i really enjoyed this. the off the cuff, conversational style. its calming to hear. thank you

Super interesting and enjoyable watch, Kris...I really appreciate these contextual sessions you serve up - cheers!

Terrific video, Kris! Will be certainly reviewing and commenting further here. Lots to absorb indeed. Was brought to mind right away the early Tijuana Brass albums with the band starting in one channel and Herb's trumpet coming in the other. Makes for an interesting 'ear wandering' effect I found. Thanks for sharing this. -Carm

Thanks for the explanation and another great video.

I was hoping you recorded this in Quad. ;) Great vid, Kris, and great overview!

Hey Kris, nice topic. I am way behind on my video watching! By '66 or '67, some of the lesser labels (Smash for one) would only do a stereo mix, and put that out as both stereo and mono figuring if you only had mono, you wouldn't know the difference anyway. I have always loved and been fascinated by the history and evolution of formats. It's a great topic. Take care...

Great topic, Kris, I love the education - appreciate you doing this! That's an interesting point about how people wanted to listen to music that sounded trippy rather than to music that sounded realistic. That thought never would have entered my head, but now that's an interesting thing to listen for. Cheers! Tom

Thanks for your overview. You mention stereo jazz recordings in passing and seem to suggest that the quality of the recordings made at the dawn of the stereo era are sub par, largely due to limitations of recording equipment and that they are made with a mono mix ultimately in mind. However, some of the greatest stereo jazz recordings I own were made in the late 50s and early 60s. Labels such as Atlantic, Columbia, RCA, Pacific Jazz, and Verve, created amazing sounding stereo recordings by artists such as The Modern Jazz Quartet, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Chico Hamilton, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. Many of these recordings would be difficult to impossible to improve upon if attempted with today's technology. I do not wish to detract from your overview, but I do want others to be aware of the wealth of amazing recordings that were made in the early days of stereo.

Thanks for the interesting story.

cool records and great info!

Cool update and info.....I am still waitinf for the Jet Packs and Hover Craft saucers.

Thanks Chris, Enjoyed it. Keep spinning that vinyl!!!!!

The good news is that "Pet Sounds" IS now available on vinyl and CD in both mono and true stereo (not duophonic- this mix is recent) versions. Some labels did take care as to their stereo mixes sounding not too wide, a more natural sound. In particular RCA and Atlantic (who had the legendary Tom Dowd as their in-house engineer) had great stereo versions of hit songs from their artists that weren't all over the place. That's why songs like "Splish Splash", "What I'd Say" and "Mack the Knife" were among the first hit songs of the rock era to come out in stereo. Over at RCA, all of Neil Sedaka's hits were in stereo, and once the technology was available, people like Eddy Arnold, Perry Como, Jim Reeves, and Della Reese put out stereo LPs. Officially Elvis Presley made his stereo debut in 1960 with "Stuck on You" and "It's Now or Never", but with the discovery of some session tapes in recent years, stereo mixes of some of his early movie hits like "Love Me Tender" and "Jailhouse Rock" are now on CD. Even smaller labels got into stereo early. Brunswick recorded Jackie Wilson in stereo early on with "Lonely Teardrops". The jazz label Bethlehem put out Nina Sinome's debut LP in stereo including "My Baby Just Cares for Me" and "I Loves You Porgy". The smaller NY label Laurie recorded all of Dion's work on that label as both a member of the Belmonts and a soloist in stereo, as Coed did the same with the Crests with Johnny Maestro. However, as to the teen market the emphasis was still mono so the mono LPS were put out more making the stereo versions quite rare. Motown only started putting out stereo albums in 1964 as record stores directly asked the label for stereo albums as the demand was rising. Motown now had to re-release albums that were put out in mono only with new stereo mixes, but in some cases the stereo versions were a bit too wide a la the early Beatle stereo offerings.

Command records are my jam. I love that stuff! Some of the best sounding demo records to this day imo, the shit sounds incredible.

