Sound engineers had little experience with stereo sound before the technology fell on them. Dual sound sources were used in the 20’s. Actually, they were not trying to record for stereo purposes. In the disk recording days they placed two microphones side by side and the sound was recorded on two different record cutting machines at the same time. The idea here was to make a safe cut in case the original was damaged.

After tape machines were invented and the ability to sync two different machines together it was discovered that some of the old recordings could be taped and then sync’d together to produce a stereo production out of the 20’s.
     The big record companies (RCA®, Capital®, Columbia® and Decca®) were completely happy with the monaural sound technique they had brought to the highest level of technology at the time. They were not interested in investing in stereo sound and thought it would never sell, not worth the investment. Most recording was done at their own studios and they had control of the market.
There were a few independent recording studios across the country, mainly in the larger cities. These were the ones that first experimented with stereo sound. There was no demand for the product, however. There was one individual that began to record in stereo as well as in monaural. He shelved the stereo product and released the monaural version. When the demand for stereo sound began to appear he had quite a catalogue of stereo recordings. It is reported that he made a tidy sum when he sold his collection to the big studios who were by then clamoring for the product to fill their empty shelves.

     The Berlant Concertone tape machine. This is a monaural model. The stereo version had another identical preamp mounted just below the first. (In its last days of production it had a name of Teac on it. Sound familiar?) One of the first machines to use 10" tape reels which made even more of an impression. Watching the big reels turn as the music boomed from the horns was indeed another experience. It was an era of impressive machinery. Not only was the sound great but the beautiful equipment that produced it was part of the show. This machine would finally wind up in Japan. It actually started out under the Teac name, however, being the professional machine that it was it deserved it's own series and became known as the Tascam series of Teac. The Tascam series were very popular and reasonably priced and wound up in many garage studios across the U.S.

     The Neuman U-47 was a popular microphone of the era. If you look close at the picture you notice the label says Telefunken. Telefunken, a subsidiary of AEG and Siemens, took on the marketing rights to Neumann's microphone. Neumann neglected to specify that the microphone must be called by the inventor and Telefunken quickly put their seal on it. Therefore, for years the microphone was known as Telefunken when it actually was a Georg Neumann microphone. Georg Neumann's first microphone, the DMV -3 (1928), nicknamed the "bottle."
New techniques had to be developed for recording in stereo mode. One interesting development which I used quite effectively (not being able to afford the new stereo microphones first produced) was the MS (mid-side) stereo method, using standard monaural microphones already in your possession. It involved two old standards, the bi-directional like the old faithful RCA 77dx, and a Omni-directional of which there were many makes and model at that time. In the low impedance microphones there was a three-pin plug for the insertion of a cable that would lead to the recording board.

     The pins were labeled #1, #2, and #3. (I won't go into the color of the cable wires or the name of the connectors. Those that are familiar with microphones already know and those who are not probably don't care anyway.) Simply put, the cable wires were connected in a format of #1 (shield of the cable), #2 (white wire of the cable) and #3 (red - hot wire of the cable. There are other cable colors such as shield, white and black. In my view, no matter which color cable used the shield and white always connected to #1 and #2 respectfully - the other color always connected to the #3 whether white, black or any other color. To achieve the MS technique, a second cable would be connected in tandem with the first cable, however, the connection of #2 and #3 of the second cable would be reversed on purpose. Red would go to #2 and white to #3. In so doing, you now have two cords sticking out of the cable connector, one in phase and the other out of phase. The male connectors would now be connected to the other end of the cables in a normal way - #1.shield, #2. white wire and #3. red/black.
 
     In recording, the bi-directional microphone would be turned sideways, representing the left/right of the sound source and the Omni microphone would be placed atop of the bi-directional pointing straight ahead to the sound source. Thus the “Mid-side” technology was invented. With this method you had to use three channels of the mixer. Channel #1 would be the phased input of the bi-directional, Channel #2 would be in the input of the Omni and Channel #3 would be the out of phase input of the bi-directional. This gave the engineer the first remote operational microphone. By using the faders in different positions on the mixer, many different recorded stereo effects could be had. An added fruit, on playback the mixer faders could again be used in different positions resulting in still a different mix.

     The new sound technique is “surround sound” and as far as I am concerned, for music, is totally unnatural. (You might not want to quote me on that one yet, either). No paying customer that I ever knew sat in the middle of the orchestra as it preformed? That, perhaps, is open for discussion? The technology is absolutely great for the movies and is where it should be used. However – that is really sound effects and I was never interested in that facet of sound.