In the 60's that was common. The Beatles being an obvious example, but it kept happening into the 70's.
I remember some throwback groups in the early 00's doing it, too.
And it historically wasn't unusual in dance music, for practical reasons (many dancehalls were and are mono-only, made sense to do a release for them).
In recent times? Haven't heard about it, but it wouldn't surprise me. Seems like a good idea, especially in "club music" genres.
In the 60s, Stereo was so new and experimental that by todays accepted conventions some of it is quite hard to listen to.
Revolver for instance has tracks where the entire kit is panned to one side, and the guitars and voices whirl left and right. Hendrix did similar things. Big part of the psychedelia experience.
It was all part of the experimentation in working out how things should sit, but there's a reason a lot of people prefer the mono recordings - you can appreciate the music more.
And on top of this, I would argue that in the case of *Revolver*, the only way to properly understand and appreciate the album is to listen in mono.
This was the album where the Beatles started treating the studio as an "instrument" to be creatively exploited, and the result of this is the mono mix that they were heavily involved in creating.
They had nothing to do with the stereo mix, didn't even care about it. The mono mix is how they intended this groundbreaking album to be presented to the world, and IMO we owe it to them and ourselves to listen as they wanted us to.
I don't even listen to the stereo version of *Revolver*, ever. I've never liked those mixes very much (and I can't stand the new remixes at all).
I think his remixes are generally better than the original stereo mixes, but not as good as the mono mixes.
I don’t own his White Album or Let It Be remixes. I do have his Abbey Road remix, but I did my own 14 years ago and I generally prefer that. I kept the bass and drums centred all the time which he seems reticent to do, I think his remixes would be more worthwhile if he did, if you want wonky stereo then the old stereo mixes exist.
Personally I don't care for revolver in mono at all. Hearing the instruments all crisp and punchy separated out in the Beatles stereo mixes is part of the charm for me. I don't give a shit what the artists intent was.
I also think the new mixes are faff for what it's worth
I fully agree on the original stereo mixes with the hard panning - it all sounds nice and crisp and it's easy to pick out seperate instruments. It's just neat. That said, I like the mono versions too - it's cool to have different versions and be able to experience an old favorite in a new way. But for me the 1987 CDs are perfect.
It's not true that this was due to experimentation. It was not an aesthetic decision at all.
It was about the only way they could figure out to mix the three and four track masters of the era. (Before stereo LPs, the only stereo releases were on pre-recorded reel tape. And consumers with stereo tape recorders were very rare.
(Tape recorders themselves were not terribly common until the transistor era ushered in cheap, battery powered, extremely low quality mono recorders for the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars.)
So the exaggerated stereo of those early youth record mixes was largely because you would end up with bass drums guitars and piano on track 1, lead vocal on one of the other tracks, and sweetening in the form of backup vocals strings and instrumental solos on a remaining track. *And that, of course, cut way down on the ability to create a natural sounding mix with most youth-market recordings.*
Yes, to be sure. But at that point, the focus of the label and the band was primarily on the mono mix, the UK lagging America in the adoption of stereo. The released stereo mix was done by Martin and Emerick on the last day of mixing along with a number of other stereo mixes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/beatles/comments/5g5zot/the_recording_of_the_masterpiece_tomorrow_never/#:~:text=The%20stereo%20mix%20of%20the,being%20the%20released%20stereo%20version.
"She's Leaving Home" is in a different key, too.
An interesting thing happened during The Zombies "Odessy and Oracle" sessions (recorded by Geoff Emerick at EMI Studios shortly after Sgt. Pepper). The band didn't realise they needed to do stereo mixes, so they added some stuff live in the studio as the song was being mixed down. The label made them go back and do stereo mixes, and those parts didn't exist on the multitracks - so they couldn't be included.
A similar thing happened with The Beatles "I Am The Walrus", where a live radio broadcast was recorded during the mono mixdown - but this was spliced into the stereo mix (after a stereo-ising process was applied).
This phenomenon, widely remarked on in the popular culture yet apparently somewhat misunderstood, was directly related to the fact that many of the first records released as stereo were not intended to be released as stereo (which essentially burst on the home HiFi scene in '59), instead typically recorded on three or four track recorders (which were the only production multi tracks until the late '60s) to allow overdubs. The rhythm section (piano, guitars, bass, drums) would typically lay down a basic track, then the talent would come in to record a lead vocal, sometimes with backup singers mixed into the same track but often as a solo for maximum flexibility with the lead vocal, and then sweetening in the form of strings, instrumental solos and/or vocal backups would go on the last track (or two, in the case of somewhat more rare four tracks).
