I recorded a music show and while it sounded okay, I felt something was a bit off – but couldn’t put my finger on it. The music seemed to be stereo, but it wasn’t. There was something up and I had no idea what it could be. Was it just that I was listening to the output of a different mixer after all these years?… No, it was more than that.

A few days ago, I had time to delve deeper into the settings of my music channel, and as I went through the processing options to turn each one off, right at the end, the final option was the stereo balance – or panning as Rode calls it. 

The default setting out of the box is to send the left signal to both left and right channels – and to do the same for the right channel – leading to an output that I’d call ‘dual mono with a twist’.

To achieve true stereo is an easy fix. Click the square button on the channel you want to change, go Advanced Processing > Panning Option (L-R) > turn the left channel 100% left and the right channel 100% right.

I would not use this setting for the microphone, as mics are mono – one mouth, one mic, mono.

UPDATE: You can also try disabling the panning option by turning it off for channels used for music.

Your feedback is always welcome.

All the best, Steve.