THE BEATLES "Rubber Soul" Stereo Mix: Why the Return to Hard-Pan L&R?

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I feel like an idiot reading this stuff. Well, I guess compared to most here I AM an idiot. Clearly there is science at work here, but all I know is I pick up the arm and place it on the spinning vinyl and I hear sounds. That was all I ever had to know. But I find this all fascinating and I read it in hopes that some of it will stick, though without a solid foundation of the principles and math involved it is a lost cause, I suppose. Still interesting though. There are some awfully smart folks here.

 

Mal,
thanks for this !
After reading it carefully, i see that we both agree on this subject.

You defined the horizontal component as the cosine modulated. Fine. Then all components that are sine modulated (i.e. make movements perpendicular to the record plane) would not be audible when using a mono cartridge when listening to a stereo record.

This results in signals being only hard left or hard right will be attenuated by √2 - because their vertical components are suppressed by the mono cartridge. Then the "center" signal is louder with respect to the left and right signals when the stereo record is played with a mono system, compared to a stereo system (with a Y connector used for summing the channels).

But this could be a (the ?) valid "technical" reason why E.M.I. has demanded to make such a "stereo" mix. Only in this case can the overall balance be preserved - compared to the "regular mono".

Cheers,
Stephan

 

Any signal, L and R, cut into the groove walls using the Westrex 45/45 system has an equal horizontal and vertical component.

It's a mistake to think that the ammount of horizontal or vertical component varies depending on what signal is shared between the channels. Just because a stylus will only wiggle side to side when you have an identical signal in each channel doesn't mean that the signal in each wall doesn't have a vertical component. It just means that as one wall's vertical component is rising the opposite wall's is falling. Meanwhile, the horizontal components are moving to and fro in tandem together.

As discussed, this is because the polarity of one of the channels was inverted for cutting. Had that not been done, the same signal in each channel would cause the stylus only to move up and down. That is, as the horizontal component on one wall is moving across, the horizontal component on the other wall is moving across in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, the vertical components are rising and falling together.

So, it is incorrect to think that a mono cartridge that only measures horizontal motion will miss vertical components only when signal is not shared between channels. It will miss vertical components the whole time. L will have equal magnitude horizontal and vertical components all the time, as will R. This is regardless of what the relationship between L and R might be. You have to think of L and R as completely independent since that is how they are cut into the orthogonal groove walls.

The mono cartridge only looks at the combined movement caused by the horizontal components:

Left horizontal component = L*(√2)/2
Right horizontal component = -R*(√2)/2

The minus sign comes from the fact that the right channel is inverted with respect the left channel.

Furthermore, the two horizontal components are in opposite directions.

Therefore the sum of the horizontal components is:

L*(√2)/2 - [-R*(√2)/2]

Or, in other words:

(L+R)*(√2)/2

This is what the mono cartridge will pick up from a Westrex 45/45 stereo microgroove LP.

This is exactly the same as what you get when you sum L and R electrically except it is scaled by a factor of (√2)/2. There is nothing missing regardless of what is or isn't "shared" between the independent channels L and R.

Going back to our original example, suppose you have these two signal cut into the stereo microgroove walls:

L: a + c
R: b + c

The mono cartridge will pick up:

(L+R)*(√2)/2

which is:

(a + c + b + c)*(√2)/2

Or in other words:

(a + b + 2c)*(√2)/2


This is the same result as electrically summing L and R and then scaling by (√2)/2.

In other words, there is absolutely no difference in the balance between a, b and c if you electrically sum the signals picked up by a stereo cartridge or if you simply use a mono cartridge.

The only thing the mono cartridge misses by not retrieving the vertical components is the ability to reconstruct the two independent signals L and R.

 

So wait, the reason Rubber Soul was mixed like this in stereo was because this was EMI policy in 1965? Was this covered in Recording the Beatles and I missed it?

 

I don't think it being EMI policy is specifically mentioned in Recording The Beatles.

However, the subject is touched on starting on page 402. On page 404 George Martin talks about the balance going off when you collapse stereo to mono if there is stuff in the middle. To confuse matters further he talks about it being a 4dB change

Here's Steve's post about EMI stereo/mono policy in 1965:

 

Funny thing, but I just realized this might explain some strange EMI stereo classical recordings, Stokowski ones where there's almost no center fill - it sounds like the orchestra is split in two. His Debussy Images for one. Nice performance though.

 

This is one of the most interesting topics on this forum ever, even if some of your explanations are beyond me, I must confess. But I will come back here for some more detailed reading.

Steve's explanation of why the stereo mixes had nothing in the center channel at EMI was quite interesting. In the 60's, some albums were released in Brazil as "Stereomono" or "Stereo Mono Compatible". I wonder if that's what it meant, i.e., nothing in the center channel.

When I was a kid I used to love this kind of stereo separation because it was great for demonstration. Especially because my father had an old Garrard turntable that was supposed to be stereo, but didn't always split the sounds as widely as it should.

