The Vinyl Record Groove Explained

[@markmalasics3413]

I had an opportunity to work with one of the greatest recording pioneers in the business, Emory Cook. His was the idea behind 2 grooves on one disc, and two tonearms. It was called Binaural Recording and he had a great legal battle with Columbia over the application of stereo onto disc. Obviously Cook's method was too complex, contrived and limited to become the stereo standard. However his excellence in stereo recordings on reel tape is still widely regarded as the best and most faithful in capturing not only sound effects, but bands, orchestras and other music venues. He was, and still is, the smartest man I have ever met and it was an absolute honor to work with him. Google him. 😀

[@peccamecha]

I've heard this explained many times but this is, by far, the most thorough and enthusiastic description. loved it to the end, thank you.

[@teazer999999]

Engineer here. Love a deep dive from someone who knows their stuff.

[@event70]

Thank you, was listening to vinyl after 20 years off and it dawned on me that I have no idea how stereo is encoded. KZbin read my mind and served this up. Thanks!!!

[@YahnWagner]

Amazing! The best explanation I've been in almost 20 years I've been looking for. For the first time it was clear to me how fundamental os M-S to the grooves. Thanks a lot!

[@BillsBoxOfSound]

Loved the whole thing! I remember reading an article / interview with Scott in Tape Op magazine years ago and when I met mastering engineer Dave Polster(Well Made Music), we geeked out on it for about 15 minutes. Glad I discovered the channel, I am now subscribed.

[@MichaelRMarshall1]

A nice overview of a much misunderstood (to most of the record buying public I would assume) topic. Like many corporations, there is the advertising/marketing/sales side that the consumer see's/interacts with and then there is the product development/science side that most consumers never see let alone think about (let's not even bring up legal as that is a whole other box of frogs!). The art is provided by the artist and the magic is provided by these mastering/mixing engineer's...well done!

[@markhedquist9597]

This was unexpected and deeply appreciated. What amazes me is how a record player, with all the electronics does the same thing as a plstic cup with a pin stuck through the bottom. The analog to the analog? Or vice versa.

[@david.e.h.]

I made it to the end, and it was well worth it! Thank you!!!

[@EddyTeetree]

Hi there. Not in the industry not a musician but have always preferred vinyl to every other medium for music playback and your channel has been such an enjoyable way to learn just how this crazy deal works. So thank you for all the effort it took to make this available!

[@drh15024]

Thank you so much for this video. I'm showing my age but for 60 years I have wondered how stereo sound was actually cut into record grooves.

[@kellymichael9567]

Ahh, the old mid side! That must mean the difference is out of phase like you inferred. The mono element is the commonality. The phase creates the space. How simple, how clever.

[@TWEAKER01]

and additional to all of this is the RIAA curve! And given the amplification needed, and potential for issues on playback alignment, it's amazing that it all works at all.

[@BarakaPDub]

Great explanation Scott. I am so glad you're doing this because in my opinion, you're one of the remaining mastering greats out there and it's great to have a mastering engineer do this. Would be curious if you're ever game for a Zoom Session to be turned into a mastering video on my channel.

[@paulritchie8157]

Got to the end, thoroughly enjoyed it! 😊

[@arthurchim3471]

Thank you for an entertaining explanation of how a stereo groove is created. I’m still amazed that it works. How about the defunct quadraphonic systems, just to throw them into the mix.

[@danielgeiger7739]

made it to the end. I think this would have benefitted from a bunch of graphics that show the inverted signal for one channel. That was a new one for me. Knew 45 deg angle, but I still do not fully understand how it works. What happens if one side of groove is wiggly, the other is straight, no excursions? This may be very useful discussion on how stereo works. Also a graphic with mono groove in top view with different frequencies and superimposed sine wave would be helpful. And then there is the question how do you get multiple sounds/instruments at one time from one groove? As far as I understand essentially constructive/destructive interference pattern. I appreciate the effort, but this video did not clarify it much more. Explaining things well is not simple. I have to explain energy dispersive spectroscopy mapping and other electron microscopy techniques to the general public, so am well aware of the difficulties. For graphics, consider showing a groove with left with 400 Hz, right with 800 Hz sine wave, and how the signal gets passed through, with common middle and L/R difference signal. Or something of that sort ...

