Roots Archives Forum

Hello and blessings to all.

Can anyone offer me any insight in to early 60's/70's Jamaican Recording and pressing techniques?

I realise a lot of studio's and producers did things in different ways, but I'm puzzled about a couple of things, in particular the use of mono releases as opposed to stereo, this seems to have happened quite a lot with many many early tunes and to my surprise I discovered that a lot of the tunes we all know and love so much are actually only half of the original recordings (Serious)!!

I've been painstakingly restoring many of these tracks back to their original stereo mixes, which takes a great deal of researching and always leads me to ask myself the same question, "Why were so many of these cuts pressed/released as mono when they were originally recorded almost always in stereo"? It does seem that many of these mono cut's do turn up as separate releases featuring different mc's or even as other Dub versions, maybe this was the reason or could it have to do with something elese like Pressing techniques?... Sound systems?... To make more mixes?...

The mono mixes will sound flat and lifeless compared to the original stereo mixes and as these tunes were being originally mixed in stereo by people like Perry, Mikey Dread, Tubby, Scientist (well everyone) I'm sure there's a lot that we didn't get to hear, they were definitely experimenting with stereo panning on their delays and other effects. From the tracks I Have restored by literally piecing together the original mono split track releases, I can tell you that what we are hearing (even now) is nothing compared to the music they were actually mixing.

All recording studio's worked in Stereo, every studio had two monitors (at least) they certainly worked and mixed down to a stereo (2 track) recorder, the desks they used in those days also ran in stereo. If they were then having to release only in mono then this raises a dilemma, which channel to release to the public?. . . . The left or the right? Another example you've all heard is Lee Perry tracks with all his vocals mixed hard left? and bare instrument tracks panned right? Could it be that Perry/Black ark (and many many other studios) were probably mixing like this so as they could release mono vocal tracks from one channel and mono instrumental tracks from the other channel for mc's or for other studio's to Dub, this is just a guess at the moment, maybe there's another reason? I'm fairly sure the artists and engineers would have wanted more than anything to have seen their mixes being cut in full stereo, so maybe there was a more likely technical explanation. Could it be because they couldn't press Vinyl records in Stereo? or was there a demand for mono records from the sound systems? Or something else maybe, like radio stations wanting mono cuts?

These could be some of the reasons, the thing is there was definitely a trend of this kind of thing happening and I'm sure it wasn't being done without good reason, If we can find these original stereo tapes then it's likely we would hear cut's that we all know but have never heard properly before. From mono cut's we can piece back together (some) of the original mixes but not easily, this is what I'm doing presently with every spare minuet of time I have, I'm currently working on a eight and a half minuet long cut of "Weatherman skank" which is sounding mind blowing at it's full track length and in stereo, it's also mind blowing to think that the last person to properly hear this cut was likely Mikey dread alone, it's the same with many of the cut's I'm restoring.

Which brings me to another problem, if you can't understand the stereo thing, then think of this. The recording time on those old 45's was only around 4 mins at most, it's only because of the time limit of these 45's that so many of these tracks were so short. 12" singles weren't often cut to my knowledge, so there's why these early cut's are so short, just think somewhere in some back room recording studio are tapes with all the full length recordings on lol, who knows how long they really were.

Anyway, this points to pressing limitations as being the possible culprit for so many cut's being released as mono, with in some cases only half their instrument parts (no joke), Can anyone confirm any of this?


Any thought;'s would be much appreciated.

B&B.

I don't quite follow your flow with this: at times you refer to the tracks being "mono", and otehr times you refer to them as "only one channel, with the other missing". Mono isn't the same as half of a stereo mix.

In most cases with old records, any "stereo" mix would be lost at the mastering stage, as older mono equipment was used until the 70's. If any part of the production chain from the recording tape to the physical disc mastering is in mono, then any stereo aspect is lost.

I am not sure why you would assume that all records were mixed in stereo originally. Do you have examples of a song that were released with only the "left" or "right" sides?

Its because of the nature of the music (with the emphasis on the bass or bass instruments) which causes the records to skip or bump if you put that in stereo.

this comes from the website of a US pressing company:

A cutting stylus moves from side to side to cut material that is in-phase or mono. This makes for a groove of a relatively standard depth, which is easy to track. When low-frequency material contains a good deal of out of phase content (panned bass synthesizers or bass guitars perhaps), the groove must begin to make each wall of the groove do different things, which it can only do by cutting up and down rather than side to side. Excessive vertical motion makes for a groove that can be difficult for many turntables to track during playback and is usually compensated for for in a couple of different ways. One is the use of an elliptical equalizer, which uses an adjustable frequency, below which all frequencies (the bass material) are summed together into mono. This takes care of vertical groove cutting problems, but may do things to the program material that were not intended or desired. The other method is to split the signal into its mono and stereo components and then to use a limiter on the stereo portion to reduce movement in the out-of-phase portion of the signal. Both of these processes can be made to work, but ultimately, the best solution is to avoid the problem during mixing by keeping bass instruments more or less in mono when vinyl is a possible release format.

and btw.. Most original mastertapes are long gone. Rotted away due to the tropical climate, stolen, thrown away or simply destroyed (like with most of the Studio One catalogue ) Most of the repressings you see nowadays are taken from old stampers or sometimes vinyl to vinyl copies (with digital audio restoration )

this is a photo of Bunny Lee's basement....

