Stereo

[vchimpanzee]

There doesn't seem to be a board for this, so here goes.

On some radio stations, I can hear certain vocalists or instruments from one car speaker, and others from another. Maybe this should go on the oldies board since the songs tend to be on an oldies station.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

That is the way they did stereo at one time, before it was mixed for acoutic balance.

 

[jcolletta275]

To elaborate on that, the vocals and instruments were separated and mastered specifically so that when they were combined in a mono environment (for example, radio at the time or single-speaker record players), they would provide for an even, clean mix of both channels.

 

[exradio]

The technique of placing sound in inly one speaker has problems, but it produces the purest possible reproduction of individual instruments or voices. Any time you listen on two speakers and some sounds come simultaneously from both, you have an aural situation that doesn't happen in nature.

Consider an attempt to reproduce an acoustic guitar 2/3 off to the right of the stage. You put 67% in the right speaker, and 33% in the left speaker. But that's not what you would hear from a single source in real life. You would hear 100% of the musician in the spot he was standing in. Your brain would recognize the his location even with your eyes closed because it can process not only what ear he's louder in, but the echoes coming off the walls. You weouldn't hear most of him in one spot and the rest of him in the other.

Because everyone's speakers are different, even if you used special techniques to place the image in both speakers at slightly different times using a delay, it'll sound more realistic but it won't sound 100% natural.

The best-known proponents of using hard left/ hard left mixing: the Beatles.

Some other artists have compromised by putting vocals, bass, and bass drum in the middle and other instruments hard left and hard right.

Why don't more musicians use the Beatles' approach??

1] It limits the volume of any one instrument to 50%. This is especially an issue with lead singers.
2] It sounds awful if one speaker is not working or if the balance is way off.
3] For lots of music people don't mind or may even prefer the artifacts and mixing. The same sound coming from two directions may sound a little thicker.

 

[vchimpanzee]

The technique of placing sound in inly one speaker has problems, but it produces the purest possible reproduction of individual instruments or voices. Any time you listen on two speakers and some sounds come simultaneously from both, you have an aural situation that doesn't happen in nature.

I did leave out one detail: the songs I'm referring to where this happens had sounds coming from one speaker, and then sounds coming from another speaker. Really weird.

 

[BRNout]

I remember posing this question/complaint to an old college buddy of mine who was/is a musician. His answer was that the 1960's were the "golden age of stereo" and that music from that era had the truest stereo ever made. That quote always stuck with me and, after some consideration, I must agree with him. Stereo music that was mixed in this simpler manner sounds very pure when listened to in the proper environment.

The hitch is (and it was mentioned above) that it sounds awful if you're missing one channel. And, I've heard smaller market stations broadcasting one channel out of both speakers - thanks to lackluster engineering. Most recent offender: WILW 94.3 from Avalon, NJ - just heard this a couple of weeks ago when traveling in the S. Jersey area. In these cases, the music sounds really bad - because you're only hearing half of it.

Another problem is if you're located in a place where you are right by one speaker and far away from the other. But, stereo mixed in this way sounds like magic if you are in a spot where you get fairly equal coverage of both channels.

By the way, my old friend eventually got a master's at the Berklee College of Music, so he certainly was someone who knew what he was talking about.

 

[Mike Walker]

Actually if something comes from ONLY one channel, with not even a hint of it in the other, it isn't stereo at all. It's "multiple-mono". STEREO recording involves two microphones...which correspond to our two ears. Something from the left side of the stage is picked up by both microphones, but it is picked up first by the left microphone, then a fraction of a second later at a lower level by the right. This gives BOTH of the cues our brain needs to localize sound...timing (phase) and amplitude (volume). Recording instruments to only one track (which is by definition mono), then "panning" them to a spot in the soundstage (hard left, hard right, or anywhere in between) uses ONLY amplitude (volume0 cues. There is no difference in timing between left and right channels, so half the information your ear needs for accurate localization is missing.

"Hard panning" can sound impressive. It can sound very "wide". What it can never sound is REAL. Now there's a time and place for recordings which don't resemble anything in real life. Rock music itself, being largely electric/electronic, doesn't often resemble any real acoustic event. But if FIDELITY...accurately capturing an acoustic event, such as a performance by live vocalists and/or acoustic instruments...is a goal, the only way to do that is with two (or more...but usually two) microphones recorded on TWO tracks. That's stereo. That's "high fidelity".

 

[grantchester]

Excellent post Michael. I've got some old records from the 50's, claiming to be among the first stereo phonograph recordings. They show a diagram with the two mics, and how they provide the ambience you describe.
I remember reading how George Martin recorded the early Beatles sessions on 4 tracks, and mixed them to mono, only to have Capital remaster them to stereo, with absurd results. Same with the Beach Boys, which Brian Wilson intended for mono, but were remixed to stereo. Then there was the bogus fake effect they used to make stereo records from mono masters...
Once I worked in a radio station, where there was only one channel in my monitor. I only heard half the songs. Then the engineer changed it, so I got the other channel, and it was like hearing whole new versions of the songs! The Stones and the early Capital Beatles were the worst offenders...
One other issue: Kinetic Phasing. One time we had TV news anchors, each with a lapel mic... but we could only hear one or the other, cause their mics would cancel each other out. I never was able to grasp that one.
g

 

[amfmsw]

Ah, but the logic behind it! The reason many early Sterophonic recordings were so discreet was to accomodate the equipment of the day...that monster console stero in the living room! Whether it had a Zenith Cobramatic tonearm, Magnavox horns, or RCA Orthophonic High Fidelity, it had speaker seperation of only 24 to 40 inches, the wide stereo "stage" was needed to improve positioning. Only "hi-Fi enthusiasts" with Scott, Fisher, McIntosh and Marantz systems knew better.

