Why do early stereo recordings have such an extreme separation?

AntManBee · February-7th-2005, 06:36 PM

Yeah, why do they? You know, like early Beatles albums in "hystereo" - vocals in one channel and the band in the other. Someone once said that it's because early mixing desks only had three fixed knob positions - right, left and middle so that no smooth panning could be done. It sounds a bit odd to me, but I've really no idea.

Dr Dave · February-7th-2005, 07:06 PM

There was no technical problem. Those recordings were poorly mixed because the engineers who mixed them were idiots. There were plenty of contemporaneous stereo recordings that sounded just fine.

patricia · February-7th-2005, 07:28 PM

I recall many albums recorded during the transition from mono to stereo seemed to be specifically designed to jump from one speaker to the other. The assumption seemed to be that those with stereo equipment liked the effect of some tracks coming from one side of the room and others from the opposite side of the room. I'm thinking of a Ventures collection, as well as two of the Everly Brothers's rhythm and blues collections. It didn't matter how you balanced the sound, that's how it played and it was quite intriguing at the time. "House of the Rising Sun", by the Everly Bros was stunning, because it did that. The drums came out of one speaker, on one side of the room and the amazingly kick-ass guitar out of the other.
There are also two albums that I have, "Ping-Pong Percussion" and "Persuasive Percussion" which are deliberately recorded to abruptly separate the various instruments. All those collections were recorded around the same time, the early seventies.
Surrounding with sound came quite soon after, but first that was what happened. Kind of cool, actually.

AntManBee · February-7th-2005, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

There was no technical problem. Those recordings were poorly mixed because the engineers who mixed them were idiots.

Now that's a much more plausible explanation!

patricia · February-7th-2005, 07:44 PM

AntManBee, I think you may be damning all engineers when, at least at the beginning of the transition to mono to multi-track stereo, people dug the different tracks coming out of one set of speakers, or the other. The surrounding sound effect was yet to come.
Of course, if the tracks are isolated now, then some slight deficiency in technical know-how is certainly a possibility.

"Idiot" may be just a little harsh, don't you think??

AntManBee · February-7th-2005, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patricia

AntManBee, I think you may be damning all engineers when, at least at the beginning of the transition to mono to multi-track stereo, people dug the different tracks coming out of one set of speakers, or the other. The surrounding sound effect was yet to come.
Of course, if the tracks are isolated now, then some slight deficiency in technical know-how is certainly a possibility.

"Idiot" may be just a little harsh, don't you think??

Well, OK - a little harsh then. But these extreme early stereo mixes make me one when I listen to them in headphones, that's for sure... I listened to the Ray Charles box set The Birth of Soul earlier tonight and cursed the mix of "I Believe To My Soul".

BTW, if an album was mixed like that today, it would be called charming and acknowledging history!

VIBEr · February-7th-2005, 08:20 PM

I did some audio engineering a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and I asked the same question. I was told that "center" pan didn't exist in early technology until the mid-to late 60s - only extreme right and left panoranma were the only options.

I don't know how accurate this statement is, but it sounds plausible to me.

john williams · February-7th-2005, 08:23 PM

Some of those early 'pretend ' stereo mixes were bad too. The Velvet Underground and Nico comes to mind; I much prefer the original mono mix of that album. I heard the Beatles Capitol albums remixed to stereo and they're awful. I think those engineers were 'idiots' because they also added a lot of uneccessary reverb. Again the monos sound a lot better to me.

patricia · February-7th-2005, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AntManBee

Well, OK - a little harsh then. But these extreme early stereo mixes make me one when I listen to them in headphones, that's for sure... I listened to the Ray Charles box set The Birth of Soul earlier tonight and cursed the mix of "I Believe To My Soul".

BTW, if an album was mixed like that today, it would be called charming and acknowledging history!

