Mono Mixes

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toad_uk

toad_uk

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With music released in the 60s, I've noticed that a lot of people say they much prefer the mono mixes of many classic albums. I realise that an element in this is the fact that a lot of the stereo mixes have drums and bass panned far left and all the vocals over to the right, and things like that.

With that in mind have any of you considered producing mono mixes of your music? I don't just mean fold downs of stereo mixes, but a dedicated mix for stereo.
 
One of the reasons some 60s mono mixes sound better is because the supposed "stereo" is synthesized by some artificial method such as splitting the low and high frequencies of the mono track and panning them separately, or throwing a stereo delay on the mono signal, or something similar. It's not that there was a separate stereo mix and mono mix, it was just that there was only a mono mix, and they faked the stereo effect to try and sell more copies of the recording.

That's not a technique anyone should want to replicate today.

G.
 
I know what you're saying Glen, those electronically created stereo efforts do sound pretty dire don't they. What I'm refering to thought is the comparisons of the mono and stereo mixes of albums like Are You Experienced?, Disreali Gears, Saucerful of Secrets, and of course The Beatles. Like a say, a large part of the favouring of the mono mixes is the way the early stereo mixes where kind of 'off balance', but I am refering to creating a mono mix without the electronic farting about.
 
The other thing that was going on at the time was that they were only recording on 2, 3, and 4 track machines and the mixing consoles didn't have pan controls, they just has a switch that would select left, right and center. There weren't enough separated parts to create a decent stereo mix, but it all worked out in mono.

I will start my mixes in mono and then pan things out once I have the mix working.
 
Yeah, what Farview said is true also. The bottom like is that there wre typically two general reasons why back them there were people who prefered the mono recordings. The first being what Farview and I already mostly covered; because the intentional production and/or the technology called for a mono mix first, with the stereo mix not only as an afterthought, but as something often done outside of the producer's control. And as often as not, the stereo version suffered from it.

But frankly, there was also a second reason; mono snobbery. Just as there were folks who preferred B&W movies as more "authentic" than color or who think that analog coloration is more "authentic" than digital coloration, there were those who felt that mono was simply more "authentic" than stereo.

There still are, supposedly. Just ask Sony, who has just re-released Dylan's original mono albums on Columbia in mono vinyl again.

G.
 
Ah yes, I remember my own early homerecording days with 4 Track cassette, it was very frustrating trying to get a good stereo mix. I guess a lot of it was lack of experience back in the 60s. I've even heard albums recorded on eight track in the 60s have the kick drum far left and the rest of the kit far right, I suppose it took a while to realise that things like that didn't sound right. I suppose it is easier for us now, trying to copy good mixes, when in those days they where creating them with no reference points.

Then of course you have Lenny Kravitz who's recreating those mixes with the drums panned way over to one channel, to recapture the sound of that era.

Another factor is that some of those mono mixes did have elements that weren't used in the stereo mixes, like the mono version of Piper At The Gates of Dawn. So I guess there's also that element, that it's not necessarily better because its mono, but better because it a better mix. That and people probably heard the mono mix first and that's how they remember the album.

I've just tried remixing one or two of my songs in mono and remembered what Farview said about mixing in mono and then panning. It's a method I've never tried before and it did make me think a bit more about eq. I'll have to have another listen once my ears have settled, but the stereo mixes did sound better than my previous mixes of those songs.
 
toad_uk said:
I guess a lot of it was lack of experience back in the 60s. I've even heard albums recorded on eight track in the 60s have the kick drum far left and the rest of the kit far right, I suppose it took a while to realise that things like that didn't sound right.
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And remember there was more of a "newness" to stereophonic sound back then. Sometimes the idea of extreme "unnatural" panning like that was attractive as a gimmicky way of showing off the stereophonic sound. If you had two speakers, you wanted to make damn sure that your neighbor noticed that when he came over for his afternoon Rob Roy while the wives were in the kitchen making the roast ;) :D.

