Stereophonic recording?, L/R balance Options

[HTS]

What does stereo recording achieve? I noticed that the left and right channels of some stereo samples don't sound the same, and loaded them into audacity. The program confirms my suspicion that the sounds vary greatly in characteristics. For a vibrato filled note, most often only one of the channels displays the wavy pattern induced by the vibrato. Is this what stereo recording is supposed to do? So the sounds mixed into your music will have certain instruments placed to the L/R side of the listener?

[hollowman]

What is the proper semantic name -- e.g., a Wiki-style name -- for that Beatles-type "stereo" sound that incorporates hard-left, hard-right, and mono-dead-center?
Is it three-track mono, etc?

[Roseval]

What is the proper semantic name -- e.g., a Wiki-style name -- for that Beatles-type "stereo" sound that incorporates hard-left, hard-right, and mono-dead-center?
Is it three-track mono, etc?

Hard panning

http://wikirecording.org/How_to_Approach_P...ng#Hard_Panning

[db1989]

What is the proper semantic name -- e.g., a Wiki-style name -- for that Beatles-type "stereo" sound that incorporates hard-left, hard-right, and mono-dead-center?
Is it three-track mono, etc?

Hard panning

http://wikirecording.org/How_to_Approach_P...ng#Hard_Panning

That might be it? although it says nothing about the hard centre. I wanted to go with trichotomous, myself.

Okay ... another nomenclature query.... As with The Beatles, I only know this by example. Early "stereo" recordings like Miles Davis Kind of Blue does not (at least to me me) sound HARD-panned. But it is not 3D Blumlein/"holographic" stereo either. E.g. not mono-L, mono-C, mono-R (as with Beatles hard pan) ... but: mono-L, mono-C/L, mono-C, mono-C/R, mono-R. So, effectively, more "multi-track" but (as with HP/Beatles) again no 3D/"holographic" depth (e.g., flat or 2D sound, but more filled in between hard L and hard R).

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no defined term for something as simple as panning individual tracks to defined points in the stereo field—such as your example of 100% L, 50% L, C, 50% R, 100% R—without any spread/depth. It’s the kind of thing lots of producers do, except they may use light reverb in post, which may not have been available/easy in the past.