I don’t have snazzy soundcards, just simple ones with an xlr (mixer out) to a 1/4inch jack, that i then use a 1/4 to 3.5mm adapter to fit into the computer.
Some soundcards are just the simple usb dongle sized ones.
However, i am playling quite a lot of 60’s lately and the problem as you’ll know if they really channel stuff on the recordings so im losing a lot of the songs at the moment.
What i want to know is:
Is there a way that i can get a computer to make all output mono?
Is there any software you know of which will make all output between playing and the soundcard mono
any other advice of getting a decent mono output so i get the proper sounding ‘brown eyed girl’ rather than just the lyrics and a barely audible tune?
Is there a way a script or something could be built into mairlist to specify force mono output?
The easiest solution would be to make a customized cable for this purpose.
As your mixer has an XLR input, I assume that it’s “balanced”, which means that the audio signal is split into a “high” (or “hot”) and “low” (or “cold”) signal for more reliable transmission. So all connectors, including the XLR and the balanced 1/4 jack, have three pins: ground, hot and cold. But they’re still mono.
Ordinary soundcards use unbalanced stereo connections, which means that there’s only one “signal” pin per channel (plus a shared ground pin), so there are also three pins, but this time it’s “ground”, “left” and “right”.
You can connect an unbalanced output to a balanced by connecting the unbalanced signal to “high”, “ground” to “ground”, and an additional shortcut from “ground” to “low”. (This is some sort of trick, because it does not actually make the connection balanced in terms of being more reliable to noise, but it works in most situations - in professional audio, people use a device called a “DI box” for this purpose.)
You can also convert stereo to mono by connecting the two signals inside the jack.
So I propose you modify your existing 3.5mm to 1/4 cable as follows:
3.5mm tip to 1/4 tip (left signal)
3.5mm ring to 1/4 tip (right signal)
3.5mm sleeve to 1/4 sleeve (ground)
shortcut ring and sleeve inside 1/4 jack (unbalanced to “balanced”)
Yes, the good Doktor is correct. By making the connections given, you are ‘unbalancing’ the cable. This will in theory make it slightly more susceptible to picking up noise, but it should not be a big issue.
Companies like Alice sell a range of ‘balanced to unbalanced’ boxes so you can plug in a balanced XLR cable at one side and 6mm jacks (or even RCA phone plugs a.k.a. ‘phono’ plugs) at the other side.
In your case, you would need to take the stereo PC cable and make the other end mono by shorting left and right together at (say) the 6mm jack end. Thanks to the Little Magic Box, you then get a proper Balanced connection out.
The Alice units are on this page: http://www.aliceshop.com/acatalog/AliceShop_PAKS_11.html. Look for a Promatch 1 or a Matchpak on the page—and scare yourself silly at the price! BUT they are top-quality units. A lot depends on whether it is worth the money to you to get a properly engineered solution, or whether you are better served by making your own simple balanced-to-unbalanced cable (which in most cases will sound identical ;)).
3.5mm sleeve to 1/4 sleeve (ground)
is it just a case of plugging them together or do i have to do some wiring?
shortcut ring and sleeve inside 1/4 jack (unbalanced to “balanced”)
is this a case of soldering a bit of wire from one terminal another in the 1/4jack?
Sorry for being annoying, just not overly technically minded when it comes to things like this. many thanks
If you’re using a mono 3.5mm plug on the adaptor, you’ve already ensured you will only pick up the TIP signal from the stereo card.
You really need this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=1227 into the soundcard, then a STEREO (NOT mono!) 6.5mm jack plug, with the tip and ring shorted together, connected to the end of your existing mono XLR cable, to replace your existing mono 6.5mm jack plug.
Hence from the (new) adapter, you’ll get a STEREO signal, which you can then short to mono within the 6.5 jackplug.
Does that help? (Diagram may be available if necessary!)
brilliant, i have plenty of those adapters, just always assumed i should use a mono one as its a mono mixer, i will give it a go in a bit and let you know how i get on.