VHS audio - no bass center mix

[gamjerr]

Hi all,

I really know very little about audio panning. But I've come across an issue with 2 VHS tapes. The vast majority sound fine - but these two tapes the audio when captured the same way is not as loud and sounds like it is missing all bass. I demuxed the audio and played around with it in audacity and found that it sounded much better if I panned the audio to the left or to the right. Could anyone help explain what is happening and the best fix? Thanks!

Samples attached.

[raffriff42]

sample_center.aac: the phase is inverted between the channels. To fix it in Audacity, use the Invert filter on one channel only.

[hdfills]

run the vhs through a sound mixer and then onto the audio input ... solved

[gamjerr]

That worked. Thank you for the tips and correct terminology! This is not a problem with my overall setup - must be something about production on this tape set (both tapes part of the same set).

[jagabo]

Out of phase dual mono is a cheap "stereo" effect trick. Sounds like crap.