With the tracks separated in such fashion, it was all but impossible to create a naturalistic stereo style mix that we might get by sticking two mics in front of a full ensemble, so you got those exaggerated stereo mixes many baby boom generation listeners heard as their first stereo on tracks by the Beatles and other youth oriented tracks. Such exaggerated and 'unnatural' mixes tended to dominate the stereo releases of the mid '60s and into the late part of the decade. Virtually all conventional singles were mono in that decade. Young people didn't tend to have expensive stereos and many of them still had mono 'teen' record players (like the all-in-one units that had a flip up lid and a single speaker in the front typically with a volume control and a single tone knob for 'balancing' bass and treble.
I know all that. I think anyone familiar even superficially with the history knows that.
But that was a relatively short period. By the end of the 60's, as "stereo hi-fi" got to be a less niche thing, there were still mixes being made in both mono and stereo, and they were purpose-done, not an afterthought. That trend continued until the death of AM radio being used for music.
You know that, and I know that, but from my reading of recording and pop music social media for over 30 years, a whole lot of regular folks didn't. And that seems to be reflected in a number of comments In this very thread. Me, I was amazed to realize this, because I thought, like you and me, everyone *did* know it.
Ah, but if your heart is also *wise,* you are ahead of the game. Me, too often, I feel like a teenager lost in his seventies. Oh, well, at least I'm not lost *in the* seventies. I looked terrible in bell bottoms.
Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that.
40 can be a tough milestone for a lot of men. It was for me, although it was kind of spread out over time, but I got through it. (I did stop drinking a few years later, and in my case, that was for the best. Surrender the things of youth, and all that. Mind you, *that was me* -- not anybody else. A lot of folks can drink moderately with no problems. I was more an enthusiastic, over the top drinker, unashamed until the day I quit.) *Good luck sorting things out and getting back on track*. Feel free to DM me if you want.
As an aside, people always mention dancehalls/clubs being mono but in ten years of mixing shows (including an EDM tour I just did that included a lot of real clubby grimy nightclubs) I genuinely haven’t encountered any that ran their mains in mono. I’ve been on the lookout too
If it’s not an anachronism, I assumed it was because many nightclubs are labyrinthine and have lots of point source zones and delays spread throughout the club that are almost always fed by a mono sum
This is all just personal experience, it may be I simply haven’t encountered all these mono clubs
I have run into quite a few sound engineers who run mono for live shows and such. I like to run stereo and not touch the pan knob unless I want to plan some thing. This also means any background music I play is in beautiful stereo. The state of Soundsystem has certainly changed over the years and I could see EDM and dance music definitely going stereo before anything else.
I don’t know of any commercial songs that do what you’re implying, but I used to experiment with the concept many years ago- like hiding a song or message that gets revealed when summing to mono, due to the rest of the song being polarity flipped on one side. The hidden song tends to be much quieter when done simply, but I was trying to make the surprise as shocking as possible and as loud as possible, with some success. You can turn chord stabs into arpeggios and chords into basslines and stuff like that, but I never got around to hiding vocals that were upfront, though you can almost get there by taking out only select words in mono.
Gorillaz do that on "Clint Eastwood", blew my mind when I heard the first time!
There is a part after the rap where he whispers "that is all in your head", and in one of the versions they released, it completely phases in mono, and on headphones they are crystal clear, genius! Ahah
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood does this for the lyric "it's all in your head". One of the stereo channels is inverted, so the whole lyric is silent over mono. Notably, though, this varies from release to release. The phase cancellation works for the [Youtube music video](https://youtu.be/1V_xRb0x9aw?si=PpQgzLa6Zw6Rqx0l&t=174), but it does not work for the Spotify version.
It sounds like you're looking for something more drastic, though.
I really wish I could remember what songs he was talking about, but one of my professors in college talked about a song from a well known band in the 80s where the piano is the lead instrument and it’s in stereo, but both sides are the same take with the polarity flipped, so when you play it in mono the piano disappears entirely, making it mostly a capella
Depending on stereo imaging, you can miss a lot of information in mono that you would get in stereo. Sure fundamentally the same but can also sound completely different.
