Month: February 2023

The origins of stereographic reproduction date back to 1881, in Paris, via the Ader telephone system – this setup was named “Theatrophone”. It set up a series of microphones on the left and right of the stage and transmitted the signals to stereo telephones in another building. It was part of the Paris Expo and was said to be a popular attraction (Scientific American, 1881).

It is fascinating to remember that this predates the invention of the radio, as Marconi sent the first morse code signal wirelessly in 1895 some 14 years later. 

The credit for stereophonic reproduction should reside with Alan Blumlein as he worked on a complete system from recording to playback. However, it was Bell Telephone Laboratories that created the first public demonstration on April 27, 1933 (Hilliard, 1962). 

The first test of a stereo recording was on 14 December 1933, when a wax disc was cut to test record stereo at EMI at Hayes (EMI, 2013). The patent for binaural (or stereo) sound was applied for by Blumlein in 1931 where he patented, “stereo records as well as stereo films and surround sound” (EMI, 2013).

After the success of recording onto discs this made way for tape and radio. On 20 April 1961 the FCC issued rules allowing FM radio stations to transmit stereo broadcasts. The technology for this was created as a composite of the systems of GE Company and Zenith Radio Corporation (Hilliard, 1962).

References:

EMI (2013) Alan Blumlein and the invention of stereo, EMI Archive Trust. Available at: https://www.emiarchivetrust.org/alan-blumlein-and-the-invention-of-stereo/ (Accessed: February 27, 2023). 

J. K. Hilliard (1962) “The History of Stereophonic Sound Reproduction,” in Proceedings of the IRE, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 776-780, doi: 10.1109/JRPROC.1962.288290. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4066773 (Accessed: 27 February 2023)

“Scientific American” (1881) Scientific American, 45(27), pp. 422–423. Available at: https://doi.org/https://earlyradiohistory.us/1881opr.htm. (Accessed: 27 February 2023)

While I have heard of mixing with a reference before the course, and could understand why it works, it is not something that has become part of my workflow until recently.

Something that I read early in the research for this post was asking the client for a reference track. It seems such a simple thing to include as part of a brief, but this was not something that I have thought about, and a really good way to judge how close you are to getting a mix right for a client (Messitte, 2022).

The one thing that did confuse me at the start of research for this was the idea that mixing with a reference means mixing to a track that has also been mastered. This is important to know as mastering will increase the levels of the track, so matching the gain from the reference track and the session is important (Messitte, 2022). As Jett Galindo from iZotope also says about mixing with references: “While they still have many qualities worth referencing, one quality you should not chase at the mix stage is level.” (Galindo, 2022).

Reference tracks are a good way to ensure that you match the sonic qualities of the genre that you are chasing. And utilising an A/B with the levels matched will help me to get closer to the kinds of mixes that I am after. 

Now it is time to start collecting my reference tracks as lossless…

References:

Galindo, J. (2022) 4 popular mixing reference tracks, and why they work, iZotope. iZotope, Inc. Available at: https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/4-popular-mixing-reference-tracks-and-why-they-work.html (Accessed: February 20, 2023). 

Messitte, N. (2022) How to Use Reference Tracks When Mixing, iZotope. iZotope, Inc. Available at: https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/13-tips-for-using-references-while-mixing.html (Accessed: February 20, 2023).