Topmusicanswers
When you add two phase-inverted signals together they cancel each other out & if perfectly out of phase, you get silence. One trick to avoid this is to put a slight delay on one side of the signal only.
Should pads be in mono?
Use mono for clarity. Since pads can take up a lot of stereo space, folding them down to mono and panning them to one side can help to improve clarity in a busy mix. If your pad is overshadowing the vocal or keyboards, give this a shot.
How can I make my mono sound mix better?
If you pan the exact same element left and right in your mix, you'll end up with a sound that plays back centered in the stereo field. To create width that does a good job of translating into mono, try adding a slight delay to a mirrored track, and apply something like Waves UltraPitch to modulate its pitch and time.
