Hi, Mike,

In general, that is good advice, but there are times when it makes sense 
and now with digital channel timing post processing available (iZotope 
has it at a more reasonable price than Cedar, as well as possibly a few 
other items) it makes more sense more often to obtain a 3 dB improvement 
in S/N ratio from a noisy tape, especially cassettes. This 3 dB is 
almost "free" of major artifacts as compared to single-ended noise 
reduction. Using both together can do some good work.

So, while I agree, especially if you don't have the inter-channel delay 
post processing, I think there are times when summing is indicated, 
especially for content with limited high-end information, like oral 
histories.

Cheers,

Richard

On 2013-02-06 3:58 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> If you are sure that
> the recording really is mono, only ONE of these two tracks should be
> copied.  NEVER SUM TWO MONO TRACKS TOGETHER EVEN IF IN PHASE AND IN
> ALIGNMENT.  NEVER.  ALWAYS KEEP THEM SEPARATE -- AND IT IS BETTER TO
> ONLY COPY ONE OF THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

-- 
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada                             647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.