Why does EVH only come out of my left headphones?

[Beyer160]

If you take a stereo image and adjust it "so that there is enough sound coming from both channels that the middle of the stereo image is in the middle",Then you have killed the stereo age and the sound becomes mono. then you DON't have a stereo image anymore.

 

 

Not true. It's entirely possible to have a centered stereo image- put a pair of Neumann KM84s in XY configuration over a drum kit or a couple feet in front of an acoustic guitarist. You'll get a nice sense of space without sounding lopsided. Simply panning mono sources left or right is sometimes referred to as "dual mono" because of the lack of true stereo information. This link may help explain what I'm talking about (with sound samples, no less):

http://www.shurenotes.com/issue25/article.asp

 

I agree that Templeman was trying to optimize the sound field for late '70s listening conventions- if you were doing bong hits on the couch in front of the stereo with your buddies, Ed's guitar blasting out of one side of the room while the bass pumped out of the other sounded awesome. The first Ramones album had been done the same way two years before.

 

Regarding the early Beatles stereo tracks with the vocals on one side and the band on the other, those were never actually intended to be listened to that way. In those days, the mono 45 was king and the most important thing was getting the vocal level correct. Once 2-channel tape machines came into use, records were mixed instruments/vocals in order to let the mastering engineer fine-tune the vocal level on the 45 acetate. Later on when stereo had become the listening format of choice, some genius at EMI found all the old Beatles masters marked "stereo" and put them out without consulting George Martin.

[DaveAronow]

 

Not true. It's entirely possible to have a centered stereo image- put a pair of Neumann KM84s in XY configuration over a drum kit or a couple feet in front of an acoustic guitarist. You'll get a nice sense of space without sounding lopsided. Simply panning mono sources left or right is sometimes referred to as "dual mono" because of the lack of true stereo information. This link may help explain what I'm talking about (with sound samples, no less): http://www.shurenotes.com/issue25/article.asp I I agree that Templeman was trying to optimize the sound field for late '70s listening conventions- if you were doing bong hits on the couch in front of the stereo with your buddies, Ed's guitar blasting out of one side of the room while the bass pumped out of the other sounded awesome. The first Ramones album had been done the same way two years before. Regarding the early Beatles stereo tracks with the vocals on one side and the band on the other, those were never actually intended to be listened to that way. In those days, the mono 45 was king and the most important thing was getting the vocal level correct. Once 2-channel tape machines came into use, records were mixed instruments/vocals in order to let the mastering engineer fine-tune the vocal level on the 45 acetate. Later on when stereo had become the listening format of choice, some genius at EMI found all the old Beatles masters marked "stereo" and put them out without consulting George Martin.

 

 

You will indeed get a sense of space because each mike is picking up different parts of the kit and different parts of the reflective waves bouncing around the room, BUT, it is more of a perceived sense of space based on the brains experience of how.those sounds would sound in a natural environment but it is NOT a stereo effect.

 

You can call it what ever you want but if you pan both those mics exactly center, it will sound exactly the same to the ears and brain as it would if you put both those mics into a central centered single mono speaker.

 

You at that point, either with the single speaker, or using two speakers but both sides panned directly center, have lost all direction and REAL audible sence of space, and only have the time based differences to use as stereo clues to go on at that point. The two situations would be an exact analogy to taking a stereo cred and delay room simulator effect,.and then running it in mono. You would still hear the time based reflections, delay and verb of the initial signal etc, but that is ALL you have. It would by defenition NOT be stereo. It would be mono.

 

The only sense of space you would have would be an implied sense of space based only on differences in the time parts of the wave reach your ears but no direction whatsoever.

 

This is NOT stereo.

 

The only way for something to be stereo, after it leaves your speakers, is to have two speakers seperated at least far enough apart that you aren't hearing them as one, and equally importantly, each speaker must absolutely be presenting different tonal and timing audio waves from each other however subtly, but there HAS to be differences, otherwise the signal will be perceived as coming from in front of you, or at least from the midpoint in distance between the two speakeasy,.considering the volume of each speaker is the same.

 

Don't confuse taking a mono signal and sending it to only the left speaker, and then taking a different mono signal and sending it only to the right speaker, as having anything to do with a mono sound. As soon as those seperate mono signals leave both speakers simultaneously, the collective sound becomes stereo even if the components are mono.

 

I know this is NOT what you were saying in your example.