I wouldn't be against the entire Beatles catalog being remixed à la the Yellow Submarine "Songtrack", PROVIDED the original stereo mixes remained available for history's sake.

 

Must have been the last half of 1965, since Help! is mixed sensibly. Anyone else got any stereo EMI LPs from 1965? It would be very interesting to see how much this occurred and when it might have started.

Steve, just curious, do you have a source for this information?

 

Yes, it doesn't make sense since it's much similar to the original (so similar that first I thought the remix to be the original mix). They might as well use the original for CDs.
I wonder why GM would not centre the vocals in the remix. Unlike records, CDs were only played on stereo equipment even back in 1987, and there was no need to fold them down for mono.
And why bother about stereo/mono compatibility back in 65, if there was a mono edition with a dedicated mono mix!

 

Really? You think it is possible to make a nice, structured stereo mix from a solid mono? To pull the sounds that were stuffed into 1 channel back apart?

P. S. Your idea was implemented on some US releases of the early Stones albums and Beach Boys albums (duo phonic), and I don't find them interesting to listen in that respect at all.

 

i am going to make a remix using the rock band mixes

 

Or you can do what I did, for the sheer hell of it: using digital audio editing software, take the 1965 hard pan mixes, and copy the left channel. Make a new file of just the left channel, then do the same with the right (I used Sony Sound Forge to do this). Then, using Audacity, open the new individual "Left" and "Right" files- that way, you can "pan" them however you like. Once you've panned each file and adjusted the volume levels to yer satisfaction, save the file. Bringing in the left and right channels of the '65 Rubber Soul mixes even 30% each makes a helluva difference, and a much better listening experience IMO.

 

You don't have to take so much trouble. Copy the stereo CD into Audacity or your preferred audio software and click on the 'stereo' button- it offers presets of Mono, narrow stereo, wide stereo, or sliding user settings of 1- 100% mono to extra wide stereo. Takes a minute to do. Same with Please Please Me LP which sounds great folded in to '10 to 2' because of the mic leakage.

 

I did not know that...oh well, it only took about an hour doing it the hard way Short songs, makes for small files which don't take time to load, etc.

Making 'remixes' using the RockBand tracks is great gobs of fun too

 

Yes, it is fun. I made a great sounding 'remix' of Rubber Soul by simply combining the mono and the 65 stereo! Everything's in the centre, yet there is wide separation!

 

You know, for all the talk of people salivating for 'official' Beatles remixes, with just a little know how people can just make their own...not every track, mind ya, but with decent software it can be done.

On the flip side, though, I suppose you could say two things: 1) if amateurs can make their own on their PC's, why can't the engineers at Abbey Road and 2) why are amateurs doing Abbey Road's work for them, in a sense?

 

1) Of course, remixes have been made, for Yellow Submarine Songtrack and Love. And tweaking to the original stereo mixes was done for the 2009 CDs, most notably A Hard Day's Night (which, I might add, was the subject of a lot of complaints).

2) People have too much time on their hands?

 

Sure, we got the Love and YSS remixes but people seem to want the 'canon' albums remixed, which I don't see happening.

True dat!

 

As a musician I loved (and still do) those original stereo R.S. mixes...One time, we took the left side of I'm Looking through You into a friends studio to sing new words we wrote roasting a friend for his 25th Birthday... I even made sure I did the knee slaps...and we did that stereo split just like the original.....He just LOVED the Beatles, (sadly he's gone now) and couldn't believe he was getting his jewels busted not only by us but them too.

 

I love the original rubber soul stereo mix I love the hard panning

 

There was never any playback compatibility problems between mono and stereo, even on stereo phonographs. And as mono was being phased out, stereo releases began including the disclaimer that, though made in stereo, it would work just as well played on mono phonographs.

In "All You Need is Ears," Martin provided a detailed history of the evolution of recording technology (he'd been at EMI twenty-five years when The Beatles walked through the door). And recording methods: two-channel being pre-mixed mono -- the so-called "hard-panning". He objected when EMI decided to release the first four LPs labeled as "stereo," even though they were not stereo but rather pre-mixed mono, and (as I recall) refused to have anything to do with it.

Later, during the 1970s, he did some minor re-mixings when compiling the "Love Songs" album -- having technology that didn't exist when the recordings were made.

 

Actually, wasn't it ROCK & ROLL MUSIC? The US version of that album (those albums) have some Martin remixes of the early two-channel stuff, narrowing the hard-panned tracks for a more comfortable listen (in headphones, at least). He also reversed the tracks, left/right. Not sure about LOVE SONGS - I never got that one.

Harry

 

He joined EMI in 1950. I make that 12 years.
He left EMI in 1965. Total: 15 years.

 

It's true GM's memory played tricks on him in later years but the first 4 albums are genuine stereo mixes, fully supervised and authorised by Martin and released as such at the time.