I guess that there was also the "look everybody, I've got a stereo!!" syndrome at play as well. The only way that it was obvious was if different sounds came out of different speakers. So, when a mono record was played on your shiny new system, all the sound only came out of one speaker and you were mocked, because you hadn't sprung for real "stereo" records.
In fact, many of the records I have reassure the buyer that they can be played on stereo OR mono equipment, even though they were not multi-track.
Of course they were also from the times when the artists all showed up at the same time and just recorded the tracks, one after the other, many times in one take, and then went home. I suspect that they had limited resources for studio rental and just a few hours to finish the entire session, which was then recorded, verbatum. Minimum post-session tinkering was done and the record still had a pulse, rather than sounding over-produced. I like that about the recordings made before the technological magic of modern recording studios, but that's me. I know that now it's possible to erase anything that mars the perfection that seems to be demanded now.
I think that there's a certain charm to knowing that the way the artist sounds on the record is the way that they actually sound.

Gary Sisco · February-8th-2005, 09:55 AM

Actually, especially with the Beatles, it was because they recorded in 4 track. The vocals were done last, and therefore ended up with their own discrete channel. If the tamborine had been recorded last, it would have its own channel.

One of the reasons why I'd stick with the mono recordings. Real multitrack recording the way we think of it came later on in the 60s/early 70s.

Enforcer · February-8th-2005, 10:41 AM

Most of that exaggerated stereo separation was just overindulgence on the part of the artist/engineer to try out the latest technology. When you have sounds moving from left to right and back again, it's obviously nothing more than that. When something new comes out, everyone overuses and abuses it. Ever see one of those 3D movies that you wear the glasses with blue and red lenses to watch? They always do stupid stuff to exaggerate the 3D effect, like having something jump out at you for no good reason. That's how the stereo thing went. People got tired of it and it went away.

Same thing holds true with the electronic sounds of synths and electronic drumsets. They sounded like sh** then as they do now, but they were new so everyone overused them until common sense returned.

sonic1 · February-8th-2005, 10:56 AM

All of the above plays in to the fact that it was new technology. People were excited about stereo separation. There was not sufficient technology nor mixing talent to do what they do now with stereo. It was all new. Seems perfectly normal to me that it would be that way. As far as headphones are concerned, I don't know when it became common for people to use headphones at home (as opposed to the studio) but I would wager they were not recording for people with headphones.

In some years they will be asking why our computer animation is so lame.

(of course some of us are already saying that)

Enforcer · February-8th-2005, 11:00 AM

When MTV first came on the scene, I remember thinking how bad the videos looked. The concepts were stupid and the video quality was terrible. I wondered why nobody was making good videos. I knew it sucked then, before people started making good videos. I wonder how I would have felt about hearing wild stereo separation if it came into fashion when I was getting into music.

patricia · February-8th-2005, 11:05 AM

You may, unimpressed as you were with early music videos, have taken up ceramics, or bird-watching. Technology never stands still, but we still appreciate the work done, especially in jazz, by those who worked with what is considered antique equipment now.
Which is best?? Neither, IMO. They all have their charm. There is nothing like hearing the unvarnished sounds from the early years, but today is yet another step. All of it makes up the mosaic, still emerging. Imagine what our children will say about the formats used today, years from now???

Deke · February-8th-2005, 08:32 PM

What albums are we talking about specifically? I don't recall any of mine sounding untoward in any way. Mind you I think headphones are crap anyway. You're hearing a sound inside your head that was designed to be heard from the sides of the room. Totally artificial.

Now our new TV... We've only had it a couple of weeks and I'm cursing it already. Everytime there's a 'Beep' behind me I think there's someone at the front door. I kid you not, on a couple of occasions I've actually had to get up and check.

graypencil · February-8th-2005, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VIBEr

I did some audio engineering a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and I asked the same question. I was told that "center" pan didn't exist in early technology until the mid-to late 60s - only extreme right and left panoranma were the only options.

I don't know how accurate this statement is, but it sounds plausible to me.

