Martha My Dear "above head" panning

[abbazabba]

I put on a pair of headphones and to listen to "Martha My Dear" off the Beatles' White Album and the vocals felt like they were on top of my head, not between my eyes or in front of me like centered lead vocals usually are. I scanned several of the other songs on that disc and the lead vocals weren't like that. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what is done to achieve this effect?

[gtrman_66]

LSD

[Monkey Allen]

Sounds like the vocal comes mainly from the right, but not hard right. It does seem up high, but I don't see anything overly unique about it compared to other songs on the album. In Martha, the music starts out only on the left, then the first verse comes in on the right by itself...this is what could make it seem to stand out a bit. I dunno...that's what I reckon.

[acidrock]

I really like that song,now I'm going to have to go listen to it on headphones.

[acidrock]

Roland used to have an effect called RSS,or Roland Space Simulation.It would allow you to move the pecieved direction of a sound as you wore headphone or perfectly placed speakers.

Of course that's not what the Beatles used though...

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Only a guess here too, as I don't have that track to listen to, but historically anything that sounds like it's the top of the head when listening in headphones usually means perfectly equal volume at both ears. This can mean one of three things; that the track is perfectly centered in pan, that it's a "false mono" that is two mono tracks equally panned left and right, or that it's a mono track panned off-center, but balanced out by an opposite inbalance in sensitivity between the two ears.

G.

[acidrock]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

Only a guess here too, as I don't have that track to listen to, but historically anything that sounds like it's the top of the head when listening in headphones usually means perfectly equal volume at both ears. This can mean one of three things; that the track is perfectly centered in pan, that it's a "false mono" that is two mono tracks equally panned left and right, or that it's a mono track panned off-center, but balanced out by an opposite inbalance in sensitivity between the two ears.

G.

Da' Bears

We're going to get you guys that last game of the season!

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by acidrock

We're going to get you guys that last game of the season!

Too little, too late .

Oh, BTW, as a Chicago sports fan, I'm right there with you in the masochism schism

G.

[MadAudio]

Originally Posted by Monkey Allen

Sounds like the vocal comes mainly from the right, but not hard right. It does seem up high, but I don't see anything overly unique about it compared to other songs on the album. In Martha, the music starts out only on the left, then the first verse comes in on the right by itself...this is what could make it seem to stand out a bit. I dunno...that's what I reckon.

Just listened to it (what a great song!) and I agree completely.

[abbazabba]

Oh well, could just be my headphones or something. But I definitely am getting a distinctly different stereo visual on this song than others I've been listening to, and not just on the White Album. I wonder if it's the "false mono" thing Glen mentioned...I'll try that in a mix along with putting the music to the extreme left and right and see if I can replicate it.

[masteringhouse]

3D positioning can be accomplished by manipulating audio phase, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_audio_effect

I doubt that Emerick used this intentionally on this song though. He's a freak about making certain things sound great in mono, and weird phase tricks can cause issues with this.

I once had a similar thing happen in the studio when a guitar player inserted a phase unit without my knowledge to a guitar that was split in stereo. There was a noise that I was hearing behind my head and I kept turning around looking behind me in the room looking for what it was. Everybody though I was nuts until I found it and had him bypass it.