• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Phasing funks

There are some records from the mid to late 1960s (maybe earlier too) that were recorded with extremely split stereo. In the case of The Beatles, the early stereo recordings were done this way in order to produce a better mono master. There are some stereo recordings of this type that just don't sound good on the radio, or they need some extra help in order to come out ok. I believe that at least some of them were recorded out-of-phase. The best example which I've heard many times sounding bad on radio is "Purple Haze" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

At the end of 2012, I did a yearly radio show commemorating artists who passed away in 2012. One of them was Joe South. I played "Walk A Mile In My Shoes". I had both a CD copy and my original 45 rpm record. I deferred to the CD, which was a mistake. On-air, the vocal was almost completely missing. I quickly cued up the vinyl '45' to the next instrumental bridge, and dumped out of the CD and into the vinyl version, which sounded ok. When I got home, I played the '45' and noticed that the lead vocal is on one channel. I also recall that when I played the '45' back when it was new, I heard some musical sounds that I just didn't pick up when listening to it on, back then, AM radio.
 
It is possible to produce an acceptable-sounding mono version of cuts that were mastered that way. Basically, you need to produce two seperate mono files from the WAV file you ripped from the CD*--one of the stereo difference (L-R; one channel inverted then folded to mono--listen to that beautiful voice in all its fidelity!) and another of the stereo sum (L+R; just a normal mono foldover--where'd Joe go?) then mix-paste (overlay) the two together in your WAV editor. Personally, I like to generate a new stereo file and put the sum on one channel and the difference on the other, then just fold it down into mono when needed (they also sound really cool through earphones when played in stereo like that. ;o)

Badabing, a nice mono cut with all the vocals and instruments intact. Well, it worked for me.

[size=8pt]___________________________________
* DO NOT rip directly to MPx, AAC or any other compressed format when doing this process, no matter how high the bitrate and encoding accuracy are set! You WILL be dissatisfied with the quality of the end result if you do it that way--trust me. Keep everything in uncompressed PCM (WAV) format until you're done.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom