Old Stereo Recordings

[WildW]

Some of the music on my ipod is clearly not intended to be listened to with headphones. Older stuff like some Beatles and Mama's & Papa's tracks have very destinct separation between left and right channels - e.g. often a vocalist or instrument will only appear on the left or right channel, not on both. It sounds fine when played through speakers, but with headphones it just sounds wrong.

I guess at the time it wasn't a concern, but since we live in the future now can we do anything about it? I guess the songs could be remixed. Mine are CD rips, and I can half imagine that the same songs might have better remixes if I were to get "new" versions by buying them on iTunes...maybe?

Obviously I could just mix them to mono, but that would be kind of primitive. Is there any software out there that could somehow partially mix just the two channels I have and achieve something slightly better? Or am I doomed to just have Mama Cass whispering in one ear only?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

HRTFs such as Dolby Headphone or Creative CMSS-3D that can take a stereo source and make them sound like you're listening to speakers is what you're looking for (conversely they can also take a surround signal and mix them into stereo to synthesize binaural sound).

I don't think Creative's option is going anywhere beyond the computer any time soon, but Dolby is push their stuff far and wide, and they do have something call Dolby Mobile which I'm pretty sure is not yet available (although seemingly possible) for any Apple products, although it doesn't appear to be widely available for many products just yet, unfortunately.

Alternatively you can grab a soundcard (if you do not already have one) that supports Dolby Headphone or Creative CMSS-3D and do the recordings yourself.

this is quick and messy job I did of a lossy source file but it was the best example I could think of on short notice, this is recording via "WhatUHear" as the recording source over my Auzentech Forte soundcard (uses Creative's X-Fi chip). I have my sound set to stereo, recording to a high WMA bit rate as it was the only one readily available through the creative media player/recorder I fired up first:

http://www.mediafire.com/?uzy8j77w15jkmr9

Using Win 7 x64 , I had to change my Windows sound settings to stereo (as I usually set it to 5.1 and use CMSS-3D to synthesize a surround source as binaural sound over stereo headphones for gaming) strictly for the purpose of making a stereo recording. I start with CMSS-3D off (as much if not most music is intended) and turn it on at 10 seconds. After the next 10 seconds (ie the 20 second mark) I turn it back off, and then back on again after the next 10 seconds (30 second mark) and do so for the entirety of the song.

The difference should be night and day. Listening to this over a pair of headphones with settings set to 2 channels/headphones (and of course with CMSS-3D or Dolby Headphone off if you own such a soundcard) should have instrumentals strictly coming from the left channel and singing strictly from the right when CMSS-3D is off, and a more natural mixing when it is on (ie you can hear the instruments in both ears but its more pronounced on the left, and you can hear the singer is more pronounced from the right but you can hear her with both ears)

I know my file isn't the greatest recording, I didn't use a lossless source and also didn't properly balance the levels so there is clipping but I didn't want to spend forever creating the perfect post and example file

That's just one option, maybe there's a similar method that can do this process digitally and much faster than real-time, as I admit it would be rather painstaking to have to sit and manually record each and ever file you wanted to convert specifically for headphone playback.

It is a shame though, as I mentioned earlier about the HRTFs it would be much easier if something like Dolby Mobile was widely available so you could keep just one good source file and just turn the DSP effect on and off at you're leisure.

 

[WildW]

Interesting. . . . sounds like you were bored I'll take a listen when I get home from work. I have one of the USB X-FI cards that I use for CMSS-3D when gaming, and I think it supports the WhatUHear recording, so it might well be something I can play with. Could probably live with doing this for the dozen tracks or so I'm interested in =)

Edit: Downloaded your mixed track - what a difference. I'm going to have a play with my X-FI and see if I can achieve similar.

 

[Oyeve]

Yep, that cmss will do the trick. I use it for the same reasons you will be. Those old tunes from the 60s when they did not know what to do to "stereo". The Beatles flat out didnt dig stereo, hence the drums to the left, vocals to the right.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Some of the music on my ipod is clearly not intended to be listened to with headphones. Older stuff like some Beatles and Mama's & Papa's tracks have very destinct separation between left and right channels - e.g. often a vocalist or instrument will only appear on the left or right channel, not on both. It sounds fine when played through speakers, but with headphones it just sounds wrong.

I don't know about the Mama's and Papa's, but the early Beatle albums were ment to be in mono. They got mixed into stereo later, so just mixing them back down to mono would be the most "authentic" solution.

 

[mshan]

Yes, I think some of the Beatles stuff was originally recorded in mono.

Artificial stereo separation you are hearing is probably exactly what it is (sloppy marketing ploy when stereo became en vogue and expected by mass market buyers of lps then).