Electronically processed stereo - A question?

I don't know if this should be in the Music forum or here, but I have a question.

What exactly do they do to mono recordings when they make them "Electronically processed stereo"? Or put another way, why does it nearly always sound so bad?

The question is prompted by listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival's Chronicle compilation. Some of the tracks are mono, some stereo and some electronically processed stereo. The mono and stereo tracks sound great (especially I Put a Spell On You). The electronically processed ones sound like they were recorded in a giant baked bean tin, but also kind of weird and diffuse as if the sound isn't coming from anywhere much (very much like the out of phase test on my Shure test record).

So what do they actually do to these tracks? I get similar results on a few of the Floyd tracks on Relics which were processed this way and have a "stereo" copy of Elvis' first album which is virtually unlistenable. Oddly it doesn't always sem to work this way. I have a Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee album called Walk On, which is electronically processed stero and it sounds great, really natural.

 

There's a clue in there . What they do is precisely that, they take the mono track and add phase shifts to the L & R versions to give the impression of stereo. It's the same thing that those "Super Surround" buttons do on boom-boxes, only they do it to existing stereo to spread things even wider. Usually sounds crap.

Michael.

 

Cheers Michael,

So now I know ... of course I don't actually know WHY they do it but then some of the decisions the music industry make are completely unfathomable anyway.

You would have thought someone who isn't completely deaf would have sat down and had a listen when some idiot boffin said "I have a clever wheeze to make mono into stereo", and then kicked him out of the door when he heard how bad it is. I have kept the Elvis record just to prove to myself that I'm not deaf. If I ever put it on and think it sounds good, then I'll know its time for the old folks home.

All that said, it doesn't account for the Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee album, which really does sound okay. Maybe it can be done well in the right circumstances (simple acoustic music?) - any thoughts? ... or maybe the album is mislabelled and is actually mono - which is what it sounds like.

 

Yep, basically, all the bass comes out of (usually the) left channel, and all the treble out of the right, and ALL out of phase. It sounds crap. I *wish* the reprocessed tracks on the vinyl version of Pink Floyd's "Relics" were left in mono - Arnold Layne sounds fekking awful with the "stereo" image all shifted over to the right - it sounds like a headache combined with one ear not popping...

The only conceivable time I think reprocessed stereo can be realistically allowed - EVER - is on "I am the walrus" by the Beatles, and only then, because the stereo mix was almost impossible to keep in true stereo, due to mixer limitations...

...I mean, who wants to hear Doris Day in reprocessed stereo? (and yeah, I do have some, on an old 8track )

 

They also use comb filtering I think

 

Yeah you can pan different frequency's separately, so if you can solo out the frequency of the high-hat you can pan that around. Of course in reality things all overlap in the frequency bands.

Luckily I dont have any such recordings, but I have played around getting backing tracks with no vocals by inverting the phase of one channel then mixing it with the other to cancel out the vocals (and anything dead centre). you end up with a mono recording though so I then tried more phase and frequency dependent pans to make it stereo. Needless to say the stereo part didn't work! ..what a way to ruin a Jeff Buckley song

Wow 402nd post! Should have said something 2 posts ago

 

What you need is an old 70's amp with a 'mono' button.