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Spurred on by the discussion at sh.tv, I thought I'd do a quick comparison between a song on Nuggets II and its equivalent on a Decca CD I have:

http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/timebox.mp3 (Timebox: Gone is the Sad Man)

The left channel is the right channel from the Decca disc, whereas the right channel is the right channel from Nuggets II (the only processing I did was adjusting the Decca disc for volume and speed-matching).

The result? I have a fairly good idea as to what the "normal" Rhino EQ sounds like, as it's fairly obvious from comparison of Love Story to Forever Changes Deluxe (or, for that matter, their Alice Cooper stuff to the old issues) what it generally entails. This is something different...if I had to hazard a guess, I'd surmise that they were trying to make the songs sound "gritty," by adding tons of processing to the upper frequencies. Listen particularly to the segments with backing vocals. There's tons of distortion on the Rhino version that's nowhere to be found on the Decca.

Input?

Give me a day or two and i'll check out your example.

Same here.

You see, my houseboy blew out my computer speakers listening to Fatboy Slim at enormous volume off of Kazaa. I had to send him out into the neighborhood to mow lawns until he earned enough money to replace them, and he didn't come back for three days. I finally found him at the cop's house down the road with a nightstick and a tub of...

Oh, never mind. I'm busy, OK?

I'll check it out and get back to you.

Ryan

Yes, I changed the name of this thread. No, mono doesn't *totally* suck. More in a sec.

I'll listen to the MP3 later. In the future, it might be helpful to post stereo samples back to back, rather than one channel from one, one channel from another.

Back to mono...I have no problem with using a mono mix if it is somehow unique. She's Not There is a good example. I *do* have a big problem with using mono, though, when the only reason seems to be "because it's mono".

Lately I've been listening to a fair amount of Stax recordings. Otis Redding, mostly, along with Sam & Dave, et al. Rhino/Bill Inglot seems to *love* mono for a lot of '60s Atlantic and Stax recordings. But why? From mid-'65 to mid-'66 (or so), Stax recorded everything live, to mono and stereo simultaneously. The mono was the output of two mixers bridged together, while the stereo had each mixer going to a separate channel. Other than one being mono and the other being stereo, the two "mixes" were always identical. So why pick mono? It's not even as if the mono versions have less tape hiss or something.

Sometime in '66 Stax got a 4-track machine. So there were indeed separate mixes for mono and stereo. But again, the final results were essentially the same. Try A Little Tenderness is a good example. It's in stereo on early CDs, mono on Rhino discs. If you sum the stereo mix to mono, the only real difference is EQ - the stereo is more full bodied, while the mono is a bit thin (no doubt in part "helped" by Inglot's mastering philosophy). Hiss levels are pretty much the same. So again, why pick mono over stereo?

If something is clearly different in mono, fine. Like the intro to Soul Man. But when everything else is the same, picking mono over stereo doesn't seem very smart at all.

Discuss.

Luke, there's not much to discuss. You're completely right in this regard. The funny thing is *everyone* seems to feel just like you do except for BI who appears to love mono for mono's sake and the Both Sides Now crowd who hate mono for stereo's sake. I have a hard time even seeing the other side of the issue let alone understanding why Rhino/Inglot does it. I dig the unique mono mixes he puts out (since no one else will), but I would have liked to hear a lot more stereo (if it exists) on the Nuggets box. Sheesh...

ray

In retrospect, I'm not even quite sure why I brought it up, as I've heard that it's somewhat of a political issue anyway, and that it's not Bill's decision to make. I'm not sure to what extent that's true, but it adds another dimension to the story. It doesn't seem to explain certain odd situations (Sam & Dave in stereo whilst Otis Redding was in mono in the same reissue series - same studio, same time frame, etc).

Also, just to prove I'm not a total mono hater, here are a few noteworthy mono selections. That's not to say I'd take mono over stereo in all cases (or even most), but...:

- Surrealistic Pillow
- My Generation (give me mono)
- The Who Sell Out
- Satisfaction/Get Off Of My Cloud/Mother's Little Helper
- Up On The Roof

Yes, I realize that's quite a wacky list.

