Subject:Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo Box Set)

Posted by: MisterV619

Date:12/12/2009 11:46:32 PM

Anyone hear some of the newly remastered Beatles music? The music sounds great, but the way they mixed it leaves a lot to be desired in regards to the way some of the vocals were panned on some of their earlier work.

Anyone know how to shift the panning of the music to shift the vocals dead center while still maintaining a stereo sound?

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:12/13/2009 4:03:36 AM

Get ahold of the original multitrack masters and remix it yourself.

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo Box Set)

Reply by: MarkWWW

Date:12/13/2009 6:25:04 AM

You don't refer to any specific tracks so I am going to suppose that your "some of their earlier work" refers to those tracks which were issued in both mono and stereo versions, with the stereo version having the vocals on one channel and the backing track on the other channel.

If that is what you are referring to then no, there is no way to achieve a true stereo mix from these originals. Your best bet is to listen to the mono versions which is how they were originally intended to be heard and were heard by virtually everyone at the time. (Stereo had not taken off in the marketplace at this time, and by the time it did modern mixing principle of creating a soundstage by panning mono signals and/or using true stereo recording had been established, replacing the separate-vocals-and-instruments model that these early experiments represent.)

The problem is that although it is easy to separate the vocal and the instrumental on these recordings, what you end up with are two mono tracks, not stereo material.

You could make a fake stereo version with these tracks, by processing them with a mono-to-stereo effect, but all this would do is filter the material with a comb filters and send alternate frequency lobes to left and right giving a pseudo-stereo widening effect. It would not be a representation of how the original material would have sounded if it has been mixed in a modern stereo style, just a cheap fake.

In the early days of the Beatles, the mono mix was the one that was regarded as the principal mix and the one that most of the time and trouble was lavished over. The stereo mixes of the early Beatles singles/albums were just quick knockoffs done after the important mono version was agreed on - the Beatles themselves didn't care about these stereo versions and never particpated in the stereo mix sessions though they were always there during the mono mix sessions. (In fact some people suggest that even George Martin didn't participate in some of the very early stereo mix sessions, delegating them junior personnel). It wasn't until as late as the White album that the stereo version became the principle version - from then on the mono version (when/where issued) was just a mono reduction of the stereo version. But right up until Sgt. Pepper the mono mix is the one they intended you to hear, and is the one to go for. And if you haven't heard the original mono version of Sgt. Pepper you owe it to your ears to hear it - its so much more powerful that the stereo version.

Mark

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo Box Set)

Reply by: Bob N

Date:12/13/2009 8:05:58 AM

"The problem is that although it is easy to separate the vocal and the instrumental on these recordings, what you end up with are two mono tracks, not stereo material."

This may relate to a question I have regarding a Gene Krupa & Anita O'Day LP that I have. It's a compilation of 1940's recordings that have been "Electronically re-recorded to simulate stereo", according to the album cover. I attempted to force this back to mono years ago when I had Sound Forge XP, back in the Sonic Foundry days. Is there any way in SF9 to recreate the original mono?

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: drbam

Date:12/13/2009 11:51:01 AM

I question whether the OP ever listened to the original recordings closely because what he describes is the way they were originally mixed. Or he doesn't know the difference in mixing and mastering. Bottom line is that the original mixes are intact. The new Beatles stuff is a re-mastering project - not remixing.

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: MisterV619

Date:12/13/2009 5:23:10 PM

I understand the original was in mono and is how it was intended to be heard. My question was in reference to remixing- I prefer listening to vocals dead center. I'm not a diehard purist that needs to hear it strictly like the original. I know there are plugins which convert stereo to 5.1 surround. Just wondered if there was something similar which affected panning in a stereo mix.

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: MarkWWW

Date:12/14/2009 5:51:06 AM

> I prefer listening to vocals dead center

If you listen to it in mono then the vocals will be dead centre.

> there are plugins which convert stereo to 5.1 surround

These plugins convert stereo to fake surround, in similar ways to the fake stereo-ising I referred to in my previous answer.

> something similar which affected panning in a stereo mix

The tool required is the pan pot.

But the problem is that in this case you don't have individual control of all the elements you would need to create a proper stereo mix. All you've got is a separate mono track of the vocals and another separate mono track of the instruments. If you want the vocals in the centre you can put them there, but what will you do with the instruments? If you wanted to I suppose you could leave them all on one side, but that would sound just as bizarre to modern ears as the original vocals-on-one-side,-instruments-on-the-other-side mix that you don't like. The only sensible choice would be to put the instruments in the middle as well, and then you just have a mono mix as previously recommended.

In order to create a proper stereo mix you would need to have access to the original multitrack so that you could route the various instruments individually - vocals to the centre, or probably Paul and John slightly each side of centre, bass guitar and kick drum to the centre, rest of the drums panned somewhere near their true positions in the kit, rhythm guitar one side, lead guitar the other side, for example. But (a) you don't have access to the original multitrack, and (b) in the case of the Beatles, on the early stuff the original multitrack was only 4-track anyway, successive overdubs being bounced from track to track as the session progressed, so that at the end it probably consisted of: 1. Vocals, 2. Drums & Perc, 3 Guitars, 4 Bass & anything else, or something like that, which wouldn't be sufficient separation to create a decent stereo mix anyway. It wasn't until people were able to use 8-track recording pocesses that it really became possible to construct a decent stereo mix from this kind of music.

But if you really want to create a vocals-in-the-middle,-instruments-on-one-side mix then it is possible to do so. You just need to split the "stereo" mix into two separate mono tracks, one for the left channel and the other for the right channel. Then you pan the instruments track to one side, and the vocals track to the centre, of a new stereo mix. Note that this is not the kind of thing that Sound Forge is really intended for - Vegas would be a better tool for this kind of thing. But I really don't think you'll like the end result any better than the original "stereo" mix - it will just sound so wierd to modern ears.

Mark

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: Steven Myers

Date:12/14/2009 6:20:45 AM

I don't, but if I did have this need, I would do this:
Easy enough to separate the vox from everything else. Run one of the pseudo-stereo plugs on the everything else. Pan the vox to dead center. Mix.
It would sound fake, but what the heck, I wouldn't know the difference anyway. Or, apparently, care.

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:12/15/2009 9:37:58 PM

"I don't, but if I did have this need, I would do this:
Easy enough to separate the vox from everything else."

How, exactly?

Given that the vox are panned to one side, you can't use the usual phase-reversal trick to remove them. Not that it works anyway.

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:12/16/2009 4:01:30 AM

Since the vox is already isolated in one channel, it's already separated. That step is already accomplished.

Subject:RE: Help change vocal panning (Beatles Stereo

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:12/17/2009 4:31:06 AM

I have the new remastered set. The vocals are not isolated as far as I can hear. There are other instruments on there as well. It's not the same on every track, but I don't think there are any that just have the vox on one side.