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?

[pdq]

I think what hiloyge was saying is that if there is no discernible separation between the two channels then that is mono, otherwise it is stereo.

[dc2bluelight]

I think what hiloyge was saying is that if there is no discernible separation between the two channels then that is mono, otherwise it is stereo.

Not to quibble, but you can actually have a two channel recording and not have stereo. It's a matter of intent. If the two channels are intended to play into two speakers in a stereo listening configuration, that could be defined stereo. But two channels may have other purposes, like the ability to mix instruments and vocals in post, with the final intent being a single mono channel. One channel could be used for audio, the other for timecode - that's mono, but the recording has two channels. I've often used two channels in video for entirely different signals meant to be combined in some way in post. So, not every recording made with two channels is really stereo.

There are those who would take issue with the difference between stereo developed from panned mono tracks and stereo comprised of paired/spaced microphones, but either technique when mixed to stereo fits the definition, even if only paired microphones is considered "true stereophony".

I'd like to sort of correct myself for apparently perpetuating the "Beatles never intended to be released in stereo" myth. I thought it was true, but this link may indicate otherwise. Not a half bad read in any case:

http://www.friktech.com/btls/beatlesinstereo.pdf

Last comment on the issues of an analog mono tape payed on a stereo head, and the anomalies that result. No, it's not considered stereo, but it's darn difficult to eliminate interchannel differences in frequency response or timing (phase). In some cases, poor azimuth alignment and guidance can take an otherwise hard-center mono signal and smear it into a pseudo-stereo mess. Hopefully nobody today uses a machine with head az off that far, or guidance that poor, but it used to be an issue about 3 decades back. Broadcast cartridge machines were notably beastly in that regard. If you did this today and played it into an AV Receiver set to decode matrix surround, parts of the image would fly between the surround speakers and the center speaker. Yet, in truth, you don't have either a stereo or surround recording.

See why we now use digits?

[hlloyge]

Not to quibble, but you can actually have a two channel recording and not have stereo. It's a matter of intent. If the two channels are intended to play into two speakers in a stereo listening configuration, that could be defined stereo. But two channels may have other purposes, like the ability to mix instruments and vocals in post, with the final intent being a single mono channel. One channel could be used for audio, the other for timecode - that's mono, but the recording has two channels. I've often used two channels in video for entirely different signals meant to be combined in some way in post. So, not every recording made with two channels is really stereo.

I've worked in linear editing before, with umatics and betas, and I know what are you talking about, But to be frank, I've heard experimental music made just like that - two alltogether separate channels. You could play either one of them, or together - they would have different meaning then.
Also, timecode is recorded in vsync area of video signal, IIRC, not on audio tracks. Except for when we sent out vhs to subtitlers, we would record timecode on one channel, and mono mix on other.

[dc2bluelight]

I've worked in linear editing before, with umatics and betas, and I know what are you talking about, But to be frank, I've heard experimental music made just like that - two alltogether separate channels. You could play either one of them, or together - they would have different meaning then.
Also, timecode is recorded in vsync area of video signal, IIRC, not on audio tracks. Except for when we sent out vhs to subtitlers, we would record timecode on one channel, and mono mix on other.

As I said, the difference between stereo and two channel non-stereo is "intent". It's not the content.

Um, in the old days, timecode was, in fact, recorded on a second audio track in several video tape formats, as well as audio tapes for special use (multi-image slide shows comes to mind). VITC came a bit later, and eventually was more common, but we were talking about differences between two-channel and stereo, so I went into the way-back machine of my own thick head and pulled out timecode. In all cases of timecode on an audio track, though, it was never intended to be heard, even though I've had to try to filter it out of the actual audio track more than once. So, again, it's about intent.