Re: Advanced music processing (NOT)

[Anders Hultman <anders.hultman@unisource.se>]

a94mikja@ida.his.se (Mikael Jakonen) wrote:
> A while ago, something happened to Vickies head-phones. And there was
> a clever suggestion about the cause: The ground-wire was probably cut.
> 
> I know Karen talked about trying it for herself. Did you do it, Karen?
> Did anyone else do it?

No, but I know very well how to do it. It happens by accident from time to 
time in semipro audio, and is quite easy to duplicate.

If you have the stereo sound in two balanced cables (one for each channel)
all you have to do is switch the hot and cold branch (the positive and
negative signal wire) in one of the channels, and in a later stage
(eg after an amp at unity gain) switch from stereo to mono (connect the
signals together).

This will make sounds that are exactly the same in both left and right 
channels to be almost totally muted, leaving only sounds that originally
were off center.

Some years ago I heard it accidentally done to "The Seer", making Kate's 
voice almost separated from the rest of the song (that sounded very 
muffled).

Nb. This is best done with balanced cables, like XLR/Cannon connectors,
where each channel has three wires: positive, negative and ground 
respectively. It can not be done with unbalanced cables like the ones
usually used in consumer gear, but sometimes it happens with defective 
headphone cables.

anders <- who used to work in radio