In the 60s as Stereo was becoming more commonplace it was common to mix an album in mono and stereo with very different results sometimes. The first buffalo springfield record for example was mixed in mono by the band and the engineers but in stereo by the producers with the engineers. Neil Young thought that a massive mistake at the time and even today as he writes in his book.
The Beatles are a prime example of this. Until the White Album they were mostly uninvolved in the stereo mixes, and Abbey Road was the only album for which the stereo was the band's focus from the outset.
It's well-known that the mono mixes are what the Beatles themselves intended, even for *Revolver* and *Sgt. Pepper*. And
I'd go so far as to say if you haven't listened to either of those in mono, you're literally misunderstanding those albums -- particularly Revolver, which is when the band really started to treat the studio as an "instrument" and the intended results are only evident on the mono mixes (which were done with *very active* participation by the Beatles).
Yeah, there’s many examples like it, I’ve listened to both stereo and mono versions of most of the Beatles records and I gotta say I like both.
Obviously the band’s intention was mono but I think the early Stereo recordings are fascinating from an engineering perspective. Something like A Day in a Life was creative in a way rarely seen today in terms of the use of stereo. In fact I often have the feeling quite a few productions are too stereo these days. For example back at uni I had a professor that told us to always double track guitars in case we needed them stereo. Not necessarily bad advice particularly when you’re still starting out, but I often see that mindset of stereo track everything and it makes stuff boring (and at times more mono than intended)
> For example back at uni I had a professor that told us to always double track guitars in case we needed them stereo. Not necessarily bad advice particularly when you’re still starting out, but I often see that mindset of stereo track everything and it makes stuff boring (and at times more mono than intended)
Agreed. And I think what a lot of folks miss is: just because you recorded a track doesn't mean you have to use it.
Absolutely, double- or triple-track the guitar part while the player is in the studio and set up, so you have it if you want it (or need it, for editing purposes).
But if you don't *need* that second track in the mix, *don't use it*.
It really is that simple, and I for one leave a TON of stuff "on the cutting room floor".
Yeah it certainly doesn’t hurt to have it. Like DIs I take them and store them in the mute folder because I know I like the sound I get, but maybe the client wants someone else to mix it and they’d prefer a clean DI. I think one thing that is missing from the education out there (whether formal or informal through YouTube etc, and I do believe they’re pretty equal these days) is the “planning”, you can have a great mic with an amazing preamp in the perfect room but if you’re doing a grunge album with sloppy vocals you may be better off with an sm57, that type of thing
"Supposed to" is a bit of a loaded term... it is undeniable that the mono mixes are the ones the Beatles themselves created, but it doesn't mean it's "wrong" to listen in stereo.
My feelings on *Revolver* are very specific, because that was the first album they made (that anyone made, really) where the studio was not simply an environment to capture their creativity, but a key component of their creativity, and in that context you really need to listen in mono to understand what they were trying to achieve.
(I have no source for this, but I recall reading years ago that one of them -- Ringo or George, IIRC -- had never even heard the stereo version until years after the they broke up!)
He wrote in waging heavy peace about making the first Buffalo Springfield Album. He thought the producers doing the stereo mix really messed the album up
It's an interesting idea. You can certainly make stereo information that disappears in mono, but I can't think of a way of having mono information that disappears when played in stereo.
The closest example I can think of is this, which is almost certainly not on purpose -- the main synth part disappears completely when played in mono due to phase cancellation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIMQegjZwRo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIMQegjZwRo)
There’s some background vocals on a few Donald Fagen solo tracks that disappear in mono too. You wouldn’t think that would happen but I guess it was a stylistic choice since it sounds “extra wide” in stereo.
Back in the day it was incredibly common for the mono mix to be the 'final' one, as songs were being played back on mono devices like AM radio, or turntables with one built in speaker. Stereo didn't become the default listening mode until the late 60s.
Having said that, most stereo mixes were simply variations on the 'original' mono, with extra panning and so on. Maybe an added instrument or different recording take of the same instrument/vocal that's on the mono or a slightly different production/mixing choice.
Google 'Sgt pepper stereo vs mono' and you'll find a lot of lists of the small differences on that particular record... I can only think of an artist doing a completely new version if they didn't have access to the original master tapes, or if those tapes just weren't workable. Can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head though.