Luke, I did this dual-channel thing just to demonstrate the bigger aspects of the difference....in Winamp, you can quickly switch channels, thus ABing the selection. Additionally, the right channel's the one where it's majorly obvious, so....


The mono We're Only In It For the Money is a pretty tasty morsel, too, and might actually sound a fair bit better than the stereo in general. Same with Safe as Milk.

lukpac wrote:If something is clearly different in mono, fine. Like the intro to Soul Man. But when everything else is the same, picking mono over stereo doesn't seem very smart at all.

Picking mono "doesn't seem very smart at all"? Why? All things being equal [as you say], why pick *stereo*? And we're talking Stax here, right? Two-track Stax stuff *should* get most people clamoring for mono--what with vocals hard right and disembodied horns hard left. The reason the rhythm section's so up front in the mix [which pissed Atlantic off] was that the Stax sound was designed as an ensemble with the vocal and rhythm section as "one piece." Listening to the stereo mix of early Stax stuff, I'm conscious of the individual parts at the expense of the sound as a whole--as "one piece." Additionally, as there are so few instruments, it's not like anything's buried in the mono mix.

I have no bias re: mono/stereo in principle. Like you, I have preferences on a case-by-case basis. "Satisfaction," for example, in stereo is limp wristed. I'm curious, though. If the recent stereo issue of "My Generation" had been mixed ala Stax hard left/right, would you still prefer the mono?

Ron wrote:If the recent stereo issue of "My Generation" had been mixed ala Stax hard left/right, would you still prefer the mono?

Probably not. It depends on how the mixes were done. But I'd still take the title track in mono if it were missing things in stereo.

I look at it this way - all else being equal, give us stereo. Why? That way you have a choice. Don't like the separation? Back up a few feet. Flip the mono switch on your amp. On the other hand, there's no way to make stereo out of a mono source.

And as far as Stax goes, an adversion to twin-track mixes doesn't explain why a lot of the 4-track material is mono, nor why some of the twin-track mixes have indeed been released.

Finally got a chance to listen to Xenu's MP3.

Yow.

That's nasty. Still, it sounds to me like the top end on the Decca side has been lopped off somewhat, while on the Rhino it's blazing like the sun.

That said, though, the distortion on the Rhino side definitely sounds like overload of some kind, which obviously isn't on the tapes. I agree that it's been grunged up above and beyond the usual EQ curve. (Or Rhino used a crappy tape, which seems unlikely.)

Ryan

lukpac wrote:And as far as Stax goes, an adversion to twin-track mixes doesn't explain why a lot of the 4-track material is mono, nor why some of the twin-track mixes have indeed been released.

No such word.

Rspaight wrote:Finally got a chance to listen to Xenu's MP3.

Yow.

That's nasty. Still, it sounds to me like the top end on the Decca side has been lopped off somewhat, while on the Rhino it's blazing like the sun.

That said, though, the distortion on the Rhino side definitely sounds like overload of some kind, which obviously isn't on the tapes. I agree that it's been grunged up above and beyond the usual EQ curve. (Or Rhino used a crappy tape, which seems unlikely.)

Ryan

Several of the songs on the set kinda have that grunginess going in the top end...it's just particularly noticable here because the track is in stereo...

Patrick M wrote:No such word.

How about avoision?

That will learn me to use a spell checker.

How about avoision?

That's OK if Bugs Bunny says it.

Ryan

lukpac wrote:I look at it this way - all else being equal, give us stereo. Why? That way you have a choice. Don't like the separation? Back up a few feet. Flip the mono switch on your amp. On the other hand, there's no way to make stereo out of a mono source.

I think this helps explain our difference of opinion. As I live in an apartment, I do most of my *real* [as opposed to background] music listening via headphones. In that environment twin track stereo's a no-go. But providing the mono/stereo mixes are the same, sure, stereo's cool [providing you push the mono button].