Can anyone answer a question about how they make music 'stereo' please?

[danny la rouge]

Pardon?

It's a music making programme. I was going to get you to download it, then talk you through recording your voice onto two tracks. But I think it'd be better if you visit bees.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I dunno, maybe you do hear things in Stereo? After all, how about a police car siren. Look how that tends to change as it approaches you, then change again when it overtakes you? Must be something to do with stereo (two ears two speakers or whatever) Maybe someone who knows better than me can explain why a siren changes pitch as it goes past you...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_effect

 

[moomoo]

It's a music making programme. I was going to get you to download it, then talk you through recording your voice onto two tracks. But I think it'd be better if you visit bees.

Oh.

I've lost the volume button thingy on the laptop anyway atm so it wouldn't have been much good.

 

[Dravinian]

People have made this very complicated when I am not sure it is.

It is something called Pan.

If I record two items, regardless of how I record them with mics, straight input, DI, one mic, two mics, three mics it really doesn't matter, then play them back, one with Full Left Pan and one with Full Right Pan set on the mixing desk (or average stereo). Then you will hear two different things coming out of each speaker when you have them set as balanced equally between left and right.

Most HiFi units come with a pan left and right.

In this example I had recorded this guitar line ages ago, thus I made no special attempt during the recording process to create this effect.

Yet while playing back I fiddled with the Pan Settings and it comes out as you described in the first post. Each speaker playing different parts at different times. It jumps around as I was trying to show you several effects at once rather then a seperate piece for each. So sometimes it is stereo sometimes it is panned.

 

[moomoo]

Thanks Dravinian, I'll have a listen when my volume thingy reappears.

 

[gentlegreen]

In about '81, a housemate of mine took the shittiest mono shoebox cassette recorder (permanent magnet erase, quite likely no bias oscillator) down to Portishead and recorded the outflow of a drain - presumably with the built-in mic.

Due to the wobblyness of the tape path, it ended up as one of the best "seashore" recordings I'd heard at that time.

No drugs of any kind were used .

Add powerful psychedelics to the equation and you get seaweed and mermaids in yer room.

 

[Dravinian]

Thanks Dravinian, I'll have a listen when my volume thingy reappears.

When you say the volume thingy, you mean the icon down near the clock right?

To get that back.

Go to:

Start
Control Panel
Sounds and Audio Devices

A box should appear, with a slider for voluime and two boxes, one will be tick to mute the other one will be tick to place an icon on the taskbar.

Tick the second box and your icon should reappear (eta: you may have to press apply). If that is what you were talking about.

 

[pk]

Pan is just another term for Balance control, the amount of sound sent to the left or the right channel.

Sorry about earlier, wasn't sneering, just laughing over the increasingly complex explanations!