This is the actual story ..I started in the recording business just after the ability to "create " a center via the pan pot was introduced ( around 1963 )

Dennis Gonzalez · February-8th-2005, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deke

Everytime there's a 'Beep' behind me I think there's someone at the front door. I kid you not, on a couple of occasions I've actually had to get up and check.

British people go "Beep" when they're at the door?

By the way, when Quad first came out, I listened to Black Magic Woman /Gypsy Queen by Santana, and it was wild, with the guitar whirling around your head during the solos, really cool, but also very unnatural. They were going apeshit with what Quad could do and ended up overdoing a lot of mixes. But I wouldn't say that the engineers were idiots for playing with it...just excited about the new possibilities.

Deke · February-8th-2005, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

British people go "Beep" when they're at the door?

Only when the battery's run out on the bell-push. We're a byergarcical kind of race.

GoodSpeak · February-8th-2005, 09:16 PM

To be fair, though, some of the early Beatles recordings done in stereo were absolute classics when the separation was so severe.

Listen to Taxman and you'll see what I mean.

John L · February-9th-2005, 06:12 AM

There was a similar phenomenon when CDs first appeared. This time the new gimmick was sound range. Some of those first classical symphony CDs were unbelievable. Either you couldn't hear the soft parts or the loud parts would pierce your ears. I actually bought a CD player that had a reduce sound range function for that reason.

Deke · February-9th-2005, 08:04 AM

A friend of mine who was really into roots music finally bought himself a CD player when I pointed out how many cheap reissues of really rare stuff there were. The next time I saw him he was dead chuffed with his new purchase, but he had a question.

"Why does the drummer sound like he's in the kitchen?"

Yup. He'd brought a 'Mono digitally remixed into stereo' CD.

Gary Sisco · February-9th-2005, 08:22 AM

grayp -- True nuff about the center pot, but I'm sure you recall the "bouncing" of tracks during the days when 4 track was the shit (since there wasn't anything else). At the end of the "bouncing," the final thing recorded would be on a track of its own, all else on the other -- hence the crazy phenomenon of the band on one side and vocals on the other on the Beatles early (stereo) records. Along with the center pot, it wasn't possible to mix as it was later done. Things got recorded in reverse order of what people wanted most prominent in the recording, because every time a track was "bounced" so that something new could be added, all previous things were pushed back, soundwise, in the "mix."

A friend and I used to do the same thing with a two-track reel-to-reel when we were kids, before we could afford a 4 track. But with a two-track, at the end of the "bouncing," you ended up with a one-track recording. It took a 4 track to get a two-track end result.

I don't know why they didn't just record live to four track. It's so much simpler and more natural sounding; and certainly in the Beatles' case, they were more than capable, if you listen to the live recordings of the time, all of which were made prior to the days when the stage had monitors and such, never mind all of the screaming and shit from the audience. They were still tight enough to pull off their songs and vocal parts even though it had to have been damned near impossible to hear each other on the stage.

Dr Dave · February-9th-2005, 12:14 PM

Ah! Studio recording. Okay. I was thinking of the early DGG stereo recordings, which still sound good--but there was no center pot issue because the DGG tonmeister was there to make sure the microphones were positioned for correct sound. Four track was another animal entirely, as has been explained.

patricia · February-9th-2005, 12:20 PM

The sixties albums on which I notice the distinct separation are the ones by the surf band, The Ventures. I have the surf sounds totally alone on one speaker and everything else, no matter what I do to balance, on the other.
It seems as though the record was on two tracks. So, I suspect that the band was recorded all at once and the background surf, loud as anything, was inserted later. It's actually kind of disconcerting to hear a huge wave, coming from one side of the room and the actual music from the other. Strange.

Gary Sisco · February-9th-2005, 01:27 PM

There's also the strangeness of the times ....

patricia · February-9th-2005, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

There's also the strangeness of the times ....

Can't argue with that. But, it still does the same thing.

Alastair · February-9th-2005, 05:23 PM

I seem to recall reading that Esquivel recorded two orchestras simultaneously in different studios either side of LA for the ultimate in stereo separation.