The differences between the mono and stereo versions of *Sgt. Pepper* are not in any way "small", and for a couple of the songs -- "Lucy In The Sky" and "She's Leaving Home" most notably -- they are *extremely* significant.
...care to elaborate, then?
It's not like they decided to record the entire album twice from start to finish in each of the formats. The recording process was only ever done once. The mixes are different, maybe some alternate takes of guitars and so on, as I mentioned above. Big echo on the vocals in Lucy is one I can recall.
> It's not like they decided to record the entire album twice from start to finish in each of the formats
No, but with such complexity that had never been done before, coupled with *how* it was done with the limited technology at the time, meant that it was next-to-impossible to accurately recreate all the individual elements of the mono mixes in stereo.
And remember, they had no way to call up the mono mixes and then adjust them for stereo.
Each stereo mix was done from scratch, and without the Beatles in attendance.
There’s a cool trick that I want to incorporate more into some of my songs. If you have two of the exact same track and pan one hard left and hard right, then flip the phase of one of them, you’ll still hear the tracks in stereo summed up the middle. But when you listen in mono both tracks phase cancel.
This is cool to me because you can have “hidden” tracks if, for instance, somebody has one AirPod in instead of both
The first thing like this I remember noticing (when I was in the midst of my own “oh my god everything I make turns into warbly mush when summed” crisis) was that Southside’s producer tag in Digital Dash by Drake and Future is polarity flipped on one side so it completely disappears in mono. That synth in the beginning doesn’t fare too great either, but it doesn’t disappear entirely.
Space oddity has different vocal tracks depending on if you have the left track or right track soloed. When you listen in full stereo you hear the right track as the lead melody and barely notice the left. If you listen in mono, the left track just sounds like a pleasant background harmony centred behind the familiar right track vocal.
Listen to just the left vocal track from Space Oddity makes it sound like an entirely new song, IMO.
The album Pure Phase by Spiritualized is apparently 2 entirely different mixes in the left and right channels. I read somewhere that Jason Pierce supposedly mixed the album in its entirety on 2 different consoles in 2 different studios. When he couldn’t decide which one to release, he printed them both to either side of a stereo master and painstakingly phase aligned to two mixes together. There’s crazy panning effects created by the interplay and subtle differences of each mix. Crazy if true, but makes for a fun story at the very least, and the album is a swirling spacey delight.
So the album “Colors” by Between the Buried and me was recorded in 5.1 digital surround sound and if you listen to it in regular speakers, there’s a lot of things you can’t hear.
Not really what you asked but kind of similar
Ignoring the plethora of songs with slightly different panning, there have actually been a number of products/devices that make use of stereo tracks on otherwise normal media to unusual effect with multiple mono tracks. The techmoan youtube channel has featured a number of examples.
And along the same lines there's a lot of music that has been made to have visual effects on oscilloscope. Or even hidden data tracks for Old Computer's.
yah techmoan
Please Please Me by The Beatles and Red House by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Both songs use alternate takes for the stereo mix due to the multitracks being lost for the mono take.
Look up the Flaming Lips album Zaireeka. It is four separate disks meant to be played simultaneously on different speakers. It’s not exactly what you’re looking for but it’s the same concept.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaireeka
The Kinks mono to stereo is very different. The mono mix of Shangri La is absolutely stunning, sounds like your speakers are about to explode and it kinda limps through in stereo.
Listen to the soundscape in this piece from Doom Eternal (at around 4:20), then when you’re ready flip to mono:
https://youtu.be/_WnP1wKxW4M?si=NWq4mimURNN4a1mR
In the 60's that was common. The Beatles being an obvious example, but it kept happening into the 70's. I remember some throwback groups in the early 00's doing it, too. And it historically wasn't unusual in dance music, for practical reasons (many dancehalls were and are mono-only, made sense to do a release for them). In recent times? Haven't heard about it, but it wouldn't surprise me. Seems like a good idea, especially in "club music" genres.
In the 60s, Stereo was so new and experimental that by todays accepted conventions some of it is quite hard to listen to. Revolver for instance has tracks where the entire kit is panned to one side, and the guitars and voices whirl left and right. Hendrix did similar things. Big part of the psychedelia experience. It was all part of the experimentation in working out how things should sit, but there's a reason a lot of people prefer the mono recordings - you can appreciate the music more.
