The difference between mono and stereo tracks

When I first started working in studios the difference between mono and stereo were much clearer. Part of the reason was track count, sometimes you only had 24 to 48 tracks for all your music and vocals. So if a kick drum was only one channel you wanted to make sure that’s all it took up. Now with everything in the box, everything is “stereo”.  All the software instruments are stereo so they all end up getting tracked out that way. The issue is a lot of the instruments are only mono tracks but look as though they are stereo.  If you take a single vocal track, duplicate it and pan it hard left and right it’s still mono but 3 db louder.
  Check out the video tutorial here: http://mixandmastermysong.com/the-difference-between-mono-and-stereo-tracks/