TOP
10 TIPS FOR
BACK
to MONO
USING
WAVE EDITORS
All
too often we pay big bucks for music which is supposed to sound better than we
remember, only to be bitterly
disappointed by badly mixed thin-sounding versions of songs we remember as
anything but. Stereo – and our demand
for it - is a
major part of the problem. This is despite the fact that the greatest record
producer of all time – Phil Spector – has been
largely ignored in his thirty-year-long BACK
to MONO
campaign. We now find ourselves in a situation where many great Monaural mixes have been lost or destroyed by our Stereo
obsession.
A Stereo recording is at its best nothing more than someone’s idea of what “reality” should sound like. Since great records have more to do with
sonic artistry than reality we’re probably wise to question the place of Stereo
in a producer’s vision of the finished product.
Prior to the 1970s, great records lived and died by how
great they sounded in Monaural – AM radio, car radios and kids’ record players.
A well-produced record had to meet these criteria. It was a Mono mentality with a Monaural final mix as the
It’s not however the purpose of this site to demonize
Stereo per se. Far from it – Spector himself has
continued to produce outstanding Stereo recordings of breadth and
intensity since 1969. In fact you may
find the tools here very useful for
adding a Stereo effect to enhance Monaural recordings.
The following tips are designed to help you use
readily-available technology to hear your music the way you want to hear it.
Think of your computer as a part of your sound system!
BEFORE NOISE REMOVAL
#1. Carefully choose
your monitor speakers.
It is of prime importance that your monitors are sensitive
across the entire sound spectrum, including your sub-woofer.
What sounds acceptable on your monitors should sound spectacular on your
home or car system.
#2.
Make sure your turntable is optimally
“tuned”
for cartridge
balance, bias and grounding. Check stylis for
grime deposits and wear. I’ve always cleaned vinyl with shampoo-for-oily-hair
and a cosmetic wedge against the direction of groove play. Rinse very
thoroughly with warm not hot water. Air dry out
of the sun, or with a lint-free cloth. After cleaning, play the record and check whether the stylis kicks up any dislodged grime: if so, then clean
again. Avoid alcohol-based cleaners and keep your nails trimmed…
#3. Double-check
entire wiring set-up for correct and consistent Left & Right channel
configuration.
Your turntable-to-computer leads should
be shielded quality.
NOISE REMOVAL
(ProTools, Cool Edit, Gold Wave etc are fine software
but try using an inexpensive, no-frills (but close to studio-quality)
application like Clive
Backham’s Wave Repair for critical editing and noise removal.
You can use Nero Wave Editor and Roxio etc for noise and scratch removal but
the results will be so-so. See Tip # 5 )
This is Wave Repair workspace with a Stereo WAV file loaded:
#4. If your vinyl source is Mono and your
turntable is Mono or Stereo
your recording
will nevertheless show up on your computer as a Stereo 2-channel WAV
file. It’s important that you now choose whether Left or Right sounds best.
(The amount of wear and/or pressing quality on each side of a vinyl groove will differ, as possibly will your
turntable pick-up qualities.)
USING
Wave Repair, NOW
MOVE THE BEST CHANNEL ACROSS TO REPLACE THE OTHER. (Blocks/Copy L to R, or R to
L) Your music file is now
best-sounding true Monaural, and you’ve cut your editing time in half.
#5. Avoid aggressive filtering for noise
removal.
This includes automated scratch removal,
filtering and EQing (Equalization). You’ll retain the warmth of vinyl – not to
mention the musical integrity - if you don’t try to cut corners. Noise removal
is time-consuming and best accomplished
by a mixture of:
1. Removal by sampling
“fingerprints” from run-in and run-out grooves, and “silent” areas between LP
tracks.
2. Manually removing clicks by
editing your Wave form by Deleting or Redrawing wave.
A tinny and hollow fade-out is a sure sign
of Digital Overkill. If you’re a newbie to Vinyl-Digital transfers, burn your work onto CDRW
and play back on your main sound system as you progress thru the stages. Be
patient on your learning curve – it’s entirely possible to create recordings
from vinyl which sound far superior to some commercial CD versions.
