Why is Paul stuck singing in Left Channel?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tucci
  • Start date Start date
T

Tucci

New member
I've noticed that in older recordings (like the Beatles) certain tracks are panned all the way to the left or right. It sounds kind of cool. Was there a special reason for this and why isn't it done on most recordings today? What are the pros and cons of recording in this style?

Tucci
 
They didn't quite have the technique down for stereo back then. The 1960s version of K00L m1x1ng was to have the widest possible separation, so that if you had stereo hifi equipment, you could blow your friends' minds by saying, "Look, Paul is coming out of just the left speaker!". And then they would be shamed into buying stereo also.

Back then if you were rich you could afford stereo records, since a regular mono album LP cost $3.98 but the same album in stereo was $4.98. And a dollar was a dollar!!!!
 
On Van Halen's first album the guitar is panned to one side and the bass is panned to the other... How sound is that??? A producer would laugh you out of the studio if you asked him to do this today... yet it is one bad-assed album...
Just a thought...
 
The one rule is that: There are no rules!
If you want to pan background vocals to one side....do it. (Three Dog night did it too)

I like to experiment with panning. (Electric guitar left, Accoustic right) and so on.

However I think most agree that bass, Lead vocals and important instrumental melodies
need to be centered in the stereo field.

Other wise someone sitting closer to one side or the other will miss something essentrial to the song. It is unlikely that anyone will be seated in the"Sweet Spot" perfectly between the two speakers all the time!

Dom Franco
 
Hi there

The reason it sounds like the beatles panned the vocals all the way to the left or right, wasn't actually panning and it wasn't because they thought it sounded cool. George Martin used this technique so he had "multi-tracking " capability. Since most people only had mono record players, he would record the band playing all the instruments together on one track and then record the vocals to the second track ... thus preventing all the music being played again if the vocals needed to be redone. Basically it gave him a little more flexibility and allowed him to be a little more creativity.

Cheers
Aussie
 
Thanks for all the feedback. All that is very interesting. So George Martin had only 2-track capabilitly? But I thought that Seargent Pepper was recorded on 4-track. When exactly did 4-track capability happen in recording?

Tucci
 
They had 4-tracks all along, and anyone who thinks that 16 and 32 tracks didn't exist back then are crazy. And Yes, the Beatles used panning because it sounded cool, Not because of aural isolation during recording. Paul often put his voice to one side (with NO reverb at all) for a pleasant, "right-beside-you" feel.. Plus, if the voice is in one side, when (for a chorus, say) a double-track comes in on the other side it sounds even better. John always wanted things 'moving' from one side to the other, the best example of this is Revolution 9 :)
 
maybe im just young and stupid..but who are the beatles ? hehe :D
 
Beatles = four musical persons from England who learned to spend more time in the studio than on stage. Too bad they didn't have this page in those days - they could have got into the studio phase quicker.
 
Hey S8-N - good point about the first Van Halen album. I read in Performance magazine a while back that Ted Templeman knew he had a guitar god on his hands, so he purposely panned over Eddie's lead tracks to isolate the sound. If you set the balance all the way to the right, you won't here any lead at all!
 
I always set apart two kinds of modern music.. One kind seperates instruments and vocals onto seperate channels and pans things across and generally does whatever it can to create an 'atmosphere'. The other kind is boring. Compare some of the toneless, lifeless 'rock' coming out nowadays with what the Beatles did.. It's all in the delivery..

Well, not all. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top