Soundstage Mastering

[Lynster]

I have no doubt that we all have slightly different priorities when setting up our systems. With me, a good sense of detail, timing and soundstage are primary requirements. I particularly value a sense of three-dimensionality and my current setup is very pleasing in this regard. So with a good orchestral or band recoding, I could well be front and centre in a quality venue.

So when in occasional recordings I hear an aberration reproduced such as a drum kit as wide as my room (extending outside both left and right speakers) or a single instrument where it jumps from one speaker to the other (and sometimes back and forth) without transiting centrally, my illusion can be spoilt.

I know that this sort of effect often happened on early LP’s when stereo was in its infancy. I have quite a few early ‘Spectacular Stereo’ LP’s where the hard ‘left/right’ stereo effect was deliberately exaggerated in an artificial way to show off ‘stereo’ and of course even the Beatles in stereo were guilty of singing out of one speaker while their instruments played from the other. All this is fine to me and quite enjoyable where I can accept that it’s an effect that was planned and ‘is what it is’.

But I personally find this effect harder to forgive with what should be (IMO) staged performance production. Do you ever get annoyed with apparently incorrect imaging or unexpected placement or localisation of instruments/vocals on a recording - or is it just me?:doh:

[prestonchipfryer]

Well it's not just you. I find any recording, especially those that are so-called electronically made stereo, really annoying. Many commercial records have drum kits that sound totally false as they are rolled from side to side.

[Mr Kipling]

Aye… It's a bugger when you've got to duck for the rimshots…

[Mr Kipling]

Looking on the 'net, any number of times, individuals keep referring to The Beatles early stereo albums as "fake stereo". This is incorrect. They are genuine stereo having the instruments placed left and vocals right.

And it wasn't just The Beatles material that this was applied to. Gerry & The Pacemakers, Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, and other EMI signings i imagine, had albums mixed this way.

In the '60s & '70s quite often stuff came out that was "electronically created stereo". I think the signal was split up into 5 frequency bands with 2 on one channel and 3 on the other. The odd thing being that genuine stereo versions existed.

And what about good old mono? The most modern example i can think of is Eva Cassidy's recordings, which sound quite excellent.

[BTH K10A]

With recordings like that I usually either press the mono button on my pre or play them with a DL-102 cartridge as I find the eminently more listenable in mono.

The engineers recording classical music in the early days of stereo put a huge amount of care and effort into the recordings and the placement of the mics, usually a cardiod stereo pair plus occasionally an aditional mono centre, resulting a wealth of good recordings that in many cases have never been bettered. That same care was sadly lacking from a lot of recordings from other genres and, in many cases the engineer seemed more concerned with the various effects they could produce from the mixing desk rather any attempt at creating a soundstage that had some semblence of reality. I was going to say fidelity but that would not hold true for multi channel mix downs as any soundstage created is ultimately a fake.

[PaulStewart]

I had an engineer working for me in Tin Pan Alley Studios who was doing his first sesdionfor me. The chap asked which side I wanted the high hat mixed and could not understand that I wanted it very slightly to the right, just to reinforce the stereo pair already on the drums. No he said if you mix it all the way left or right and the snare the other side you can get a huge rum sound.... First and last session he did with me :lol: shirtly after that, I got some PZM mics and started using just a pair of them to get the drums, as it gave a big but accurate sound.

[Lynster]

I had an engineer working for me in Tin Pan Alley Studios who was doing his first sesdionfor me. The chap asked which side I wanted the high hat mixed and could not understand that I wanted it very slightly to the right, just to reinforce the stereo pair already on the drums. No he said if you mix it all the way left or right and the snare the other side you can get a huge rum sound.... First and last session he did with me :lol: shirtly after that, I got some PZM mics and started using just a pair of them to get the drums, as it gave a big but accurate sound.
Thanks Paul, that pretty much confirms what (as a non engineer consumer) I thought might be happening. Only sad thing is that he obviously got a job elsewhere where he mixed some of the tracks that I purchased and that subsequently upset me.:doh:

I was very interested in your comment on the PZM mike pair. I must admit that I am particularly happy when with smaller groups, the drums are well recorded (realistic staging). This really seems to set the musical scene for me. Incidentally, I'm not upset by any need to mix appropriately and adjust recordings professionally for good sound, it's just any way out stuff (including unnaturally loud rim shots) that is annoying. In fact these remind me of many of the not so old action movies where a fist connecting to a jaw sounded like two garbage tin lids being crashed together. Probably what the effects people did actually.:eek:

[Mr Kipling]

Then again, didn't Linn hold the view that soundstaging wasn't important. Perhaps that's changed now.

Going back to the main point in the OP, i don't get annoyed with the gymnastic feats of images at times. I'm quite happy listening to vocals right instruments left. Going back to The Beatles when the first cd editions came out in '88 George Martin was interviewed on Radio 4 and the question why was the first 4 albums only in mono? His answer of course was that that was how they originally came out. He then added that he had nothing to do with the stereo mixes of these albums, which surprised me a bit.

I like a good 3D image. For me though, it's all about depth. Nothing worse than having the depth perspective flat as a pancake, especially when listening to something that is mono. When i was younger there was a period when i wouldn't bother with anything mono. At some point though, i grew out of it.