USING NERO WAVE EDITOR
#6. Don’t overload by working “in the red”. Watch
that VU meter!
It’s much better to boost the overall
volume of your finished job than to have to start again because you have “sonic boom”, clipping and problems
with crossover. Work near the top end of the green range.
·
Many
records were
sped up during mastering for radio time constraints and to iron out vocalizing flaws, creating an
off-pitch tinny sound without much range
or “presence”. You can undo this by using Tools/Time
Correction if
those girl-group epics sound more like The Chipmunks than Uncle
Phil.
·
Effects/Voice Modification & Effects/Pitch Tuning may be of use for an off-key vocalist but
these Effects should only be applied to the entire file, and are best avoided.
·
If
the original producer has gone overboard with Reverb it can be partially removed by going to Enhancement/Band Extrapolation (Spectral Remixer). I use this
application in reverse for reverb removal by creating a “wet” mix which
enhances what I want to hear (in High & Low Cut-off Frequencies) and then I
add the Dry Signal carefully. Effects/Reverb
unfortunately won’t remove excessive reverb, nor will it create a Wall of Sound
where none exists. This IS however a filtration application and - as with all
filters - may remove some of the music.
·
Nero Wave Editor
allows insertion of audio files – Wave Repair does not.
Wave Repair
allows you to fully edit both Left & Right Channels separately – Nero Wave
Editor does not.
CREATING A DYNAMIC MONOMIX FROM STEREO
#7. If your source is True
Stereo or Sixties two-track (i.e. rhythm on one, vocals
etc on the other etc.
The file above is Bill Medley’s “I Surrender” (1963 Reprise). The entire instrumental track is
on the right channel (lower Wave form) and Bill’s vocals are entirely on the
left (upper Wave form ):
1. Open Nero Wave Editor. Open and highlight your WAV or mp3 file.
Go
to Tools/ Stereo Processor. Set Phase Offset to Zero
(0).
(”StereoBroadening”
default is 51% - get in the habit of checking it.)
2. In
the “Left Out” box: Set Left In slider to 100% and Right In slider to 0%
In the “Right Out” box do the exact
opposite: Left In slider to zero, Right In to slider 100%. (See illustration above)
3. Test
your settings by clicking on “Preview” and alternating “Bypass” On / Off.
There should be no difference between On and Off settings.
4.
Gradually bring up both inner sliders that are at 0%. When they’re also
at 100% you have Mono.
Check your main VU meter (bottom left) for
overload, and adjust ALL
SLIDERS EQUALLY downwards as needed.
5.
Now perform adjustments (Stereo Broadening etc) and compensations for things like
sonic boom and
vocal volume etc. but keep your Mono mentality.
(You can of course go Mono Lite with +51% Stereo Broadening if you prefer...)
Here’s what “I Surrender” looks like in
Mono. The best mixdown had all sliders set at 75% -
it would have been less if compression was being added. The bass line is solid
but smooth with no crossover problems, and the vocal blends nicely (a little
forward, 60’s-style) with the backing track.
8.
If your source is In-Phase fake Stereo created by extreme EQing of two Mono channels
you
may need to use Enhancement / Band
Extrapolation on either or both
channels separately prior to
performing # 7. Check first if one channel has an acceptable dynamic range – it
may be better to perform Tip # 4 instead of, or before, proceeding to # 7.
9.
If your source is Out-of-Phase or Time Delay fake Stereo
you can try using Phase Offset or you can load each
channel separately on Nero Sound Trax and attempt to rematch before performing
#7. This is tedious and may not work because no two tape machines ever
consistently recorded or played back at consistently the same speed – before
you attempt this check if one of the channels is acceptable Mono and perform Tip # 4
instead of # 7.
10.
To create a punchy Mono mixdown master
Use
Tools / Dynamic Processor in NERO after creating your Monomix.
Right-click on
any point in the range line in the ‘‘Characteristics”
box to drag an increase / decrease in compression – left-click to delete
that point. Use Attack- and Release-Times judiciously.
The compression facility in Wave
Repair is less
aggressive than NERO.
Practice using this application properly
and you will have masters that ‘Sixties producers could only dream about…
The
Rickster