AguycalledSimon
pfm Member
This is the ‘experimental’ period for Van Gelder when he was running both Mono and Stereo tape recorders simultaneously.
Thanks Jim, yes, that's what I heard as well - however my thinking is that, as you say, he was running both recorders simultaneously, but he would have been connecting both to the same mixing console, so the mix/levels would have effectively been the same, regardless of which recorder it was being sent to. I can only compute him monitoring one of the mixes - either stereo or mono - and indeed, according LJC, he did not have a stereo monitoring setup in Hackensack until 1958, or after blue train was recorded, so he monitored and set levels for mono while also sending the same levels to the stereo recorder, but probably never even heard the stereo until a couple of years later when BN were readying the stereo release
I can therefore understand why some prefer those early mono mixes, as the levels during the session were set for mono
I guess the only thing to do is for me to buy both when they come out and compare them - these's a sucker born every minute!
I'd be interested if anyone else has a reason why the mono's from this period are said to sound better