My rant about mistakes made in mixing in stereo

I haven't really seen too much on the internet in regards to the biggest mistakes in making a stereo mix.

That is, the HUGE mistakes recording engineers made back in the 1960s when it comes to making stereo mixes.

Things like panning drums and bass guitar hard left and hard right. This is has got to be absolute worst way to completely ruin a mix. I simply cannot stand this. One of the worst things you can do is pan bass guitar hard right/left. I've always been taught to pan bass guitar dead center. And it makes sense. Lower frequencies are more directionless, so why pan to one side?

I know engineers were new to stereo sound and stereo sound really didn't start to shine until the early-to-mid 1970s, but HOW does one make this kind of mistake? Let's say an engineer whose been mixing in mono for over 10 years. They are asked to make a stereo mix for a new group with their brand new 8-track tape machine; they decide to experiment and pan bass guitar to the right. Would they not immediately notice the lack of punch in the bass? The same thing for drums. Panning drums hard left/right almost completely eliminates the punch. It also makes it sort of disorientating, especially on headphones.

Another thing, the lack of using the entire stereo image. I've heard so many recordings, not even just from the late 1960s, where instruments and vocals are only panned right, left, and center. Maybe one or two elements panned slightly to the right or left of the phantom center. This is terrible and does NOT make a good stereo mix. Why have about 15 different elements in a recording, and pan 12 of them center, one to the right, and then 2 to the left? You might as well just made it mono. What melts my brain is that I see this on recordings even from the late 1970s where stereo sound was much more mature than in the 1960s.

My questions you guys

How did professional engineers, you know, people being PAID for making music, make these mistakes? And, do these things absolutely enrage you as they do me?

 

I completely agree with you! I had a rant myself on a Beatles thread about this the other day.

To me ANYTHING panned hard left or right just loses any sense of cohesion in the mix. This is even when the rest of the mix is perfectly fine. People still hard pan today and I don't get it?!

I think that it is impossible to make believable stereo on anything less than 16 track. But even when 16 and 32 track were coming in in the late 60s and early 70s respectively, it still took a LONG time to perfect the techniques.

Many an album from 70- 75 is marred by terrible mixing, even if it was done on 32 track.

I think if mono had stuck around till 73- 74 there would be SO many good albums that would have received the mix they deserved.

 

Not a 'mistake'. Just the limitations of the mixing boards and stereo playback gear of the time. Loads of discussion here before, especially about the Beatles stereo mixes.

 

That's why for a lot of stuff in the 60's, the mono mixes are the way to go.

 

It would be interesting to know how old you are. I guess you weren't there in those days. Cause then you would know, that stereo was new in those days. Different studios tried different methods, some only had two, three or four track recording machines. Some achieved amazing 180° degree stereo sound, others did this left-right approach.
Also the stereo systems were in an early state, many had both speakers in the same box. So the idea for those "seperate vocals" was to have an own speaker for them - without having them 3 meters away from the backing track.
So don't blame those engineers, they had to learn and by the end of the 60s most knew what worked.

 

If only you were there showing them how it's done.

 

Sheer laziness? Stereo mixes were an afterthought.

 

Hey guys! Go easy with the sarcasm yeah? He raises a very valid point. Whether you like it or not there was a very prominent practice to pan drums one side. That is one very common flaw with 90% of 60s stereo.

I agree with the op. nowhere along the line did someone question this? Come on...
For instance four track mixing often went like this;

Track 1: Drums + Bass pan left
Track 2: guitars pan right
Track 3: vocals centre
Track 4: overdubs pan left or right

Most of these mixes in hindsight could be immediately made better by keeping drums + bass centre. Albeit the result would be less "stereo" than most companies would have wanted.

Now I'm only 20, you may scoff, but I've done my research. The op simply wants to know (as I do) why no one at the time said "hey, this sounds wrong, man".

 

It was about exploiting the novelty of stereo rather than making the "best" sounding records possible.

