Mastering psychoacoustics (binaural) for vinyl

[horaflora]

I have a split 12" due out in a bit, and we're at the point where we're thinking about mastering for vinyl... The company that we're going to use (we think), pirate press in San Francisco, has a PDF of guidelines to mastering for vinyl (whether this document is an industry standard or specific to the company, I know not) that amongst other things that I knew of previously (keep the bass mono, avoid sharp peaks..) it specifically mentions that one should "avoid any psychoacoustically generated sound"...!!!

I believe that by definition, binaural recording is pretty psychoacoustic.

As my entire side consists of a few layers of binaural audio, this instantly gave me a mini complex!

I asked Greg Davis, as I suspected him of all folk would have run into such a conundrum in the past, and he didn't seem to think it would particuarly matter - that the effect would perhaps become less pronounced by simply putting it on vinyl (unless I'm misunderstanding) but that otherwise I shouldn't have cause for concern... He also reiterated the mono bass stricture.... Nonetheless, I wanted to get any of the opinions of the members of the board here before proceeding, as I don't want to regret making some poor decision that could have been avoided by simply puttin out the question.

For the record, I know that for best results, headphones are normally called for in listening to binaurally recorded sound, and that there's few people out there that actually listen to vinyl on headphones (just my impression), but I still feel like the spacial information that makes it out of conventional loudspeakers is dramatically different than other traditional stereo effects (and even some untraditional effects!).

Thanks for any and all information!

Raub

[horaflora]

Oh, I should mention that almost any mastering information/advice would be most appreciated... Though I now realize I should perhaps have searched for just such a subject before posting about it..

edit: I've looked up any entries with mastering and vinyl in the post, and found several threads that i'm now looking through, so really no need to reiterate anything you recall previously posting on this subject as I plan on going through all of it quite thoroughly.

[Moon]

I would think that if you aren't very concerned about people not listening to the binaural sounds binaurally with headphones then the 'interesting effect in normal speakers' should probably still be interesting on vinyl.

Vinyl has stereo, so to me it makes sense, although it's just a guess.

[Stephen]

In my limited and amateur experience (ie: once) the stereo image transferred very nicely from the digital file to the vinyl.

The frequency response (overemphasis of mid-range and loss of top end) was more of a problem.

[gordon]

i imagine they are concerned about phase difference, since if the stereo image is 180 degrees out of phase the groove will disappear. apologies if this has already been mentioned.