Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
I'm sure I have also done the same in the past, and this is the 'naive' method - I put the word in quotes because it turns out that the naive approach is also the considered method (and indeed the only viable method).
As the linked Wikipedia article shows, for any method of making the recording except binaural or time-of-arrival stereophony, there is essentially a monophonic signal available encoded as L+R/2, so the mixing of the left and right channels is entirely justified. In the case of the exceptions, there is no satisfactory way to extract a mono signal (but a minority of recordings will have been made this way).
I am intrigued by the mid+side stereo microphone, I had wondered how a useful stereo separation could be obtained from what appears to be a single mic on (say) a camcorder.
As the linked Wikipedia article shows, for any method of making the recording except binaural or time-of-arrival stereophony, there is essentially a monophonic signal available encoded as L+R/2, so the mixing of the left and right channels is entirely justified. In the case of the exceptions, there is no satisfactory way to extract a mono signal (but a minority of recordings will have been made this way).
I am intrigued by the mid+side stereo microphone, I had wondered how a useful stereo separation could be obtained from what appears to be a single mic on (say) a camcorder.