Roots Archives Forum

12" version of Pain by Brigadier Jerry
Pop no style-LinvaL Thompson

I used to love the split stereo when i was younger as you could mix down the track with the balance knob.

Nowadays i convert the tunes in Logic as a mono track.They're not mixed as proper stereo anyway so you don't lose anything.

I also have some Motown recordings with split stereo

Bless

Visitor wrote:Also the album called "Silver Bullets" by Silvertones is almost completely separated...

Picked that LP up the other week and must confess I never noticed that! All I can remember is that I thought it sounded (on a sonic level) fantastic. Best I dig it out tonight and give it another spin.

Lion wrote:Split stereo or fake stereo albums where in ina late '60 early '70 in music.
Even Pop albums like the Beatles where in split Stereo and are remasterd in real stereo in the '80.

Lion

Lion quote myself;)

Visitor wrote:Theres also the quite famous "Soul Rebels" by Bob Marley... the vocals (and Peter Tosh's melodica) and the riddim track are seperated.

It's definitely been 'fixed' on my version - the early 00s Trojan re-release (the one with 22 tracks).

6anbatte wrote:Picked that LP up the other week and must confess I never noticed that! All I can remember is that I thought it sounded (on a sonic level) fantastic. Best I dig it out tonight and give it another spin.

Again, only the JA issue (on Black Art label) is split stereo.

>Even Pop albums like the Beatles where in split Stereo
>and are remasterd in real stereo in the '80.

george martins productions of beatles albums were never "split stereo". they had significant separation, yes, but nothing like what i think of as "split stereo"...which to me is the cheesy technique of riddim in one channel, vocal in the other. basically a cheap way of overdubbing the instrument track while leaving the instrument track clean to use again (and again and again) and being able to claim "stereo" without actual mixing into stereo (probably because they only had mono masters to work from). martins beatle production was meant to reproduce how a band would more or less sound in person with different noises coming from different channels including infinite "middle" channels caused by various levels of sounds in both channels alongside some exclusively in the left or right channel.

and somehow i doubt they were "remastered in real stereo" in the 80s. what you probably mean is that the very first albums (before the popular acceptance and production of true "stereo") may have been mixed to mono and then the infamous "rechanneled for stereo" for the stereo releases which just totally messed up the track...those may have had a first-time true stereo mix made from 16 or whatever track masters on those beatle cds released in the 80s (which were met with great fanfare initially and then i think almost universal "what the hell was i thinking?" by the same reviewers a few years later because, frankly, they squeezed all the life out of them. ever hear the "unsurpassed masters" series of illegitimate beatles releases? now THATS how much of that early music was meant to be heard.)

for me it was george martin original mixes or mono...the 80s "new stereo" mixes were pretty unimaginative and if you ask me sounded much better in mono.

however, those "rechanneled for stereo" beatles records were NOT "split stereo"...they were just crap faux stereo mixes taken from mono masters and separated based on frequency (near as i could ever figure out).

one love
jah bill

I can think of an album that was originally purely mono (but was later frequently released with "fake" stereo) that was re-issued in true stereo : Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys.

They had to synchronize different separate tapes (a tedious job) and then mix the tracks in a way it still sounds as it was mixed back in the days. The result is as it is : quite good. It adds a better perception of the instruments, but not something really new to the music.

But now it's getting a little more off-topic...

N.

Thanks JB for info.

I like the mono version of the Beatles.

Lion

@ jah bill: how you describe the beatles''seperate'stereo'sounds to me like split stereo: to make a fake stereo effect by putting mono tracks either left or right stereo channel (or in both, btw this is also the case by numerous jamaica split stereo albums)

that Apple records did a better job than most Jamaican (and american blues/soul/rock & roll) labels is more a matter of production budgets and care than anything else

>I figure by the time I'm 60 and deaf

most likely it wont take until youre sixty (dont know how old you are but if youre in your twenties it will start making itself apparent by your thirties) and you wont be deaf but you will have a constant background noise ("ringing" or high pitched whine) that your brain will probably compensate for so you dont physically hear it under normal circumstances but it will be a constant background noise that will obscure your hearing to the point that while not "deaf" you will have trouble understanding what is being said, especially in crowded noisy circumstances.

ask how i know.

and good luck on the bionic ear replacements. start saving all your money now.

one love
jah bill