http://www.enuui.org/public/dub/striker ... chives.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3650/335 ... 71.jpg?v=0

You may find these threads of interest;

**["Albums where the stereo mix is vocals one channel music the other (I ROY)"](http://www.roots-archives.com/forum/rea ... 960,page=1)**

**["Cables - What kind of world / Studio one english press"](http://www.roots-archives.com/forum/rea ... 099,page=1)**

skylarker60 wrote:and btw.. Most original mastertapes are long gone. Rotted away due to the tropical climate, stolen, thrown away or simply destroyed (like with most of the Studio One catalogue ) Most of the repressings you see nowadays are taken from old stampers or sometimes vinyl to vinyl copies (with digital audio restoration )

this is a photo of Bunny Lee's basement....

http://www.enuui.org/public/dub/striker ... chives.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3650/335 ... 71.jpg?v=0

Interesting photos, thanks for sharing!

skylarker60 wrote:Its because of the nature of the music (with the emphasis on the bass or bass instruments) which causes the records to skip or bump if you put that in stereo.

this comes from the website of a US pressing company:

A cutting stylus moves from side to side to cut material that is in-phase or mono. This makes for a groove of a relatively standard depth, which is easy to track. When low-frequency material contains a good deal of out of phase content (panned bass synthesizers or bass guitars perhaps), the groove must begin to make each wall of the groove do different things, which it can only do by cutting up and down rather than side to side. Excessive vertical motion makes for a groove that can be difficult for many turntables to track during playback and is usually compensated for for in a couple of different ways. One is the use of an elliptical equalizer, which uses an adjustable frequency, below which all frequencies (the bass material) are summed together into mono. This takes care of vertical groove cutting problems, but may do things to the program material that were not intended or desired. The other method is to split the signal into its mono and stereo components and then to use a limiter on the stereo portion to reduce movement in the out-of-phase portion of the signal. Both of these processes can be made to work, but ultimately, the best solution is to avoid the problem during mixing by keeping bass instruments more or less in mono when vinyl is a possible release format.

Thanks, this is interesting.

Stereo became a bit of a gimmick in the 60's, as a means of re-releasing old material in a new format.

They sold it as being "better" beacause we have two ears, but failed to mention that we still process it through one brain! I'm quite happy with the depth and resonance of mono.

the info. posted by skylarker60 is relative to why you sometimes hear unreal bass sounds from old JA 45's, you can cut heavier bass in mono with less potential for error than in stereo. also probably because JA mastering engineers didn't only cut within RIAA curve.

anyway, davek is right in his first post.

Nice one everybody, this is a wealth of information I'm very grateful, thanks a lot guys.

I think this phenomena was more likely an easy way of stretching out their mixes, knowing they were catering by and large for the mono market, this fact encouraged them to split their stereo tracks up, that way they could sell more, here's a good example in Lee Perry's "Apeman skank" There is no Left Channel present at all, it's been completely removed and actually left empty, so no stereo summing there either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAP6yCWGdE

The full stereo mix featuring Scratches Vocals was released as Caveman skank. So here it looks as though he was quickly creating two cuts, a vocal and an instrumental from the same stereo recording, in fact you can hear Scratches vocals occasionally dropping in and out on to the right channel of Apeman skank, and it is odd that there was no stereo summing, then again this was a stereo LP not a mono 45.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbJMkdGDaus

I thought this was just a one off at first, until after searching for material to patch up some damaged parts I found a couple of Studio one tracks that had also been given the same treatment, double releases of split stereo mixes again released as two separate mono singles, then I kept finding them more and more. The question is, how many mono tracks are there out there that were originally stereo mixes, I think there were a lot, now I'm working on this King tubby track - Weatherman skank which was also once a stereo mix, but only released as (again) two split mono recordings (not summed stereo) actually left/right splits.

I've uploaded a short clip for you guys to preview, I'm only part way through the restoration and it's still in it's very roughest stages, but it's extremely interesting to hear (I presume it's Tubby) mixing this Dub cut in Stereo.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mcuhisl8w5sbsaw

I don't want to blow my own horn hear but to the best of my knowledge this is a previously unreleased and unheard Tubby/Mikey Dread cut, yes we have all heard one or other of the mono cut's but, though this is rough, we can for the first time hear it as it was meant to be heard and as it was originally mixed.

Note the use of the returning reverb from the guitar parts that's panned left and right, the organ panned right, the horns are panned left, drums and hi hats etc panned right, then there are several uses of stereo sound effects created by Perry and Tubby for Mikey dread I believe, what's interesting also with the use of these stereo sound effects is that on the mono cut's we actually only heard one side of them, either the left or the right depending on what cut you were listening too.

The restoration is going to take about another week, like I said the full mix is 8.30 long (this length is a little unusual I agree) my guess is that Mikey may have kept it for his personal use on tape or perhaps had an extra long mix made for his radio show, to be played directly from tape, then split off the various 7" and LP releases from that. (imo)

Just a short plug, I'm hoping to find any body who's in need of this kind of restoration work, not just labels but also anyone with rare cuts/dubplates who would like to hear them professionally restored, please feel free to get in touch.

The above is not a good example of my work unfortunately as it is only part way completed. I don't have any contacts with any of the right people in the industry at the moment, so I'm going to auction the mix on dubplate sometime around Christmas, hopefully someone's ears will prick up and some proper archiving can be done.

Regards

B&B