Chris, you are the man! Thanks for sharing the knowledge man. I've always ponder upon the difference between MONO and STEREO and why people are so picky on getting everything MONO. I personally am a strero man :-) cheers bud JC/Miami

During the past few years I have been able to get some really great sealed, mint, and near mint LPs from various sources. This past Christmas I played surprisingly mint 1959 Perry Como Christmas LP- a "Living Stereo" release I got from a Salvation Army with even the original inner sleeve extolling the values of the new stereo format. As to labels, not surprisingly RCA and Columbia took the most care in recording their stereo albums, but there's another label you should acknowledge: Atlantic! It was one of the first 'indie' labels to put out stereo LPs since it dabbled in jazz and pop as well as R&B. Ray Charles' last few albums were recorded in stereo, as was most of Bobby Darin's output- "Splish Splash" was one of the very first Atlantic songs recorded in stereo. At the same time Atlantic was putting out albums by John Coltrane and the Modern Jazz Quartet. One big asset the label had was its ace engineer Tom Dowd, a onetime 'boy genius' who actually worked on The Manhattan Project! In the late 50s he convinced the label's bosses (the Neshui brothers, Jerry Wexler, and Miriam Beinstock) to buy one of the first 8-track recording consoles. Mind you, in England the labels there only went up to four tracks (including EMI which had The Beatles) until the late 60s. As you said earlier, for some labels stereo mixes was an afterthought- Motown being the most obvious case. They didn't have stereo LPs in the market until 1964, and the main impetus then was that the single sounded great on a car radio or a transistor radio- hence the emphasis on mono mixes. When it came to the stereo LPs, the label didn't give as much emphasis. It was only with the dawn of the CD that the stereo mixes were redone for digital releases so it would be like the mono versions but still be multitrack.

Thanks man that was cool. Something I always wanted to know about just never looked into it. Very cool man thanks.

Excellent tell all.Yeap I lived through it all and remember the changes well. We always bought the stereo albums thinking that yeah baby real stereo.But like you said at times it wasn't so much better.Yeah you made me remember the price difference of a buck.I used to go to Stevens in Sunnyside ,Queens they had a great record Dept.with Stereo albums on side and the mono on the other side of the store.My stepfather has a great Motorola console stereo a long one with great stereo separation and reverb.Man the albums sounded great on that unit.Everything sounded alive like audio should sound.

Great video. I always enjoy learning more about the history and techniques of recording. Reminds me of the late 1990s Rudy Van Gelder CD remasters for Blue Note. He tried to update the stereo mixes to sound more like what the modern listener is used to, by narrowing the stereo image among other things. People went nuts of course, how dare he mess with perfection. I can understand what he was going for, though. I've listened to some of the original Blue Note stereo mixes on headphones where the drums are in one ear and sax or trumpet in the other ear. Totally different from most modern jazz or rock mixes where drums sit in the middle with lead instruments usually balanced left to right. I've seen a lot of people on Facebook groups bragging about how great their old mono records sound using a true mono cartridge, and I've began contemplating investing in one since I've picked up a lot of mono jazz records lately. Check out this beautiful Bel Canto multicolored stereo demonstration disc. Apparently there were special turntables that would light the records from underneath in the showroom as it played -- kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rNOXaLNyqNGlqmw.html

Great video Chris, the history of this is interesting. I do wish that more stereo mixes were better utilized. You know it's just right when the music sounds like it's in the room with you rather than from the speakers.

What an interesting video, Kris! Even I have noticed that some of the stereo versions from the 60s don't sound too good. When I talk about that I always mention the debut album by The Doors as an example of it and in that case the mono mix is listenable (and excellent). I don't have too many mono albums but I try to get more of them. At the moment I have the mono versions of "Sgt. Peppers" & "The White Album" waiting to be unsealed. Looking forward to listen to them. If done properly both mono and stereo mixes are good- Keep up the good "work" and thanks for making this video, Jarkko / MyVinylBar

Great info, as usual, Kris! Even with the move back to mono mixes, I prefer stereo. But some of those fake stereo records are quite silly. Thanks for sharing.

Nice video Kris. Maybe I missed it but did you mention the Mono and Stereo mixes sometimes had different edits if it wasn't a complete fold down? There are some great write ups on the different Beatles edits between the two mixes.

Very interesting Story of Sound technology. At the 11:00 you make a very acertive opinion about *Psychedelic Era/ Stereo ping poing relation* but on there you miss do mention to the *1st Pink Floyd lp "THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN"* when surelly mesmerize their teenage trip audience on tracks like "Interestellar Overdrive" close the end of the jam.

