Post #355686 by tikibars on Thu, Jan 17, 2008 10:17 PM

On 2005-06-23 18:58, rupe33 wrote:
...I suspect that everything after that probably had both mono & stereo mixes as opposed to actual re-recordings. It looks like a year or three passed between the different recordings of "Exotica"--the notes on the album indicate the Mono version was recorded in December 1956, and Liberty "brought Denny back to the studio to re-record Exotica in stereo, from scratch --apparently a cheaper, technically simpler and more effective process than attempting a cursory remix." (from the Rev-Ola notes by Joe Foster.)

I think Joe Foster might have neglected one thing when writing his notes, which is that records weren't actually mixed in the 1950s.

That process didn't begin until the 1960s with the advent and widespread propagation of 3 and/or 4-track machines (and then 8-, 16-, 24- etc. tracks as time went on).

Before the advent of multitrack (thank Les Paul, among others, for helping to come up with the idea), records were played live in the studio directly to disc or tape. No remixing or overdubbing. A 'balance engineer' (obsolete job title) did a primitive version of what we now call mixing on the fly during the artist's performance.

Anyway, a 'cursory remix' - never mind whether or not it was possible at the time - would always be cheaper than a re-recording, hands down.