Stereo versus mono

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I mix in Mono because I'm deaf in one ear. I have no idea what real understanding of what Stereo sound is. I can understand kind of how it works but have literally never heard it. Sometimes I'll pan guitars, vocals, percussion, etc, a little but I'll be spinning in my seat, pointing my ear from monitor to monitor and guessing really, based on a visual meter.

A lot of producers will mix in Stereo but check the mix in Mono to see how the mix corresponds between the two.
 
Mr Clean said:
I mix in Mono because I'm deaf in one ear. I have no idea what real understanding of what Stereo sound is. I can understand kind of how it works but have literally never heard it. Sometimes I'll pan guitars, vocals, percussion, etc, a little but I'll be spinning in my seat, pointing my ear from monitor to monitor and guessing really, based on a visual meter.

A lot of producers will mix in Stereo but check the mix in Mono to see how the mix corresponds between the two.
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Even one ear gets some directional cues. There's something called pinna effect where the earlobe imparts a spectral "fingerprint" on sounds that varies based on the angle of arrival. It's part of how we can detect longitudinal and vertical placement in addition to the horizontal.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Even one ear gets some directional cues. There's something called pinna effect where the earlobe imparts a spectral "fingerprint" on sounds that varies based on the angle of arrival. It's part of how we can detect longitudinal and vertical placement in addition to the horizontal.
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It does but believe me, when speakers are spread quite wide, it sounds awful. Nearfield, e.g. mixing, is easier to discern the stereo but it still sounds very off. Wide panning is incredibly difficult to work with. Headphones, forget it! It was listening via headphones as a 5 year old with my parents old 60s stereo records that inadvertently told me I was deaf, that and answering phonecalls and there was nobody there. Later proven to be deaf in the right ear from birth. No malleus, incus, or stapes present in my ear.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
In the earliest days of stereo there was a debate over whether it should have two or three channels. It was easier to sell the more affordable two channel systems, so they won out. When the idea of more channels came back around, stereo was associated with two channels, so terms like quadrophonic and surround were invented to distinguish them. But there's no technical reason you couldn't call them stereophonic.
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Yup, 'S'all "stereo". There is of course the visual equivalent, stereoscopic photography so popular in Victorian times. This gives remarkable "solidity" to two dimensional pictures (but not for me now*) but eyes are not ears, they do not have the equivalent of the complex folds of the external ears. Unique to each individual as fingerprints the complex phase changes and 'colourations' they cause to incident sound mean they help us localize sounds in addition to having two ears (Sorry Mr C!) My situation is slightly different in that although I have some hearing in both ears they have very different "frequency responses" and that has changed with time. My right ear was worse years ago but the left has caught up a bit! I am down a good 20dB at and beyond 2kHz but as I say, not the same for both lugs. As a result my stereo resolution is very poor. I can visualize things leftish, rightish and centre but no better than that.

There was a BBC TV 'science' progg about sound where the lady scientist had the folds on her ears filled in with a wax and smoothed over. On a roof top, despite still having two good ears she found it almost impossible to determine the direction of sounds. Of course, if I wear my aids I am in the same position! They make music sound like a bee in a tin anyway so I only use them socially.

I lived through the "Four Channel Stereo " (see?) wars of the '70s. Much akin to the "Beta v VHS" war a bit later but for "quad" there was no winner. The warring factions managed to totally confuse and piss off Joe Public and the idea died. Philips would not allow the cassette standard to carry 4 tracks one way and the various vinyl RF carrier systems were an expensive joke AFAICS? I always though Mini Disc was a very good contender for 2 channel stereo and an encoded L-R track? Once again, 'Greater Powers' intervened I think to rob us?

Yes, we have Home Theatre (not I) but the promise of a virtual seat at the proms at a remotely affordable price has never materialized.

*No central vision in left mince so short distance depth perception is shot. Soldering is now a protracted "blue air" event but I can manage XLRs and jacks. Funnily enough I CAN still get a ball of paper in a bin 2m away 4 out of 5 times. I still drive but not at night.

Dave.
 
The point is that we perceive space with two ears because of processing. The sennheiser dummy heads and Jecklin discs nearly do it. The thing with real ears is the bone conduction component. We don’t record that. I wonder if the computer power available to unmix instruments and remove reverb could be used to unmix stereo into something else? Headphones with little transducers in the over your head bit to wobble your skull?
 
I don't think sound propagating through the air produces much bone conduction.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I don't think sound propagating through the air produces much bone conduction.
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I tend to agree but am not qualified to argue with Mr A! The attenuation from air to water/water to air is very high so I would expect 'air,skin,fat.muscle.bone to be even higher?
 
Or you could just listen to your stereo while lying on your side on a couch.
 
Some years back, ( about 10 years) I saw a video on the tube that was pretty impressive.

The guy was a musician, a tinkerer, and an experimenter.

He multi tracked his band, and rather than doing a standard two speaker mix, he ran each instrument into its own speaker with separate power amps to each one.
The speakers were made with the drivers being mounted in PVC tubing and they were arranged in the positions the band normally took on stage. He then miced the ‘band’ with a pair of condensers

It sounded pretty good, but then again I wasn’t in the room. But even watching a you tube video listening on stereo headphones, you really got the sense of space and positioning of the individual instruments in the stereo field.
 
Papanate said:
Mixing has little to do with real world situations - unless you are trying for real world feedback - a mix is however you want it to be - including Stereo.
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Exactly! The recorded and mixed song is a thing unto itself, often very different from a simply recorded live performance. Do what you want t get the sound you want.
 
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Im still amazed at the quality of old mono recordings. Masters at mic placement and frequency controls.
Even into the 1960's a lot of good Mono recordings.

I recall reading Geoff Emerick tracked all in Mono, as this forced the frequencys to not blur everything. The volumes and freq's setup and tracked and done, the Mono "mix" done.
Then in Mixdown, if it was a STEREO release, he would adjust the pans but not adjust the freq's or volume of the tracks, only move the pan a bit. And George Martin added not fully to left and right but a bit. All the Beatle 45's were Mono except for Get Back and Ballad of J&Y I read...but there's a lot of info out on the Fabs.
Not sure if those Producers/Engineers dropped that approach as Stereo became the thing and Mono releases ended.

It's something anyone can try in the DAW. Track everything in Mono , getting eq and gain completed, and then mix to stereo, not adjust gain or eq on the tracks, only Pan.

or try a stab at Hello Goodbye/I Am The Walrus in Mono like the 45...mind boggling how much is going on in Mono!

Hello Goodbye was possibly written about Stereo saying Hello and Mono saying Goodbye..its a song about a conversation of Stereo talking to Mono...
(I just made that up.)
 
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