One technique used in the very early stereo days with jazz records -- used by Bill Putnam in Chicago
and Hollywood and also by Capitol in NYC and Hollywood -- was to use the mono setup and mix for the
center and, for the stereo master, also hang up room mics. The ensemble needed to be set up "as in
performance" but this was usually the case anyway with jazz records of the time. Examples of this
abound on early stereo Mercury/Emarcy records. I assume the mono mix was fed directly to the mono
master tape and to a center channel of a mixer for the stereo master tape. The left and right mics
would also go to that mixer. When done well, this kind of stereo is much more pleasant than
hard-panned stereo that became common for small-group jazz soon after. Rudy Van Gelder figured out
isolation and hard-panning well enough that by 1960 or so, Blue Note mono masters were just the
stereo 2-tracks mixed 50-50 (google this, there is documentation about it). Only the very early
stereo-era Blue Notes have different mixes and masters for mono and stereo. I assume Van Gelder
quickly decided that dealing with two mixes was nearly impossible without seperate engineers, so he
figured out a mono-compatible way to do stereo (hard-pan with extreme isolation, so summing works).
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stewart Gooderman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2014 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Accidental stereo (again)
>I think Capitol did as well, at east for their early stereo era Broadway cast recordings, at least
>until 1964.
>
> DrG
>
> On Aug 30, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> RCA for years used a separate mono setup and engineer. I think the same was true at Columbia. I
>> don't know what 2-mic folks like Vanguard did for mono releases. You definitely can't
>> successfully sum 2-omni stereo to mono. I think the Europeans who used MS or other crossed-matrix
>> methods were able to use one channel for mono (although there were crosstalk phase-cancellation
>> issues with that method).
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>
>
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