 

You see, that's not even it. I've heard songs where they must have had proper panning knobs and at least 8 tracks but still made these mistakes. So I don't see that as an excuse

 

You couldn't have said it better. In fact, I wish mono had always stuck around, at least as an afterthought throughout and to the present day. At least with mono, all instruments have punch because there is no panning left or right. It's all in the center, where they should be.

 

Stereo was an afterthought up until about 1967/1968 where mono became phased out, at least in the US. But what about recordings from the 1970s and onwards that have these mistakes?

 

Exactly, trained engineers should have realized that something didn't quite sound right. If not in the late 1960s, the 1970s and onwards, where some of these mistakes were STILL being made.

 

No rage here. Many of those engineers were still learning about stereo, which, by the way, was not considered that important. Their main interest was the mono mix, for most people didn't have stereo systems. Furthermore, they were not working with so many tracks, and doing lots of bouncing. Sometimes, they couldn't "afford" (trackwise) stereo drums, but had they placed them in the middle, I guess you would have said "you might as well just made it mono", maybe.
Nowadays, we press a bleeding button on an iPod and we can get a decent guitar track, and pan it with a swipe of our index finger, but at that time things could get really difficult.

 

There are albums recorded on eight tracks that sound just fine.

 

Funny...

 

Josh and Aysh:

You keep saying that the 60s engineers made "Mistakes" in their stereo mixing. You are wrong in making those statements.

First of all, the whole idea of stereo, when it came out, was to spread the elements of the record around, usually as wide as you could. People had stereo setups at home and they WANTED to hear the bass guitar in the left channel, or the drums in the right channel. These engineers were mixing for these stereo enthusiasts who ponied up the extra $ for the stereo version of the album. Also, many mixing consoles of that time only had "hard left", "hard right" and center switches, meaning you couldnt put a bass guitar a little bit left of center.

You are listening to 60s records with a 2014 mixing mindset and you just cant do that.

I love wide stereo. a lot of folks do. You may not, and thats Ok too...but pleaase dont go around screaming about all the "mistakes" talented engineers made.

 

That excuse as far as not worrying about a perfect stereo mix, MIGHT work as an excuse for any recordings from about 1967 or earlier. But I am talking about AFTER that, where stereo became the main format and the idea was to make a good stereo mix.

 

I think it was just a result exploring the new stereo format.

Although that kind of panning can be annoying especially if it's used a lot, I like the idea of choosing to do something different. Breaking convention is refreshing and having the drums and bass up the middle 100% of the time is predicable.

Show me the engineer who can skillfully integrate that kind of variation in a mix and you've found someone who is truly creative. It also takes balls to pull that off because for most engineers that convention is on autopilot.

 

I accept the true stereo mixes as they come and glad to have them; I've heard no HUGE mistakes, just some mixes a little weak or unbalanced, but still original stereo, thankfully.

 

That statement may hold true for recordings from 1966 or earlier, but cannot be used as an excuse for recordings made afterwards where stereo was becoming the main format. After about '66, stereo was no longer just an afterthought, it was becoming the main format. So making a wide as possible stereo image was not the idea anymore. The idea was to make a good stereo mix. I don't see that as an excuse.

Again, only true for pre-1967 recordings where stereo was mostly a gimmick. Also, they had the capabilities to make good stereo mixes, in a time where they should have because it WAS the main format. Only having three channels, left, right and center, does not excuse panning drums/bass left or right even if you didn't have a proper pan knob.

 

Maybe the OP should provide some precise examples of what he consider mistaken mixes in order to enrich the debate.

 

Cream - White Room bass is panned hard right
Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man bass on left, drums on right
The Beatles - Helter Skelter drums mostly on right, bass on left
The Beatles - Come Together bass on left

A few good examples

 

Two sets of drums on 'Helter Skelter', one left and one right.

The word 'mistake' suggests that the engineers didn't mean to pan hard left and right. As they kept doing it, it can hardly be called a mistake, can it?

 

Some stereo mixes from The Beatles (I mean the album) bother me when using headphones, but they sound great on speakers. Abbey Road sounds just swell to my ears.