the difference!

What is the difference between mono, dual mono and stereo guitar amps?

Should your guitar be wired in dual mono instead of stereo? Or just keep your pedal board wired in mono to keep things easy?

In this video we go through the definition of each, how to wire your pedals and what they all sound like back to back!

Did you know that Interfacer, Underfacer, Output TX and LongLine can all run mono, dual mono and stereo without re-patching?

Check them out here:

[LaceChaser]

So many channels are full of unnecessary talking. You just taught me everything I wanted to know within 2 minutes!!! Thank you!

[BillyRogan]

Thank you god for this quick and conscience explanation. It’s exhausting trying to find answers like this out there and you got right to it. Greatly appreciate

[johnnyhourigan]

It’s great when someone who really knows their shit can explain something that everyone can understand. Thank you mate.

[TVoltG]

I do a dual mono setup but it's a wet/dry setup. Where one of my amps has my delays, reverbs and such. I absolutely love my set-up.

[nutritiousdreams]

I am currently using an Orange Rocker 32 in full stereo, I can do wet dry if I want to without any needs for splitters, I am able to change the diffusion on either the Strymon or the Eventide allowing me to create a wider feel as needed, for those that like Orange amps, very neat stereo Fx Loop.

[ricopaxton]

Discovered your channel yesterday; original topics, well made with a pro look and a real information benefit, plus easy to understand with enough depth to it. Thx, man, keep going!

[cketelae]

Would love to hear this same excercise with mixing different amps characteristics (For example Fender Deluxe with Marshall JCM-800) and clean and drive channels....

[Hello-dygh]

Thanks, you just clarified that the two 4 ohm speakers I’m going swap out of my Marshall 1936 2 X 12 which equals 8 ohms runs in a mono state on that setting. That works perfectly.
Thanks

[darwinsaye]

My favourite go-to setup these days is using two amps, with different voicings, but not separated into a stereo field. So the two amps are either directly side by side, or even stacked one on the other. Then if I apply a mild panning between the two channels, there is a gentle modulation effect, but without the sea-sickening hard right/left thing of full stereo setups. My inspiration for this setup was stereo amps like Magnatones and also Leslie speakers, where the sounds are still coming from one central point rather than from two different corners of a room. Particularly for stereo Leslie effect pedals, I find putting the two amps side by side, and angled about 45 degrees away from each other, gives a more accurate representation of what a Leslie speaker does, throwing the sounds out from a single point into different directions in the room, rather than having the sounds coming at you from two different points in the room.

[Arthagnou]

Id like to know how to use my stereo output jack, mounted in my guitar, to output to 2 different Amps/Speaker creating a true stereo blend between the 2 different amps/cabnets

[ryanslauderdale]

I think I like dual mono the best, because not every gig will allow you to go stereo, but it gives me the chance to do it when I can, without losing my signal if I don't.

[fernandocalsoni]

Hey Grant, thanks to your effort on teach people to know better their rigs (including me). I've been thinking to split my signal in 2 mono after the preamp (JCM800 style amp), one to go with no effects and the other to use my digital effects on killdry. Then summing back. Reason? I want to avoid analog-digital converting at my dry signal. What are your thoughts on this summing? Devices to indicate? Thanks again.

[SelfPropelledDestiny]

So I have a question about the stereo setup. I understand the stereo being on when wet effects, like stereo delays, are engaged, but if you have both wet effects deactivated for certain passages, aren't you just effectively back in dual mono, albeit temporarily?

[jonasweiss]

Dual mono with the amps spread in the room is stereo, and is even more so if delaying one.

[jonathanarleys]

Hi, thanks for the video.

Now I have a problem with this, in my band I have 2 guitarists, one rhythm guitarist and one melody guitarist, like avenged sevenfold. sometimes we do harmonic melodies like them and so on.

Most of our sound engineering just divides us into separate L and R's, whereas our setups are all built with stereo output.

My question is, How and using what kind of equipment to split my output into:

1. when 2 guitarists perform a rhythm, one is on the left and one is on the right with a percentage division for example 70L-70R;

2. when there is a lead session, the lead guitarist will play a stereo preset (I used 2 stacked delays like what Petrucci made in stereo format) and the rhythm guitarist will play a mono/dual mono preset;

3. When performing harmonic melodies, our division becomes 100%L and 100%R;

*In terms of my sound engineering use two stereo channels on the mixer (for two guitarist, stereo input).

I'm thinking of equipment that might be like a midi controlled looper or something, but didn't know how to doing that.

Thank you.

[pocojoyo]

Great explanation, graphics and audio examples. One question remains for me. I checked the Interfacer splitter box and it is not cheap for me. Does an ABY splitter box degrade the signal significantly ?

[gitarzystaakustycznymidodr]

Really very good explanation... quick and useful

[Hendrix.]

It'd be nice to know for absolute sure which pedals will PRODUCE true stereo and no just a pass through.
How can I find out which will have 2 separate channels in stereo and not dual mono?

[Tije.O]

Dual mono in this example is just better sounding because it's louder. Louder always sounds better.

It's louder because you use two (duplicate) tracks. Panned hard L / hard R.
In mono it's less loud because it only consists of a single track. Panned center equals hard pan L / R, but again it's softer because only 1 track. When you level match it with the mono recording it will sound the same.

Only when you introduce differences between both channels (like in the delayed example, or when you use two different amps, do a slight modulation, use different takes etc.) it makes sense to stereo pan both channels.

[Funkfreed]

How do I create a dual mono setup? My reverb pedal output is mono and I use a trs splitter into my presonus eris 3.5 the problem is that only 1 channel works either left or right.