But would it add any expense to record the sound? Since the late 1930s, Hollywood had been recording its music scores on multiple optical tracks, and mixing them down to a mono track. Fantasia may have been the first feature released in multi-channel sound, but multi-channel recording began several years before that - MGM began mixing with a four-track rig in 1938. And studios had been keeping separate dialog/music/sound effects tracks since at least 1939, for, among other reasons, aiding in dubbing into foreign languages.


At that point it would be more expensive. You've got two more microphones on the set than usual, a magnetic dubber you're lugging around, and then the added expense of extra editing time for a three-track master, whereas dubbing down to a mono from a binaural could be done in real-time when mixing the final audio master.

Keep in mind, however, that these early binaural (not particularly stereophonic) set-ups were not on the soundstages-- just on the recording stage. Also, we're getting into technicalities here as to what is stereophonic (ie. recording directionality AND phase through intensity difference between multiple channels). Binaural recordings and FANTASIA are NOT considered true stereo by some because they are just recordings of individual instruments or groups edited together, as opposed to two or more microphones recording at once and feeding the signal to the same source.

One might argue that films today are largely binaural than stereophonic, as a lot of it is pot panning.

What it be correct to guess that most of the added expense of releasing a movie with stereo sound would come in making the prints?


Depends on how you want to break it down. Would six extra reels of mag stereo for a couple of hundred prints be more expensive than the installation of all of the dubbers, microphones, etc. combined? Also consider that the dubbing equipment would be paid for by a number of other productions, but that if those productions were to release the films stereophonically, it would put you back into the red again. I think the short answer if you were to roughly balance it out is yes, because so many films used mag dubbers out of convenience. You can do a lot more with 35mm mag dubbers than you could with an optical neg, which had to be processed and printed to be played back.

As I said, when I find the breakdown sheet that I have, I'll post some numbers here.

Last Edited By: TServo4 Apr 1 09 12:28 PM. Edited 2 times.