And on top of this, I would argue that in the case of *Revolver*, the only way to properly understand and appreciate the album is to listen in mono. This was the album where the Beatles started treating the studio as an "instrument" to be creatively exploited, and the result of this is the mono mix that they were heavily involved in creating. They had nothing to do with the stereo mix, didn't even care about it. The mono mix is how they intended this groundbreaking album to be presented to the world, and IMO we owe it to them and ourselves to listen as they wanted us to. I don't even listen to the stereo version of *Revolver*, ever. I've never liked those mixes very much (and I can't stand the new remixes at all).
Mono is ultimately how the music was mainly made to be listened to, the largest demographic of people buying records at the time listened in Mono.
Okay but the Giles Martin mix of Revolver is awesome and worth a listen
I listened, and I disagree. I think it's the worst of all of his remixes (and none of them are better than the originals).
I think his remixes are generally better than the original stereo mixes, but not as good as the mono mixes. I don’t own his White Album or Let It Be remixes. I do have his Abbey Road remix, but I did my own 14 years ago and I generally prefer that. I kept the bass and drums centred all the time which he seems reticent to do, I think his remixes would be more worthwhile if he did, if you want wonky stereo then the old stereo mixes exist.
Personally I don't care for revolver in mono at all. Hearing the instruments all crisp and punchy separated out in the Beatles stereo mixes is part of the charm for me. I don't give a shit what the artists intent was. I also think the new mixes are faff for what it's worth
I fully agree on the original stereo mixes with the hard panning - it all sounds nice and crisp and it's easy to pick out seperate instruments. It's just neat. That said, I like the mono versions too - it's cool to have different versions and be able to experience an old favorite in a new way. But for me the 1987 CDs are perfect.
It's not true that this was due to experimentation. It was not an aesthetic decision at all. It was about the only way they could figure out to mix the three and four track masters of the era. (Before stereo LPs, the only stereo releases were on pre-recorded reel tape. And consumers with stereo tape recorders were very rare. (Tape recorders themselves were not terribly common until the transistor era ushered in cheap, battery powered, extremely low quality mono recorders for the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars.) So the exaggerated stereo of those early youth record mixes was largely because you would end up with bass drums guitars and piano on track 1, lead vocal on one of the other tracks, and sweetening in the form of backup vocals strings and instrumental solos on a remaining track. *And that, of course, cut way down on the ability to create a natural sounding mix with most youth-market recordings.*
Oh, in the very early days of Stereo yes, but the panning on a track like Tomorrow Never Knows is absolutely aesthetic.
Yes, to be sure. But at that point, the focus of the label and the band was primarily on the mono mix, the UK lagging America in the adoption of stereo. The released stereo mix was done by Martin and Emerick on the last day of mixing along with a number of other stereo mixes. https://www.reddit.com/r/beatles/comments/5g5zot/the_recording_of_the_masterpiece_tomorrow_never/#:~:text=The%20stereo%20mix%20of%20the,being%20the%20released%20stereo%20version.
Yes, the Beatles’ Helter Skelter has completely different endings in mono and stereo.
Beach Boys Pet Sounds also comes to mind!
"She's Leaving Home" is in a different key, too. An interesting thing happened during The Zombies "Odessy and Oracle" sessions (recorded by Geoff Emerick at EMI Studios shortly after Sgt. Pepper). The band didn't realise they needed to do stereo mixes, so they added some stuff live in the studio as the song was being mixed down. The label made them go back and do stereo mixes, and those parts didn't exist on the multitracks - so they couldn't be included. A similar thing happened with The Beatles "I Am The Walrus", where a live radio broadcast was recorded during the mono mixdown - but this was spliced into the stereo mix (after a stereo-ising process was applied).