 

Your example has nothing to do with stereo once it leaves the speakers, and even though you hear the combined effect of two mics recording different sides of the kit and different sides of the room, they are presented after the fact and are combined together from the same place(center) and same time, and you will indeed have zero stereo effect. The signal and sound will be 100% mono even if your brain perceived or invents a "sense of space" because of all the time based differences.

 

If you care to test this, and if you agree that if we only have one total speaker, it is a mono system, then try listening to your example through two speakers, each side panned dead center, and then try just using one speaker which we both agree is absolutely mono, and you will hear exactly the same thing as you did with the two speakers because the two speaker example is equally as mono in presentation to your ears( which is where all the action is, and what matter) as the single speaker example was. The exact same "perceived" sense of space would still be there with only the one speaker. It is only a perceived sense of space and has absolutely nothing to do with a stereo signal.

 

Try the two speaker-one speaker a/b experiment.

 

See if what just took me ten minutes to write takes your more than one second to hear. It won't. Unless you are completely deaf in at least one ear.

 

You will instantly hear what I just explained and get a better sense of what the difference between what a stereo sound is, and what it is not. There is no overlap. Either something is either stereo, no matter how subtle, or it is mono.

 

Of course we are only talking about two or less channels and speakers here, and not talking about quadraphonic,.or multiple monitor surround sound.

 

And lastly, in your example, the lopsided sound, in my opinion, would only come from centering both those mics because the sound would become one dimensional and not be an example of what was really happening in that room from a listeners' stand point.

 

Panning both those mics to different sides from each other would be what that room and situation sounded like in real life. If we are not talking about creating art or an effect, and just using this example to as which example sounds more like a real room and a real drum kit, the panned example would sound like real life and the centered one would either sound artificia.

 

That is an interesting anecdote about the Beatles. I've never heard that before, if you are correct, and have always been under the impression, as most people are, that they just did that on purpose because stereo was simply kind of like a new toy they were playing with. This would be the first time I heard that about all those queerly mixed Beatles records and would make more sense of why they did it, IF you are talking about all of their records. I'd still have to believe that at least some of that wierdest as far as panning on some of those records was done on purpose for artistic effect.

[DaveAronow]

To you younger guys who only listen to music on your iPods, you should have seen the "stereos" we used to have. Some of them even had a stereo/mono switch so you could make the speaker mix all balanced (and boring).

To me, the difference between listening to something in mono that could of been and should have been presented in stereo, is the difference between looking at a photograph of, say, the most spectacular sunset, or the aurora borealis, in blak and white.

[Space coyote]

van hagar sucked bad

 

 

What about Van Cherone??

[soundcreation]

 

What about Van Cherone??

 

 

Personally I liked it better than Van Hagar.

 

Basically for me...I thought "without you" was a better song than ANY song from the Hagar era. The rest of the Cherone album was....meh....but that's still enough for me to give gary the edge.

 

I will be in the minority on this one though.

[jrockbridge]

To you younger guys who only listen to music on your iPods, you should have seen the "stereos" we used to have. Some of them even had a stereo/mono switch so you could make the speaker mix all balanced (and boring).

 

The good old days....

 

[Beyer160]

 

That is an interesting anecdote about the Beatles. I've never heard that before, if you are correct, and have always been under the impression, as most people are, that they just did that on purpose because stereo was simply kind of like a new toy they were playing with. This would be the first time I heard that about all those queerly mixed Beatles records and would make more sense of why they did it, IF you are talking about all of their records. I'd still have to believe that at least some of that wierdest as far as panning on some of those records was done on purpose for artistic effect.

 

 

The early singles were done the way I described but once you get to stuff like Revolver, yeah, they were just {censored}ing with the stereo field 'cause they could.

[*BLEEP*]

I hate unbalanced stereo images.

Press the button on your stereo labeled "mono" and the problem will be fixed.

[Doctor49]

To me, the difference between listening to something in mono that could of been and should have been presented in stereo, is the difference between looking at a photograph of, say, the most spectacular sunset, or the aurora borealis, in blak and white.

 

 

without reproducing all of Dave's posts above.............

 

my acoustics professor, an authroity on all this, famously stated "stereo is at best 3 dB better than mono"

Meaning that two channel recordings cannot and do not recreate a natural auditory environment, but give a synthetic sense of location of sources that is then modified by the reproduction train, the room, the listeners position, orientation, head shape and ears.

 

It is another useful tool in creating imagery.

[jrockbridge]

So, nobody listens to music in 5.1 or 7.1? Primitive.