Shadows Records - mono v stereo

[Iain Purdon]

As we know, the earliest Shadows records were released in mono, the latest ones in stereo, and interim ones in both forms. Received wisdom on this site suggests that the mono ones are in some way better.

Questions for the mono/stereo experts:

a) What makes those mono versions better?

b) If the stereo version is genuine (ie not mocked up from a mono original) can you simply convert it to mono and get all the alleged benefits?

I have my own theories but I honestly don’t know. Do you?

Cheers - Iain

[JimN]

(1) What makes those mono versions better?

it's a matter of opinion, but two reasons that spring to mind are that (a) many listeners heard the classic tracks (and albums) in mono and find the spatially-separated stereo versions less impactful (especially if the bass and drums are shoved off to one side) and (b) some stereo mixes are decidedly off-putting almost by design (Guitar Tango and The Dreams I Dream are examples).

2) If the stereo version is genuine (ie not mocked up from a mono original) can you simply convert it to mono and get all the alleged benefits?

Straight to the chase: No. Collapsing stereo to mono over-emphasizes the gain on any instruments at the centre of the stereo picture. But of course, that entails a value-judgment - some might still think it sounds better than stereo.

One remedy I once saw reported in a magazine article: place the speakers of your stereo system tightly adjacent to each other. That apparently works well and doesn't affect balance. I suppose that two speakers (wired for stereo) in one cabinet might do the trick even better (and a switching system could easily be devised).

[SJB]

from my point of view I think we were very lucky with the original recordings as they were done so well. But possibly recorded with a narrower frequency spread.
All the performers came over well.

(At that time I used to think that Elvis recordings were muddy as were many American recordings of the time. His later ones were better.)

The mono into split stereo were awful.
The later stereo ones were mostly very good - but I think the Bass was more prominent. Have to check.

Playing stereo into mono will give issues if the stereo recording has not been mixed in such a way to allow a mono reproduction. There are some good explanations of this on the web.
References to Combing are explained.
One main issue is when a "Y" connector is used to combine the channels. This will affect the balance and in some cases loose instruments all together.

[Tab]

I enjoy reading about the technicalities but confess to not understanding it. Some of the early albums came in two versions - mono and stereo. Were they recorded or mixed differently?
On the 'Me and My Shadows' album, there were some marked differences. For example, 'Tell Me' had a vocal harmony at the beginning in mono but not in the stereo track. Therefore, in that instance, I prefer the mono track.

[Didier]

I have always preferred stereo to mono recordings, and got equipped for stereo very early. The first Shadows' stereo disc I bought was the "Out of the Shadows" album (10" french release). I still have it, and it must be quite rare...
The Shadows' first album had not been released in stereo in France, I bought it later in England.

Didier

[Garystrat]

H Iain,

There are very good reasons as to why you would collapse a stereo track to mono for mastering, this may also be the reason why some perceive mono as sounding better due to phase cancelling and mono being more critical in terms of what you hear, this is just one of many videos that explains it quite well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMsaHMfIgbY

Regards

Gary

[SJB]

Gary's post shows how the stereo out of phase can affect a track combining stereo channels into mono.

This demo goes a little deeper and gives an insight using up to date kit - how the people mixing stereo so in mono its ok for things like radio do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCFMzF6affA

I have tried to find out which machines the original apache was recorded on. Seems most of the historical stuff starts at 1960 - then drops on to the beetles. Seems likely that apache was recorded in mono initially.

Now for live mixing:-
For bands that use a mixer into a PA system - the PA in mono - then mixing of instruments could get very interesting. Say two guitars playing the same riff - exactly in tune and play timing very accurate , and the same type of guitar with the same settings - could prove interesting. Probably never happen - but the cancelling effect could come and go.

[JimN]

Gary's post shows how the stereo out of phase can affect a track combining stereo channels into mono.

This demo goes a little deeper and gives an insight using up to date kit - how the people mixing stereo so in mono its ok for things like radio do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCFMzF6affA

I have tried to find out which machines the original apache was recorded on. Seems most of the historical stuff starts at 1960 - then drops on to the beetles. Seems likely that apache was recorded in mono initially.

Now for live mixing:-
For bands that use a mixer into a PA system - the PA in mono - then mixing of instruments could get very interesting. Say two guitars playing the same riff - exactly in tune and play timing very accurate , and the same type of guitar with the same settings - could prove interesting. Probably never happen - but the cancelling effect could come and go.

Apache - and a good many other tracks (by all sorts of people) recorded ensemble as one take (even if there were numerous attempts) was recorded just once - but on two set-ups simultaneously, each with a different engineer, in a different control room. The mikes were routed to a stereo mixer and machine on the one hand and to a mono mixer and machine on the other. The mono method of recording to a half-track (or far more likely, full-track recorder) was known at Abbey Road as "delta mono", because the routing diagram inside the mixer resembled the path(s) taken by a river delta (except of course, that the "flow" was the other way round, many channels to one, rather than a river delta's one channel to many).

This continued until multi-track - 4-track in the first instance - started to be used. There have been tales, though, that the 4-track machines were not used immediately and that the older, tried and tested methods continued for a while (even by George Martin).

There are a few sources for this. The first one (I don't know who wrote it, but it's pretty good):

https://www.taisawards.com/inpage/the-shadows/

Another with a general discussion on the "birth" of 4-track at EMI:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/so-why-such-extreme-stereo-separation-on-beatles-albums.301959/page-10

There's an 11-page ShadowMusic discussion at:

http://www.shadowmusic.bdme.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3244

There's a useful discussion on EMI and recording in general at:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/474202-width-knob-abbey-road-mastering-console-2.html

And (this is all for now), see page 28 (in a 1976 article entitled "FROM MONO TO MULTITRACK") at:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Studio-Sound/70s/Studio-Sound-1976-08.pdf

[SJB]

Cheers JimN. Got some reading to do now.

[bgohara]

What about performance differences, or different takes or mixes, between mono and stereo releases?