My rant about mistakes made in mixing in stereo

Thanks.

 

I am very upset that my triangle is panned hard-right.

 

This is mostly true, even in the UK more kids started to get stereo players in the early 70's however the problem was not mono players but people not being sure that they could safely play their stereo records on them. Most mono players from the late 50's would happily be able to safely play stereo records but people erred on the side of caution and continued to by mono rather than stereo versions despite record companies assurances to the contrary.....eventually they had to just force the issue by discontinuing mono. In mainland europe this process somewhat surprising happened even earlier. So having a mono player should have had nothing to do with buying mono albums, had the populous been more certain about their mono players being able to safely play stereo records it is more likely that they would have abandoned mono far earlier with an eye to having stereo records in anticipation that they would some day be able to enjoy on a stereo player in the future....but they weren't so they didn't.

 

Well, clowns are to the left of me, jokers to the right, sooooo.......

 

Ziggy Stardust. "Suffragette City", all drums panned hard right. Recorded 1972. Not a mistake, an aesthetic decision made by the great Ken Scott.

 

Very few owners of decent hifi systems in the '50s and '60s were willing to make the kinds of décor sacrifices it would take to reproduce proper stereo. You'd typically see bookshelf speakers either on the floor, or maybe on bookshelves on opposing walls. The conception of a three-dimensional phantom stereo image was not well known.

Heck, just look at the photos of systems in the old Henry Kloss AR and KLH ads.

 

How do you know I wasn't in those days? You know my age? Please, tell me how old I am

 

I'm guessing that would be a binaural music backing track with Nat in the middle or something of the like? That would sound lovely.

I guess I wasn't thinking about those more orchestral artists of the fifties, they do indeed sound great in stereo. I stand corrected.

However, I was originally more referring to what we consider "groups" ie. you can't really convincingly record a rock group binaurally. It would just sound mono due to the sheer volume and bleed.

 

I believe George Martin got a memo saying mono was oN it's way out. He then decided to make the stereo as mono friendly as possible ya?

 

I'll say it I hate stereo. I hate stereo until it became what it's supposed to be, a natural indication of spatiality.

Like I said in my earlier post, if they only panned (for example) the guitar and overdubs, yes the result would barely be stereo, but listen to newer stereo. Some of it only pans the reverb of each element, just giving that subtle indication of space.

I guess I just like subtle stereo, where it doesn't take away from the impact of the MUSIC which is what we are really listening to Not the engineers saying look how clever we are!

 

I had a mono boxed record player up until about 1980.

 

thank you for being honest and speaking the hate that dare not speak its name.....

 

Good point. Even the cheapest console stereo was a very pricey item back then; ( a bottom-of-the-line Arvin console sold for $199 in 1964, almost $1200 in today's money) Consumers wanted "bang for their buck". Witness the popularity of the series of recordings like RCA Victor's "Stereo Action", Mercury's "Living Presence", Command's "Persuasive Percussion" etc.

 

i stand to be corrected on this but wasn't it something to do with the limitations of 4 track versus the increasing complexity of the recordings. The Beatles started to bounce down a lot and GM would keep tracks free for vocals etc, this would allow the Beatles to effectively multitrack but limiting the options when it came to mixing which is more exposed on the stereo's.....or something like that, others with more knowledge can answer better than I

 

It really isn't that much different than scenes in 3D movies that are there just for the 3D, like an object getting really close to the camera to exaggerate the effect. People were surely paying a lot of money for stereo systems, so they wanted to hear the separation to get their money's worth. Same with 3D movies or anything else that's new. Novelty is the opposite of subtlety.

 

That was definately the case with the earlier albums, Hard Day's, For Sale, Help!

With Rubber Soul however, the reason it is SO wide ie. vocals one side, whole instrumental track the other side is because EMI was considering dropping mono in 65'- 66'. However (thankfully!) they held out till 68' (69 if you count all the fold downs...)

So George Martin was trying to make Rubber Soul stereo as mono friendly as possible.

 

I personally love and prefer hard-panned bass to one side or the other so I can more clearly hear it without becoming a low mud totally intermingling with the drums usually. I also greatly prefer the wide stereo sound in general to the more subtle "modified-mono" as I hear too many modern mixes to be.

The perfect mix set-up to my listening preference is the drums recorded in stereo and panned hard left and right so the different tones of the kit and specific drums and cymbals play out of the sides that they are set up on the kit. The bass is all mostly left let's say, the main rhythm guitar parts are opposite side to the bass. Single vocalists can be center, multi-vocalists or harmony sound really nice split to opposite sides to me. Any instrumentalist solos can be partial pans off center. Early Sabbath was often mixed that way, and the three instruments stood out really clearly yet blended beautifully.

There are a few wonky early Beatles stereo mixes, but overall I greatly prefer the stereo mixes to any of the mono, and definitely prefer the original stereo Help! and Rubber Soul to Martin's later stereo remixes. To me, much of the modern way to mix stereo makes the music sound more boring and much less dynamic than those old recordings that had supposed "mixing mistakes". If I was sitting in my living room and a band was playing live for me without being mono-fied through some mixed-down PA system, I would hear their instruments coming from the position they were sitting/standing in the room. That's the same way I'd rather hear it recorded and mixed for listening too.

 

One of my favorite stereo mistakes!

 

Does an official mono mix exist of the alternate Buick 6? I know it was never released, but is it on a bootleg or something?

 

As I'm reading this thread I'm listening to "Hit Singles 1958-1977" from Atlantic Records. There are some 60's hits here in stereo with hard panning that seem to work well. For What It's Worth, The Beat Goes On & People Got To Be Free still have punch to them. It seems to be a really well mastered disc so maybe that has something to do with it not going limp.

 

thats something i had not heard before and it surprises me, however mono classical emi's certainly ceased around this time, it was all about demand and clearly demand for mono classicals by 66 had declined sharply but for pop records demand for mono would continue to outstrip stereo's by many 10's to 1 until into 1968 in the UK anyway.

 

Well here in the states we were just starting to have rock stations appear on FM radio in 1968 and that may have been a big factor in the change over to stereo.

 

Exactly. People who wanted to hear stereo would be upset if the mixes were like how they're 'supposed to be' in today's standards. "Drums, bass, and vocal on both channels? I thought I was paying more for a stereo record!!! Oh, Gimsby... bring me the gravy."