"Dave Plowman (News)"

Right. Next I'll be asking why the vocals get louder when you make
stereo mono (it must be true, I heard it on Radio 2 the other day when
someone was talking about Dock of the Bay).

If the vocal is in fact mono as most are on a stereo recording (apart from
the reverb) it shouldn't make any difference.



** Where there is a central vocal on a stereo recording and the other
sounds are uncorrelated between L and R channels - the vocal will
appear 6 dB louder in the L plus R sum signal while the sum of the
uncorrelated sounds will be only 3 dB louder, on average. So the vocal
signal gains 3 dB.

However, when the same recording is played by a pair of stereo speakers, the
exact same summation occurs in the air so the relative vocal to instrumental
balance remains unchanged to a listener.




........ Phil