There was a similar fling in the late 60s/early 70s when Mary Jane replaced Rob Roy and you and the neighbor discovered stereo headphones, and Oreos replaced the roast ;).

G.
 
Now you wouldn't be implying that some of those extreme stereo mixes had anything to do with certain chemical or herbal influences would you now Glen? :o
 
Well maybe not so much the early stereo stuff, but stereo headphones managed to ride the psychedelic rock wave with all ten toes hangin' ;)

But sober or not, there's no question that the two discrete channels were toyed with with some abandon early on both out of fascination for and emphasis of the new capability. Kind of hard to sell the stereo vinyl for $2.99 when it sat right next to the mono vinyl of the same album for $1.99 unless there was something to easily attract the customer to the more expensive ones.

I was a little kid in the 60s, not old enough to get into alcohol or weed yet, but old enough to start buying my first records. The stores I frequented (any old Chicagoans remember E. J. Korvette's? ;)) had plenty of both mono and stereo versions of most of the stuff I listened to back then. I played them on my brother's Panasonic stereo system at the time, but I remember more than one instance where I opted for the mono version just to save the money because the stereo version was nothing "special". One only paid for the stereo version if it was "worth" paying for, and back then that as often as not meant something that really showed off the stereo separation.

G.
 
I think some mono mixes sound really great.
I love Elvis Presley's 'Suspicious Minds', bought this as a single in 1969 and it was mono.
Then in 1987 for the 10th Anniversary of his death it was re-mixed from the master tapes into stereo.
I much prefer the mono sound, just something really 'chunky' about it...something unique about the sound.
They also re-mixed 'In The Ghetto' (1969) from mono into stereo and I MUCH prefer the stereo mix.
So I think a lot of it depends upon the song.
For the most part I much prefer the stereo mixes of The Beatles compared to the mono mixes.
When I had a 4 Track I preferred mixing in Mono because the stereo sounded really 'thin'.
There are some songs I'm working on now where I'd like to try some Mono mixes just for the heck of it.

YouTube - Please Tell Me Why
 
I think that whatever the original mix was focused on will sound better.
I recently bought , on vinyl, Parlophone mono pressings of the first 5 Beatle albums which were the original mixes as George Martin envisioned them.
Without a doubt they killed the fake stereo mixes in every way although I had gotten so used to those faux stereo mixes that the proper mono mixes sounded a little wierd to me.
 
There were the time & format factors. With The Zombies O & Oracle Argent & White spent days doing the mono mix and only a few hours doing the stereo mix. The mono mix was the one that radio, home portable players etc wanted & that seems to have been the majority of the market so stereo mixing was a) an afterthought or b) not thought through from a "Real" band performing point of view (as in the 1st Beatles stereo stuff) but more from an demonstration of what "stereo" was then , ie: relatively new, rather high end oriented and gimmicky.
My family didn't have a stereo sound system until the mid 70's so until then the point was moot for me - the radiogram had to suffice. After that & the acquisition of stereo HEADPHONES all bets were off.
I have some great mono stuff - the Back to Mono Spector box, Pet Sounds, O&Oracle & with the latter two seriously done latter stereo remixes and the monos do have something - (nostalgic ear syndrome is ppowerful) - special. The "electronically reproccessed for stereo" stuff ruled the record shops for a while. It was cheap & easy I guess - also fitted into the replace your LPs with CD, replace your CDs with DVDA, replace your DVDA with media centre oriented digital stuff sales pitches.
I've been putting together a mono song of late. Refining the process I usually go through before I starrt panning but this time with NO intention to pan simply to see if I can get something that works as a completed piece in mono. 'taint as easy as it sounds either.
Oh, as a nod to Monoculturalism my mono track is called "listen Like Brian".
 
soooooo thats why my jimi experienced record sounds weird! thanks guys now ebaying the mono, if thatshow it was meant to be during tracking then i bet 99/100 times its better !
 
I only make mono mixes if I know there is a good reason or someone asked me to,
for example if I know that the music is for a show where they have a mono system or something like that.
 
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