EDIT: Want ‘Mono’ in a GarageBand iOS/iPadOS track of a GB song? I just went through this exercise, I’ll save you the trouble, THIS is the app/Audio Unit/plug-in you need, to do this on a ‘per track’ individual basis. I mean, Apple could just have put a switch somewhere, like in ‘Track settings’ but no! So, I went through my alphabetical list of effects apps, and here we have the winner. There are others, but this is the best one, the simplest, AND because it’s named ‘Jax Stereo’ you will have a memory jog, because the first thing ‘stereo’ suggests to me, is the opposite, ie ‘mono’. This glaring omission, is hardly addressed by Apple putting a software switch in the ‘global settings’ for GarageBand in the ‘settings’ list under the app’s name, as it forces every track in GB to be mono. Extraordinary.
Anyway, this is my goto now, if I want to ‘de-stereo’ a GB iOS track nice and clean, without colouring it in any way - the summing is really simple and good. Why did I want it? I wanted to mess with a drumkit cymbal sound on a manual GB stock drumkit, and found it was right-biased. This is awkward for me, because I have a big busker amp in the corner, and you probably know, the effect of a left or right stereo bias, is to reduce the volume when the sound emerges in a mono speaker. If wished, you can force this cymbal LEFT of course, with the ‘pan’ slider for that track, and at exactly mid-left position, it does indeed pretty much go mono ie centralise. So, there’s two methods, they are not identical, if I have the FX slot spare, Jax Stereo is my choice. The other alternatives I have seen, are really crazy, don’t go bouncing tracks around, it’s not necessary!
Older…still valid, updated to suit the above…
I use this usually in my GarageBand ‘mastering’ song, as the last effect after the best Equaliser for iOS, and compressor, etc, often to confirm suspicions there’s something ‘biased’ about the stereo of a song. It’s one of the few visualisers in iOS and it also can be used to widen the stereo effect, which is useful to be able to do maybe just to try it and see if your creation just sounds better when set a bit wider. You can fix certain issues that have arisen, but often the use of this tool, helps point you back to earlier in the workflow or creative process, and in either event, it helps make a better mix/master. This is AUv3, and solid in use, and you can mono the sound (tap ‘test mono’ on the lower right as stated earlier in ‘update’ above), in case you want to compare with that. No complaints!
Show less
Awesomeness106
Jon4H
sleekitwan
Tenente
houzcat
Nogreatcrime
Carbon8tor
MDB3015
maN Oeuvre
iOS Simon