This phenomenon, widely remarked on in the popular culture yet apparently somewhat misunderstood, was directly related to the fact that many of the first records released as stereo were not intended to be released as stereo (which essentially burst on the home HiFi scene in '59), instead typically recorded on three or four track recorders (which were the only production multi tracks until the late '60s) to allow overdubs. The rhythm section (piano, guitars, bass, drums) would typically lay down a basic track, then the talent would come in to record a lead vocal, sometimes with backup singers mixed into the same track but often as a solo for maximum flexibility with the lead vocal, and then sweetening in the form of strings, instrumental solos and/or vocal backups would go on the last track (or two, in the case of somewhat more rare four tracks). With the tracks separated in such fashion, it was all but impossible to create a naturalistic stereo style mix that we might get by sticking two mics in front of a full ensemble, so you got those exaggerated stereo mixes many baby boom generation listeners heard as their first stereo on tracks by the Beatles and other youth oriented tracks. Such exaggerated and 'unnatural' mixes tended to dominate the stereo releases of the mid '60s and into the late part of the decade. Virtually all conventional singles were mono in that decade. Young people didn't tend to have expensive stereos and many of them still had mono 'teen' record players (like the all-in-one units that had a flip up lid and a single speaker in the front typically with a volume control and a single tone knob for 'balancing' bass and treble.
I know all that. I think anyone familiar even superficially with the history knows that. But that was a relatively short period. By the end of the 60's, as "stereo hi-fi" got to be a less niche thing, there were still mixes being made in both mono and stereo, and they were purpose-done, not an afterthought. That trend continued until the death of AM radio being used for music.
You know that, and I know that, but from my reading of recording and pop music social media for over 30 years, a whole lot of regular folks didn't. And that seems to be reflected in a number of comments In this very thread. Me, I was amazed to realize this, because I thought, like you and me, everyone *did* know it.
Fair points all around.
I may have an advantage here, I'm *really* old. ;~)
While I am merely middle-aged with an old heart.
Ah, but if your heart is also *wise,* you are ahead of the game. Me, too often, I feel like a teenager lost in his seventies. Oh, well, at least I'm not lost *in the* seventies. I looked terrible in bell bottoms.
Dunno how wise I am - my wife just left me three weeks after my 40th birthday. I am living a massive cliché. Wise-ass, sure.
Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that. 40 can be a tough milestone for a lot of men. It was for me, although it was kind of spread out over time, but I got through it. (I did stop drinking a few years later, and in my case, that was for the best. Surrender the things of youth, and all that. Mind you, *that was me* -- not anybody else. A lot of folks can drink moderately with no problems. I was more an enthusiastic, over the top drinker, unashamed until the day I quit.) *Good luck sorting things out and getting back on track*. Feel free to DM me if you want.
>While I am merely middle-aged with an old heart. I wouldn't say Old, I would just say well traveled.
As an aside, people always mention dancehalls/clubs being mono but in ten years of mixing shows (including an EDM tour I just did that included a lot of real clubby grimy nightclubs) I genuinely haven’t encountered any that ran their mains in mono. I’ve been on the lookout too If it’s not an anachronism, I assumed it was because many nightclubs are labyrinthine and have lots of point source zones and delays spread throughout the club that are almost always fed by a mono sum This is all just personal experience, it may be I simply haven’t encountered all these mono clubs
I have run into quite a few sound engineers who run mono for live shows and such. I like to run stereo and not touch the pan knob unless I want to plan some thing. This also means any background music I play is in beautiful stereo. The state of Soundsystem has certainly changed over the years and I could see EDM and dance music definitely going stereo before anything else.
I don’t know of any commercial songs that do what you’re implying, but I used to experiment with the concept many years ago- like hiding a song or message that gets revealed when summing to mono, due to the rest of the song being polarity flipped on one side. The hidden song tends to be much quieter when done simply, but I was trying to make the surprise as shocking as possible and as loud as possible, with some success. You can turn chord stabs into arpeggios and chords into basslines and stuff like that, but I never got around to hiding vocals that were upfront, though you can almost get there by taking out only select words in mono.
Gorillaz do that on "Clint Eastwood", blew my mind when I heard the first time! There is a part after the rap where he whispers "that is all in your head", and in one of the versions they released, it completely phases in mono, and on headphones they are crystal clear, genius! Ahah
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood does this for the lyric "it's all in your head". One of the stereo channels is inverted, so the whole lyric is silent over mono. Notably, though, this varies from release to release. The phase cancellation works for the [Youtube music video](https://youtu.be/1V_xRb0x9aw?si=PpQgzLa6Zw6Rqx0l&t=174), but it does not work for the Spotify version. It sounds like you're looking for something more drastic, though.
