Were songs, recorded in studio "stereo", just a fad?
When stereo music first came out, it was an expected thrill to hear what the studio engineers promised us. Certain instruments to be heard from the left speaker and others in the right. Did the engineers ever get it right? I have yet to hear a stereo recording, without headphones, that thrilled me as promised way back when. Today, most studio recording are back to the old reliable manaural recording, where all sounds come from both speakers.
Question: am I incorrect in my opinion of studio recordings in stereo just being a fad, or was it just my bad hearing?
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Today most studio recordings are not monaural. Monaural means the sound is recorded on a single channel. Given that the specs for CD’s demand 2 channels if you put a monaural recording on a CD you would get an emtpy channel with no sound what so ever from one speaker. Infact studio recording in monaural was phased out by the early 1970’s and no one has looked back.
For a lot of folks headphones are the best sound reproduction they have access to daily. (I fall into this category). They don’t have to use as much power, are positioned perfectly, and already block out much of the outside noise.
Most of the other music I hear is either from my television (with no additional speakers) or in my car where the speakers are down by my feet (not exactly positioned ideally) and road noise eats up a good portion of what they’re putting out. If you’re in the same boat then it’s the setup not being able to faithfully reproduce the recording as opposed to the recording itself. It’s all in stereo, you just can’t hear it.
Take a trip to a home audio or home theater place and ask for a quick demonstration. I’d be shocked if you weren’t impressed by what a good setup can do.
Listen to some Led Zeppelin for some good stereo.
Take a listen to:
Dark side of the moon
Jethro Tull. Thick as a brick
ELP
Any Zep album
Good classic Jazz recordings
The idea of recording in stereo is to give the listener the perception of having the artists in front of them.
When listening to a live performance we are able to see and determine the location of the individual instruments. With a band for example, consisting of a drummer, lead singer, bass player, and guitarist we percive the sound from the individual artists. The lead singer is at the front bass and guitar are on opposite sides and the drummer is center and at the back.
When recorded, stereo modeling (along with reverb) is used to position the different artist in the mix giving your ears the perception of location of each band member.
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