I can’t recall what thread I was reading when I read a comment about old stereo recordings having complete separation of instruments and/or vocals and how annoying it is to listen to on headphones. I agree it is annoying and basically is attributable to studios tinkering around with “new technology”. Regardless, if you find this annoying as well there is a program that may help you. It’s called Audacity and is free. I has been listed in PC Mags to 101 Freebies in 2007 & 2008. I know it will allow you to convert the mp3 to mono and I think you can copy one channel and add it to the other which might produce a stereo type effect. The program will do a lot of things. The most common thing I use it for is to shorten the length of a track. Suppose a track is 12 minutes but you would like a shorter version for some reason. You call up the mp3 file, find you a good place to fade out the track. Highlight about 5 seconds or so, select Fade Out from tools and it fades the volume out. Then you highlight the remaining part of the song and select Cut. Now you have a shorter version of the track you can export to a new mp3 file. It can do things like change the pitch, increase the volume. A friend of mine uses it quite frequently in his production of videos. The volume increaser I have found useful on recordings I have made of lectures and such.
Like, I said, it’s free and works pretty well. When you install the program it will ask if you plan to export to MP3 and give you a lame codec. That’s the only quirky thing to me about the program. MP3 is the most common audio format and would think it would default to that when you save but you have to select Export to MP3.
Frankly, nothing, but I have only been reading threads in the Clip+ forum and that’s where I read someone complaining about the old stereo recordings. Maybe I should have posted it in another forum. But it’s not like all the posts in this forum stay strictly on topic of Clip+ anyway. I tried for a short while to find the post and reply to it specifically but couldn’t find it. Sorry if the post offended you.
I know it will allow you to convert the mp3 to mono and I think you can copy one channel and add it to the other which might produce a stereo type effect.
Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting taking a perfectly recorded stereo file and converting it to mono just because you don’t like the 2 tracks specifically engineered and designed to play concurrently (aka stereo)?
And then after you convert it to mono, you think you want to take that second track and somehow add it to the mono track to then create a stereo type ‘effect’?
I think I’m going to be ill. I know for a fact my head is spinning trying to see the logic in that.
It’s called Audacity and is free . . . I know it will allow you to convert the mp3 to mono and I think you can copy one channel and add it to the other which might produce a stereo type effect.
Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting taking a perfectly recorded stereo file and converting it to mono because you don’t like the sound of 2 separate tracks meticulously engineered and recorded to play concurrently (aka stereo)?
And then you think you can take the 2nd track and add it to the now mono track and somehow come out with a stereo type ‘effect’?
I think I’m going to be ill. I know my head is spinning from trying to understand the logic behind this.
It’s called Audacity and is free . . . I know it will allow you to convert the mp3 to mono and I think you can copy one channel and add it to the other which might produce a stereo type effect.
Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting taking a perfectly recorded stereo file and converting it to mono because you don’t like the sound of 2 separate tracks meticulously engineered and recorded to play concurrently (aka stereo)?
And then you think you can take the 2nd track and add it to the now mono track and somehow come out with a stereo type ‘effect’?
I think I’m going to be ill. I know my head is spinning from trying to understand the logic behind this.
I was only trying to offer help to whoever wrote wherever it was I read on a thread on this Forum that they found some of the old Beatles stereo mixes annoying to listen in headphones. They could use Audacity to convert it to mono. I wasn’t implying I wanted to do it.
Yeah, my logic on the second is sketchy at best. In theory it would just be mono but I personally haven’t tried it so technically I would hypothesize it would be mono. I have used the program to take recordings from seminars and such that came in mono in only one channel and duplicated it so that it was heard in both channels. Not saying it was now stereo, but mono in both speakers.
I’m not a complete ■■■■■, just a partial one. Plus my head is spinning trying to find an answer to my playlist problems (see earlier post)
No I wasn’t suggesting taking the second track and combine it with the now mono track. The software shows content of each track in stereo. You can copy the left channel and combine it with the right which is what I was suggesting instead of converting it to mono. However, as I stated above that logic is sketchy because that would make it mono in both channels in theory.
Message Edited by Orion3 on 03-11-2010 10:00 PM
It’s called Audacity and is free . . . I know it will allow you to convert the mp3 to mono and I think you can copy one channel and add it to the other which might produce a stereo type effect.
Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting taking a perfectly recorded stereo file and converting it to mono because you don’t like the sound of 2 separate tracks meticulously engineered and recorded to play concurrently (aka stereo)?..
I think he’s talking about, not the meticulously mixed and blended contemporary recordings, but the ghastly late '50s/early '60 recordings where the vocals are panned hard left and the instruments hard right, or even worse, high frequencies hard left and lows hard right. Stereo for stereo’s sake.
Until the mid to late 1960’s, virtually all popular music was mixed for Mono. There were a few exceptions in “audiophile” recordings by RCA, Decca and others. When these recordings were made for stereo, there was nearly zero effort put into mixing the tracks. The result is painful to listen to.
Why would you prefer Mono to stereo? Well, because if you are interested in the music as it was intended to be heard by the artists/engineers, that is what you would listen to.
As a recent example, take The Beatles “remastered” albums. First, the stereo mix on the earlier recordings was re-done using the master tapes. The result is stereo more like we are used to hearing it–as a “soundstage” of blended left-right audio. However, a “limited” collectors boxed-set of MONO recordings sold (at a price HIGHER than the same set in stereo) so fast that Apple/Capitol/EMI had to relent and greatly expand the production. People paid more for mono because that is how George Martin and the EMI engineers mixed it.
Try listening to the original Rubber Soul tracks (most of them) by The Beatles with headphones (not so bad on a room stereo). It almost hurts. The original poster makes a valid observation, albeit for a niche market.
