LCR mixing in the 1960s

grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
I never really noticed mix positions when I was younger and I didn't care for years about extreme panning. Then I went through a period where I would absolutely hate extreme bass and drum panning. I actually went through an exercise a few years ago where I converted a few albums to mono {via Audacity} because those extreme pannings were really irritating and felt unbalanced, in some cases.
But I've come to realize that it is only when I'm listening in headphones that I find it irritating. If I'm listening through speakers in a room, I don't even notice.
Is that weird ?
 
I get sidetracked when any kind of song has panning that puts the sound image 9 oclock or 3 oclock. As in left, or right. I find I hear that guitar that is only in the left, or worse a percussion instrument that has fast attack like latin percussion. A clave only on the right ruins the mix for me - 10 oclock through to 2 oclock works fine.
 
I’ve never been too jolted by it. The only song I’ve heard that does annoy me is old mixes of Eleanor Rigby where the vocal jumps around. In the latest mix, that’s fixed.
 
I was listening to the engineer geoff emerick the other week who suggested alot of the hard panning around the peppers era was due it being quickly remastered from mono to stereo at the behest of studio execs. At that time classical was still mostly the genre which was in stereo and pop was transitioning to stereo
 
One early session I was present for as a keen teenager was the Syd Lawrence big band doing his versions of Glenn Miller songs. brass - so the trumpets and trombones panned left. The saxes and clarinets were panned right. drums and bass dead centre with voices and soloists. Most strange to listen to as the reverb was pretty basic too - so if you shut off the left channel - you get saxes and the clarinets, but when they weren't playing, you'd get a weird phantom brass reverb - just the brass reverb. Sounded really bad. Sony at that time were pushing stereo really hard - and even got John Cleese to do a stereo v mono demo - "Those awfully nice Sony people have asked me to say a few words" and they played a mono version of 'The Big Country' with very middly EQ - that suddenly went stereo, and got the bass and treble back and went up in volume - he even said "an old trick, but works every time".
 
maxman65 said:
I was listening to the engineer geoff emerick the other week who suggested alot of the hard panning around the peppers era was due it being quickly remastered from mono to stereo at the behest of studio execs. At that time classical was still mostly the genre which was in stereo and pop was transitioning to stereo
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Because Tom Dowd, Atlantic Records' head engineer, leaned hard on the company to mix everything in mono & stereo, they were the only pop label that was ready for stereo lp's. They were also the 1st to place the bass & kick drum up the center so as to have consistently playable stereo discs.
 
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