TW #94 — Stereo Samples with Impulse Tracker (Zinc)
Why and how zinc uses stereo samples instead of panned mono ones.
Key claims#
- A panned mono sample is still mono: at pan 32 the tracker plays it at half volume in each speaker, and the result "sounds shallow and fake". A stereo sample sends two different signals to the two ears — "nothing passes the stereo carbon test (your ears) like an actual stereo sample", offsets and delays included.
- Over 99.95 % of available samples and sample packs are mono, so make your own: percussion is easy to sample clean from CDs.
- How, in Impulse Tracker — "the only tracker I know of that can load stereo samples": on the sample screen press
ENTER, load the stereo file, and IT asks whether to load the LEFT or the RIGHT half — load both, one after the other, then set each sample's default panning hard left and hard right. Put the kick in one channel with the LEFT sample and the same notes in the next channel with the RIGHT sample; play (F6) and hear "a true stereo beat". - Costs: twice the sample size and two channels per sound, and "panning" a stereo pair means adjusting the two channel volumes rather than a pan command. Best compromise: stereo for heavy percussion, bass and other one-channel sounds; mono, panned over several channels, for strings.
- The mono/stereo question is "one of the main reasons why tracked music still doesn't sound as real as studio work".
Practical takeaways#
L/R sample pair, panned 00/64, on two adjacent channels with identical note columns; reserve it for kicks, bass and short hits.
Notable quotes#
- "Hearing is believing."
Relevance#
The stereo-sample recipe for stereo-panning and instrument-design, and a data point on IT's stereo loading; part of the realism thread in traxweekly.