[@Targoon_Music]

what was explained here is much like how "joint stereo" works in mp3 files you can read about that to understand what's happening here

[@sydneybird116]

Daniel, you stated that well. From this video, I now understand how a mono frequency sine wave may be recreated; the needle just tracks a groove that looks like a sine wave laying on it's side, going back and forth. An example of what has to happen to that single frequency sine wave groove to recreate dynamic range would be enlightening (guessing that the peaks and valleys (amplitude) (swing excursion left and right) gets wider for louder and narrower for softer). Then like you said, for stereo, a sine wave of one frequency in the left and a sine wave of another frequency in the right would be interesting groove geometry to pull out what is the main (back and forth) and what is the side channels (up and down)(?). Then adding two frequencies to the left and two frequencies to the right and how that looks groove geometry-wise. It is still magic to me.

[@Eddie-y5f]

Great explanation - like the FM example - sum and difference

[@imark7777777]

Fascinating so then the bedside microphone technique actually has its history in final records and goes back far far more than I thought. I think this is the first explanation that I run acrossed that really clearly explains what's going on.

[@marktubeie07]

Yep, got to the end and loving it ! Cheers.

[@moorestreetfootscraytrucks2909]

Wow! Thanks for this brilliant explanation! No doubt I'll revisit this video at a later date. What amazingly elegant technology!

[@billkeithchannel]

My late dad used to repair TVs, radios, and stereos for people. He has a kit full of replacement needle cartridges. I am the only person I have ever known to own cassettes made by Pfanstiehl. (I had to pull one out of the drawer next to me to make sure I spelled it right.)

[@billkeithchannel]

I spent the entire summer of 1983 after graduating babysitting two neighbor girls. The money I saved up bought me a $200 Sharp QT-78 Dual Cassette Portable Recorder. This had a "Stereo Wide" button that made FM sound even more dynamic. You can hear a couple of the songs I recorded get a richer sound all of a sudden because I forgot to have that button down before the song started.

[@billkeithchannel]

The two songs were: *Chaka Kahn* - _I Feel For You_ *Eddie Murphy* - _Party All The Time_ Both sounded wonderful with that setting and kinda flat without it.

[@utp216]

I got here to the end! Thanks for the video! 👍

[@larryh1843]

Great stuff!! It is amazing how MS works. My question is. How are the tones and overtones represented and reproduced?

[@brucevair-turnbull8082]

Fascinating explanation. Keep it up!

[@FiuranBand]

Interesting stuff and 👍

[@MegaF1guy]

Got to the end. Great video.

[@LilyCampbell-dz1fm]

thank you for this video I'm doing a speech on something similar this helped a ton.

[@OfficeLinebacker-FJB]

This was great. Thank you🙂

[@alkebulansan]

Watched the whole thing and still as lost as when I started! So sorry! But it's in the grooves and we love vinyl. Thank you for your time. And just as an aside, I have mono records and on my amp after having activated the mono switch of course, it still sounds kind of "stereo", the width and depth, the imaging of the recording are still there as with a stereo recording. Bliss.

[@srenkrabbe2991]

I got all to the end - thanks you :-)

[@garyinnes9203]

well, I got through to the end and I’m getting a gist of it, but I might have to watch it another couple of times to really grasp it.

