Noise and the East Village Other LP

[Mark]

Continuing on the rather geeky theme we seem to have warmed to lately:

If Discogs is to be believed, some original copies of the 1966 East Village Other LP, featuring the VU track 'Noise', were in mono:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Eas ... se/7369188

Others were in stereo:
https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Eas ... se/7442246


Don't know about the recent CD releases. However I think every version of the Noise track I've heard has been mono.

Question for anyone who has the stereo LP then: is there any appreciable stereo separation on the VU track? And in particular, is it done in a way that might make it possible to hear the music more clearly under the radio chatter?

[peppergomez]

sadly though the VU 'music' on that album is completely uninteresting, not even a compelling jam or drone

[Mark]

Maybe so, but that's not what I asked!

[simonm]

hi Mark
painful though it was, i got this LP out today and discovered i have the stereo version. So, yes, there is a bit of stereo separation, in that that the music is towards the right and the tv broadcast is of Luci Johnson's wedding is towards the left, but it doesn't make any difference as the VU noise is quieter than the tv sound, and it still sounds terrible!

[Mark]

Thanks Simon. I wonder if it'd be possible to draw out a bit more of the music with out-of-phase stereo processing? Does it exist in the digital domain at all? (I've no idea whether the more recent CD releases are stereo or mono).

Obviously something like this is never gonna be essential daily listening, but a more audible version of the VU's contribution would be an interesting thing to dip into once in a while.

[simonm]

it could work, is there a decent free online thing that could do this? the sort if thing that would make a karaoke version of a track with the vocals centred?

[Mark]

That kind of thing, yes. Adobe Audition can do it - you can download an older version of that for free I believe. There must be free alternatives out there - don't know if Audacity has it?

The version of Noise that's on Spotify is mono BTW.

[simonm]

i've got Audacity, but don't think it's on the free version. Worth investigating perhaps.

[Mark]

Audacity will let you do it the long way round, I suspect: split the stereo track into two mono files (ie left and right), invert one of them, then sum them together. That'll give you the 'surround' signal (ie extreme left and right, minus everything mixed to the centre).

Then if you sum the original stereo track to mono, invert *that* and sum it with your 'surround signal only' track, you'll get the centre channel. I think.

[simonm]

if you separate the two channels into separate tracks, invert one and then join them back together the result is one mono track, what we would need is more sophisticated - take away where the two tracks overlap but keep what's left of the two tracks.