Also, the dramatic stereo effect was to emphasise a new technology. Remember, Stereo LP's cost $1 more than Mono.

 

[amfmsw]

Oh, and the Beatles and Beach Boys were no pioneers in this. That was around '64. Listen to Tommy Edwards "It's All In The Game" in stereo from '58 on MGM records. Or the 4 Seasons on Vee-Jay stereo in '62 and '63. And, if you can find it in TRUE stereo, anything by Phil Spector. The worst were the Mitch Miller produced and arranged stuff on Columbia, with all of the reverb added.

The real problem with these discrete staging recordings is the mono mix in FM. Remeber, it's NOT FM Stereo...it's multiplex. The L-R is missing in mono FM mix if the station is broadcasting in MPX. And as mentioned before, the mono listener will hear the song at a much lower volume level, even at full modulation.

 

[flytrap]

as mentioned above radio stations that have one channel missing drives me crazy especially when playing oldies or old ping pong stereo type recordings. One local AM station used to be bad about that. Another bad offender is stores and resturants. Only one channel of their tuner or cd player is connected to the in-store PA system and certain instruments are missing or sound like they are in the background. Very annoying. One local rock station used to play a Van Halen song with one channel missing and Eddies guitar was gone. on the same subject is sometime radio stations have technical glitches which causes the audio to get out of phase either phasing out all of the center channel mono material, which makes the lead vocalist disappear or make all the sound wind up in the rear channels when played on a surround sound stereo. It will also make the audio completely disappear when listening on a mono radio. irritating

 

[vchimpanzee]

Something like that has happened to me several times with "Windy" by The Association. It happened with both Majic 94.1 and with a Timeless Classics affiliate. The backup singers are louder than the the lead singers, and the instrumentals are too loud too.

 

[Mike Walker]

There ought to be a law that music in restaurants and other places with multiple speakers be in mono. It's the only rational way to serve audio to people seated in such radically different locations.

 

[Mike Walker]

am/fm/sw the mono listener will hear "wide" stereo at a lower volume ONLY when there's sound in only one channel, with nothing in the other. When there's 'wide' information on both channels (boys left, girls right as with the Mamas and Papas), you'll get full mono modulation. Also, when something's panned hard left or right, a trick to keep mono loudness reasonable is to put REVERB hard panned to the other channel.

"Multiplex" stereo is just as "stereo" as discrete left/right. The results (when hard panned material is summed to mono) is exactly the same. "Mid/side" or "sum/difference" recording are widely employed techniques in pro audio. Sometimes it's just more practical to record a sum (mono) and difference channel, because when using a matrix decoder, it allows you to alter soundstage width after the fact. Google "m/s" microphones, or go to a pro audio site, or the site of a microphone manufacturer, and read up on stereo microphones. There are a variety of types...usually using two "crossed" cardioid (directional) mics...one on the right pointed left for the left channel, one on the left pointed right for the right channel, or a "mid/side" mic...with a cardioid (directional) mic pointed forward, and a figure eight (bi-directional...sensitive on both the front and back of the diaphram) pointed sideways. The center cardioid mic picks up a 'sum"...it picks up everything in mono. The figure 8 mic pics up "difference" information...the "spaciousness"...with items on the left 180 degrees out of phase from those on the right.

Remember algebra? It tells us that if we know what's common between two items (l+r) and what's different (l-r) then original left and right channels can be FULLY recovered. Decoded "multiplex" stereo is the same as original stereo. So complete is this method, that it's used in pro audio recordings such as location sound, film sound, and more every day. It's also the way audio is recorded on some digital video formats, and VHS hi fi and Beta hi fi. Decca even makes a stereo phono cartridge that, rather than having pickups at a 90 degree angle to retrieve left and right information, had one pointing "straight up" to receive "difference" information, plus a second parallel to the record surface to receive "sum" info. These are matrixed back to left/right stereo.

With an external matrix box, it would be possible to adjust to anything between full stereo and full mono, choosing the choice which results in the best compromise between low noise and distortion (mono...lateral groove modulation IS quieter and lower in distortion), and full stereo. This same technique is used in the "blend" circuits built into most decent fm tuners, especially car radios.

 

[amfmsw]

Yes, I'm very familiar with micing live music. At the Casino shows here in AC, we can mic drums with a Shure kit for close, tight control. But when doing Hall & Oates and MANY others, they prefer a more natural sound, with room acoustics. Like what Jon Bonham sounded like in many Led Zeppelin recordings. That stereo micing technique is X-Y, used on an overhead boom(s). The stage tech will use two of the new Shure condener mics, or something similar, then either an E-V RE-20 or Sennheiser MD for the kick drum. Dynamic mics aren't sensitive enough fore this job, although we use 'em for electric guitar and Leslie Organ amp micing.

As far as the "center channel" in stereo, I still have a demo record from Motorola with it's patented "3 channel stereo" recording from 1959. It's pretty cool when using a Scott tube amp with a center channel output.

But there is audio lost in the mono mix of a broadcast Zenith multiplex. What used to be a "screaming mimi" in a hard sell commercial...you know, the NO MONEY DOWN flange with echo...are much quieter in mono, while still loud as hell in stereo.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I heard "Like To Get To Know You" by Spanky and Our Gang on an oldies station. There are parts of the song I like, but it does get weird at times.

I heard the lead vocals and instrumentals from the left speaker in my car. The background vocals were coming from the right speaker. Then it switched and the lead vocals were coming from the right speaker.