[@DojoOfCool]

I got a job in recording back in the 70's and took a IAR course and mastering vinyl was cover briefly. From what I remember of mastering vinyl back then and how mastering vinyl was speciality that involved the mastering engineer and usually the record producer and/or the record engineer to approve the audio being cut. That was because some processing might be done and the effect of the RIAA curve being applied. Since vinyl making a come back it seems like people just send tracks to mastering houses and aren't involved during the mastering itself. Also I never hear anyone mention the RIAA curve is that still being doing and where the RIAA curve being decoded in modern digital playback systems? The one thing I always remember from the IAR class was technically vinyl records shouldn't be played more than once in a 24 hour period. That the vinyl is actually being pushed by the needle out of shape, but being a form of plastic it remembers it original shape and it takes 24 hours to come back to it's original shape. Interesting comparing recording in the 70's with recording today way different both technically and the definition of the roles people play now.

[@barrieflix]

RIAA is a curve specifically for vinyl. When applied at the cutting process it reduces the low frequencies (to avoid overlarge groove excursions) and boosts the high frequencies (which tend to have less energy). On playback (traditionally in the phono input stage of the amplifier) the opposite curve is applied, boosting the bass and cutting the treble to the original levels, which reduces the vinyl noise (but boosts any turntable rumble).

[@pedalscapes]

Fascinating - Cheers 😎

[@CraigHollabaugh]

Got to the end. Groovy

[@johnmalone8790]

Found that so interesting... Thankyou

[@lizichell2]

Very fascinating

[@johnwalker8952]

The two finger salute is said to originate when the French king offered a bounty for the 2 fingers of any English archer. The archers would make a point of waving said fingers at the French, just like you did after saying 'I hope no-one finds this insulting'.

[@MikeGervasi]

Drawing FM Modulation/Demod would have made it much clearer to the layman. It IS pretty amazing tech. RF carrier is the bus and the side mod is the passengers.

[@GIBKEL]

My RS modern pressed mono of Beggars Banquet ‘Sympathy for the Devil’- l needs to sum up the RCA signals to really hear the “ooh oohs” weird and I don’t quite understand?

[@rfassberg]

I made it to the end. Thanks for the explanation about the playback. How does the mastering process work though? Is it just somehow done in reverse?

[@kjbunnyboiler]

👍👍 nice explanation, thanks

[@Dandelion-32]

Thank you 🙂

[@DarrenGlen]

The audience that clicked on this video is smarter than you think. You dont need to "dumb it down" ...was easy to understand.

[@Pksparty2112]

I have the same groves in my hot blacktop driveway when I forget to raise my boats outdrive.

[@gaborozorai3714]

In analogue the analogy is not only to the signal going in, but, more importantly, to the sound pressure waves themselves.

[@hepphepps8356]

They (Electrical, mechanical, digital, magnetical) sound are all analogies. The word is kind of meaningless.

[@gaborozorai3714]

@@hepphepps8356 ??? It's about the form in which the signal is stored. You could play back a record purely mechanically, without the RIAA correction of course. Try to do that with digital.

[@draaitafels]

I got all the way to the end !

[@rubenarellano5087]

How deep are the vynyl disk grooves?

[@barrieflix]

A side effect is that the bass drum/guitar/etc need to be pretty much mono centre, else the stylus is likely to be flung out of the groove.

[@danpetitpas]

Not necessarily. Listen to the stereo versions of the early Beatles albums. You have bass and drums coming out of one channel, vocals and guitars coming out of the other channel.

[@poofygoof]

isn't the mono signal derived from the vertical movement of the stylus in the groove? [edit: nope!] the L & R signals would need to be out of phase from each other for the mono amplitude to move laterally. [edit: yes, they are, and my understanding has been wrong for decades...]

[@damonappel]

Wow. This really blew my mind. I didn't know that there's not 2 true "full" stereo tracks on a vinyl record. This opens-up a whole plethora of other questions, then. Such as, is this 'difference channel' approach (to support backwards compatibility with mono) really the limiting factor on things like dynamic range and/or channel separation? --In other words, could stereo vinyl theoretically carry as much signal as CD, if not for the compromise in construction?

[@matswessling6600]

no. CD is way more capable.