All the Rudy Van Gelder stuff I've heard sounds really good. How much leakage is there in a live concert ? In 1967 I bought one of those RCA mid-century modern stereo's which sounded pretty good at the time. They have become quite popular again. Good show !!

I always choose mono over stereo. It just has a more vintage sound to me and it's more unique since it was only made for so long.. Plus, sometimes the mono mixes are different then stereo mixes. A mono version of a song might have different audible effects then the stereo mix. Cool video!!

I thought about doing a video on my thoughts on duophonic..several beach boys were released in mono and duophonic. they sound echoed to me...

Chris ....really good video here about the Mono/Stereo differences and trends....curious on the folddown from a stereo mix to a mono....Now I will admit oh maybe in the last year have I heard about this process due to certain Beatles and Monkees and early Zep that some were true mono some were folddown pressings....in for example,the Rock or Jazz genre what is maybe a really bad folddown mono you have heard on record like maybe 1-2 LP opinions...just curious.Great vid as usual take care and have a great week

Regarding to pop music: our radio station KilRock radio (named after the Dutch Kil Area near the city of Dordrecht, hence the single -L) uses the mono versions for the 1287 AM transmissions at day and the stereo versions at night, when our internet audio streams are more important to our audience. (AM Fades after sundown, as you might know). A proper mono mix differs quite importantly from a lot of stereo mixes. At KilRock our rule of thumb is, that stereo was quite well established from 1970 and further on. But we are aware of the fact that still a lot of 7 inch mono's were produced for promotional reasons on mono AM radio, being a plain fold down of the stereo or not. (KilRock radio: kilrock.nl/kilrock-muziekradio-uit-het-dordtsche-kilgebied/about-kilrock/. Website partly in English, mainly in Dutch.)

Hey Kris. Do you remember back when RCA Records had an "(e)" at the end of the album number on some of their albums? The "(e)" at the end of the album number meant "Stereo Effect Reprocessed From Monophonic". What do you think about that?

I know you mention a couple examples here...but I am just asking for more I guess lol....I will tell you what has been a cool thing to find is how certain labels did do mono promo LPs like Zep and Crimson and other artists ...mostly til when would u say around 1972/3?? in ur opinion do you think these are really true mono presses made for the Radio DJ Market(Example Zep 1) or could these be folddowns as well....I have only 1 Mono DJ Press in my collection during that time frame they are a bugger to find in almost any genre....except comedy..oh boy I have found a handful of those mono DJ presses for that over the years lol..thank u for ur patience with the questions Chris lol

Instead of giving another one of my long overstated babbled to no end comments I am just going to say that this was very interesting. A lot of times I cannot hear the difference between mono and stereo. Is there anything about music technology that you do not know Kris? Rob/Boston

I'm getting in on this 7 years late, but can you tell me the title and artist of the record you showed at 5:30? -- You didn't show the front cover. --Thanks

Just as good the second time around.

I prefer stereo but then again I assumed mono was inferior for no good reason. Now I'm enlightened!

Sometimes the difference was as extreme as vocals on one side and music on the other (which I always disliked, such as many of those Beatles mixes). But I do like Stereo where the sound is just more "full" or "alive". I guess it depends on individual songs as to what I prefer, Mono or Stereo... it depends on the song or mix in question. I prefer STEREO for both 'Sgt Pepper' and 'The White Album'.

Hi, This was a really good video. I'll need to watch it a few times. I dropped your name in my last video and some of your info about 'true stereo'. Cheers

OMG! Elvis' Golden Records in Electronically Reprocessed Stereo is HORRENDOUS!!!! The music is fantastic if you can find original mono presses, but the person, or persons, that butchered it into reprocessed stereo needed to be tied to a whipping post and publicly flogged on national TV! So many wonderful mono recordings have been ruined for posterity by these blatant cash ins. Anyway, thanks for posting this informative and enjoyable video. Peace...

Nice work Chris. Always interesting and informative. If you weren't such a joker, I'd believe everything you said. It's not a lie if you believe it!

dark side of the moon?

You are obviously self-taught.