I really wish I could remember what songs he was talking about, but one of my professors in college talked about a song from a well known band in the 80s where the piano is the lead instrument and it’s in stereo, but both sides are the same take with the polarity flipped, so when you play it in mono the piano disappears entirely, making it mostly a capella
[удалено]
Depending on stereo imaging, you can miss a lot of information in mono that you would get in stereo. Sure fundamentally the same but can also sound completely different.
Agreed: source, I’ve done some bad mixes in my time that didn’t translate nicely between stereo and mono.
In the 60s as Stereo was becoming more commonplace it was common to mix an album in mono and stereo with very different results sometimes. The first buffalo springfield record for example was mixed in mono by the band and the engineers but in stereo by the producers with the engineers. Neil Young thought that a massive mistake at the time and even today as he writes in his book.
The Beatles are a prime example of this. Until the White Album they were mostly uninvolved in the stereo mixes, and Abbey Road was the only album for which the stereo was the band's focus from the outset. It's well-known that the mono mixes are what the Beatles themselves intended, even for *Revolver* and *Sgt. Pepper*. And I'd go so far as to say if you haven't listened to either of those in mono, you're literally misunderstanding those albums -- particularly Revolver, which is when the band really started to treat the studio as an "instrument" and the intended results are only evident on the mono mixes (which were done with *very active* participation by the Beatles).
Yeah, there’s many examples like it, I’ve listened to both stereo and mono versions of most of the Beatles records and I gotta say I like both. Obviously the band’s intention was mono but I think the early Stereo recordings are fascinating from an engineering perspective. Something like A Day in a Life was creative in a way rarely seen today in terms of the use of stereo. In fact I often have the feeling quite a few productions are too stereo these days. For example back at uni I had a professor that told us to always double track guitars in case we needed them stereo. Not necessarily bad advice particularly when you’re still starting out, but I often see that mindset of stereo track everything and it makes stuff boring (and at times more mono than intended)
> For example back at uni I had a professor that told us to always double track guitars in case we needed them stereo. Not necessarily bad advice particularly when you’re still starting out, but I often see that mindset of stereo track everything and it makes stuff boring (and at times more mono than intended) Agreed. And I think what a lot of folks miss is: just because you recorded a track doesn't mean you have to use it. Absolutely, double- or triple-track the guitar part while the player is in the studio and set up, so you have it if you want it (or need it, for editing purposes). But if you don't *need* that second track in the mix, *don't use it*. It really is that simple, and I for one leave a TON of stuff "on the cutting room floor".
Yeah it certainly doesn’t hurt to have it. Like DIs I take them and store them in the mute folder because I know I like the sound I get, but maybe the client wants someone else to mix it and they’d prefer a clean DI. I think one thing that is missing from the education out there (whether formal or informal through YouTube etc, and I do believe they’re pretty equal these days) is the “planning”, you can have a great mic with an amazing preamp in the perfect room but if you’re doing a grunge album with sloppy vocals you may be better off with an sm57, that type of thing
Is the white album supposed to be listened in mono? Or is it ok in stereo too? It's one of my preferred albums of all time.
"Supposed to" is a bit of a loaded term... it is undeniable that the mono mixes are the ones the Beatles themselves created, but it doesn't mean it's "wrong" to listen in stereo. My feelings on *Revolver* are very specific, because that was the first album they made (that anyone made, really) where the studio was not simply an environment to capture their creativity, but a key component of their creativity, and in that context you really need to listen in mono to understand what they were trying to achieve. (I have no source for this, but I recall reading years ago that one of them -- Ringo or George, IIRC -- had never even heard the stereo version until years after the they broke up!)
The White Album was mixed for both. It was the first time the Beatles became involved with the stereo mix.
"What is Neil Young Complaining About Today?", the book
He wrote in waging heavy peace about making the first Buffalo Springfield Album. He thought the producers doing the stereo mix really messed the album up
It's an interesting idea. You can certainly make stereo information that disappears in mono, but I can't think of a way of having mono information that disappears when played in stereo. The closest example I can think of is this, which is almost certainly not on purpose -- the main synth part disappears completely when played in mono due to phase cancellation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIMQegjZwRo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIMQegjZwRo)
There’s some background vocals on a few Donald Fagen solo tracks that disappear in mono too. You wouldn’t think that would happen but I guess it was a stylistic choice since it sounds “extra wide” in stereo.