[@hepphepps8356]

No, the m/s -principle as applied does not limit the info by itself. It really just minimises the occurence of both channels moving upward physically at the same time.

[@James_Bowie]

Lateral motion is not back and forth, as he keeps saying. It's side to side.

[@wengkittang3263]

Awesome

[@osliverpool]

Aha moment...! the phase is reversed *to produce a lateral mono signal*! Thanks for that 🙂👍

[@revelry1969]

👍🏻 more more more!

[@thinkIndependent2024]

About Time!!! Vinyl people just don't understand accurate stereo when you add true 200 microsecond Crosstalk Cancelation music Lifelike. Look up Alan Blumlien 1929 he invented Stereo

[@keywestjimmy]

200 millisecond delay added to the difference signal only?

[@thinkIndependent2024]

​@@keywestjimmy200 Microseconds is the sound arrival ear to ear missing from stereo. Interaural crosstalk cancellation, when done people the sound goes past you like a in studio or like event

[@brianmoss5483]

20 thousand times a second

[@thinkIndependent2024]

​@@brianmoss5483200 Microseconds is the arrival difference between the left and right ear. The sound goes past in time/ phase when both you ears sense that that right there experience occurs

[@aipsong]

Groovy!!!

[@froknzokremixes]

Thank you.

[@S6xT2]

I was curious, has anybody ever just made a random record where they just random grooves and seeing what the music came out to be

[@preservedmoose]

The two fingers is an insult in English, similar to the middle finger in USA English; turn it around and it is a peace sign. According to Bernie Grundman, the Germans already had the patent on the technology when the USA were starting to consider a solution to the problem!

[@92trdman]

That's why 33rpm can't make the groove as wide as the 45rpm's dose and that limit the sound quality and dynamic(also why Vinyl Bass sound only limit on center /mono)

[@TWEAKER01]

45rp has high groove velocity and therefore greater resolution than 33 1/3 to represent the waveform in high frequencies. Bass is just easier to cut when mono as there's risk of groove jumping but depends on the signal and side lengths.

[@sonusbonum]

I wish I had a white coat like that...

[@donjohnstone3707]

Did the vinyl makers finally decide to drop the stereo with mono compatibility groove cutting and just focus on the best stereo cutting, when the interest in mono playback went to almost nothing? If not, then why not? After all, the mono record enthusiasts prefer records cut specifically for mono playback only.

[@danpetitpas]

The reason they didn't is there are hundreds of millions of turntables, pre-amps and receivers out there that would be made obsolete. And the current system works pretty well. Why change it?

[@rr4488rr]

Yah up yours Scott! How rude. 😁

[@willj7248]

👍

[@melbhififul]

👍🏼

[@Projacked1]

So ...they explained it wrong to me. Thank you sir, I understand now.

[@paulr2389]

Scott and Garrett: Great review of "how we got stereo" ! Umm, I have a couple of comments on all that (having worked deep audio myself)... 1) Your note on original mono records should have included that some early 78-rpm disc recordings (Edison, in particular) were NOT recorded horizontally, but vertically. Therefore, such records must NOT EVER be played on old wind-up antique "needle" players, or the record groove could be ground off at the bottom and the disc wrecked. Umm, that's for the very few folks who do appreciate music from the old days. :) 2) You did touch on it that FM broadcasting and its introduction of stereo, at about the same time or maybe slightly after, is the same idea that you note for stereo vinyl. Yet, for FM, mid-side signaling could be done DIRECTLY from the microphones - one omni (or cardioid) for "mid", and one figure-8 for "side" signals to go directly(!) to the FM transmitter which were separated by the 38kHz(?) sub-carrier modulation signal. Nowadays, of course, we're all enjoying multi-mic'ed and heavily mixed derivatives, which could be considered "better". Hmm... Yet, stereo vinyl is still under-appreciated and quite a journey. Again, thanks for a great overview of the technology!