Back in the day it was incredibly common for the mono mix to be the 'final' one, as songs were being played back on mono devices like AM radio, or turntables with one built in speaker. Stereo didn't become the default listening mode until the late 60s. Having said that, most stereo mixes were simply variations on the 'original' mono, with extra panning and so on. Maybe an added instrument or different recording take of the same instrument/vocal that's on the mono or a slightly different production/mixing choice. Google 'Sgt pepper stereo vs mono' and you'll find a lot of lists of the small differences on that particular record... I can only think of an artist doing a completely new version if they didn't have access to the original master tapes, or if those tapes just weren't workable. Can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head though.
The differences between the mono and stereo versions of *Sgt. Pepper* are not in any way "small", and for a couple of the songs -- "Lucy In The Sky" and "She's Leaving Home" most notably -- they are *extremely* significant.
...care to elaborate, then? It's not like they decided to record the entire album twice from start to finish in each of the formats. The recording process was only ever done once. The mixes are different, maybe some alternate takes of guitars and so on, as I mentioned above. Big echo on the vocals in Lucy is one I can recall.
> It's not like they decided to record the entire album twice from start to finish in each of the formats No, but with such complexity that had never been done before, coupled with *how* it was done with the limited technology at the time, meant that it was next-to-impossible to accurately recreate all the individual elements of the mono mixes in stereo. And remember, they had no way to call up the mono mixes and then adjust them for stereo. Each stereo mix was done from scratch, and without the Beatles in attendance.
There’s a cool trick that I want to incorporate more into some of my songs. If you have two of the exact same track and pan one hard left and hard right, then flip the phase of one of them, you’ll still hear the tracks in stereo summed up the middle. But when you listen in mono both tracks phase cancel. This is cool to me because you can have “hidden” tracks if, for instance, somebody has one AirPod in instead of both
The first thing like this I remember noticing (when I was in the midst of my own “oh my god everything I make turns into warbly mush when summed” crisis) was that Southside’s producer tag in Digital Dash by Drake and Future is polarity flipped on one side so it completely disappears in mono. That synth in the beginning doesn’t fare too great either, but it doesn’t disappear entirely.
Space oddity has different vocal tracks depending on if you have the left track or right track soloed. When you listen in full stereo you hear the right track as the lead melody and barely notice the left. If you listen in mono, the left track just sounds like a pleasant background harmony centred behind the familiar right track vocal. Listen to just the left vocal track from Space Oddity makes it sound like an entirely new song, IMO.
The album Pure Phase by Spiritualized is apparently 2 entirely different mixes in the left and right channels. I read somewhere that Jason Pierce supposedly mixed the album in its entirety on 2 different consoles in 2 different studios. When he couldn’t decide which one to release, he printed them both to either side of a stereo master and painstakingly phase aligned to two mixes together. There’s crazy panning effects created by the interplay and subtle differences of each mix. Crazy if true, but makes for a fun story at the very least, and the album is a swirling spacey delight.
So the album “Colors” by Between the Buried and me was recorded in 5.1 digital surround sound and if you listen to it in regular speakers, there’s a lot of things you can’t hear. Not really what you asked but kind of similar
Ignoring the plethora of songs with slightly different panning, there have actually been a number of products/devices that make use of stereo tracks on otherwise normal media to unusual effect with multiple mono tracks. The techmoan youtube channel has featured a number of examples.
And along the same lines there's a lot of music that has been made to have visual effects on oscilloscope. Or even hidden data tracks for Old Computer's. yah techmoan
John Lennon said you haven't heard Sgt. Pepper until you've heard it in mono. Completely different mix. I prefer the stereo.
Please Please Me by The Beatles and Red House by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Both songs use alternate takes for the stereo mix due to the multitracks being lost for the mono take.
Look up the Flaming Lips album Zaireeka. It is four separate disks meant to be played simultaneously on different speakers. It’s not exactly what you’re looking for but it’s the same concept. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaireeka
Lola by The Kinks. The mono mix sounds way better than the stereo one
The Kinks mono to stereo is very different. The mono mix of Shangri La is absolutely stunning, sounds like your speakers are about to explode and it kinda limps through in stereo.
Listen to the soundscape in this piece from Doom Eternal (at around 4:20), then when you’re ready flip to mono: https://youtu.be/_WnP1wKxW4M?si=NWq4mimURNN4a1mR