[@declanfarber]

The further you get out of town, the slower and slower the music gets, until finally you’re driving past flocks of pigs, and all you hear is the spoken word, often in an odd accent. That’s how radio works.

[@kuglepen64]

I GOT ALL THE WAY TO THE END

[@tripjet999]

If it's not on CD, it's not for me!

[@mlambrechts1]

True stereo only happens with speakers, not headphones. The reason: In real life, a signal will come to one ear faster than to the other (there's a small delay). This does not happen with headphones.

[@matswessling6600]

😂 of course it happens in headphones. the real issue isnt hiw fast it comes but when they arrive and how big difference there is in arrival time. and having signal to arrive at different time is easy to do with headphones.

[@hepphepps8356]

The difference is crosstalk between the speakers. Can be simulated with headphones, but most often isn’t. Wouldn’t go as far as saying headphone stereo isn’t proper stereo, but it makes it harder to mix music on headphones, as it is unpredictable how it will turn out on speakers.

[@keywestjimmy]

This points out that a better term is needed than stereo. Crosstalk is part of stereo. Both presentations work. Binaural with hrtf is the headphone version that corrects spatial inaccuracy of stereo.

[@MrRom92DAW]

I got to the end! 🙋🏻‍♂️

[@KevinAnderson-c3j]

Should the turntable / Vinyl record be redesigned without backward as a limitation ? Why does a good record on a good playback system sound so good ? You know it when you hear it. All the math says that your CD, flac, hi rez streams SHOULD be"better" but my ears say not.

[@danpetitpas]

I would say it all has to do with frequency equalization. Records reproduce mid-range frequencies very well butthey don't reproduce the highs very well. So a lot of people say records sound "warmer." You can EQ a CD the exact same way. Use a graphic equalizer to turn down the higher frequencies and you can make a CD sound like a phonograph record.

[@apollomemories7399]

I can sell you a 100 watt lightbulb which may assist us with actually seeing what you are looking at on the table.

[@marmaly]

If ever a topic required visual aids...

[@NoEgg4u]

Good info, except for calling a stylus a needle. Many people really believe that it is a needle. Please do not reinforce their misunderstanding.

[@MajorTomgames]

my dude that is not a peace sign lol

[@DayNNyteDJs]

I thought I was the only one thinking that.

[@ShonnDaylee]

He literally just flipped off the internet. (I'm from the UK)

[@nudebaboon4874]

Yes it is, it means peace to himself.😉

[@spiritzweispirit1st638]

Your were Viewing it from the Sender side! _ He wasn't actually making a Proper Peace sign' like He was making before you were ever born' _ Two fingers is Always Palm forward in a Peace sign' He Was Generalizing the Form!✌️Peace

[@markmclaren7577]

its an insult in Britain

[@michaelshultz2540]

And if you reverse the polarity on one channel of a stereo cartridge you can play old edison dimond disc records because there audio is in the bottom of the groove up and down instead of sode to side . You didn't mention that.

[@markmalasics3413]

Well, it would seem to me, from THIS explanation anyway, that this gentleman has never heard of or has no idea of how the 19khz FM pilot signal works.

[@Mancheguache]

The internet is a creepy thing - yesterday me and my patner were talking about how we didn't understand how music got stored on spotify etc and I said I didn't even have the faintest about how it worked on vinyl. Today - this crops up on my 'feed'. Liked and subbed though anyway. But what goes on at the actual surface level? How come those scratches get to be 'relflected' as actual sound? Or is that philosophy?

[@s0ulssh4x0r4]

It is vibration that causes the grooves to be cut, you can cut a groove inw record without electric, just vibration directed to a cutting stylus with a funnel like on phonograph but reversed so the sound goes down in to the funnel instead of coming out out of it.

[@danpetitpas]

@@s0ulssh4x0r4 That's how they did it in the old days -- true analog recording. Sing into the horn.

[@davegrigsby7807]

👍

[@flognaw6633]

👍

[@pauldavis6356]

👍