Could someone give me an overview of who pressed Everest records,and how they were pressed outside the US back in the day? I have a couple of the World Record Club issues,as well as an Australian issue in a generic cover with a large Festival Records logo as the cover design.I assume this is a (WRC?) record club pressing,too.I found it with a number of Australian World Record Club records from the 60s,but I really do not know.

How about the rest of Europe? In the 50s,and 60s there were a plethora of record clubs in France and Germany,did one of these issue Everest? Were Everest releases sold in stores outside the US and Canada? Who pressed,and sold,Everest product in Japan?

Roger

 



________________________________
From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Everest UK reissues

Hi Mike:

If I remember correctly, Rippe was transferring the films for Madacy. So what then happened? I never saw any reissues from them except for that Beethoven cycle, which was from an old digital master made from tape.

I'm not sure how Rippe lined up a 4-track head since the Everest films were 3-track, but there is a good bit of latitude in that format due to the large guard bands between tracks.

As I understand it, Bernie Grundman did have a restored Westrex machine to do the Classic Records reissues. He seems to have made digital transfers of 3-track and also a 3-2 mixdown. The LPs were from a 3-2 mixdown, said by Classic to have been done in the analog domain. Classic sold DVD-Audio discs that had 3-track and 2-channel stereo versions of the material, plus an accompanying 2-channel audio CD.

From what I've been told by former archive folks at Polygram and then Universal, any of those 35mm masters from that era (Everest, Mercury, Command) suffer from varying degrees of vinegar and shrinkage. All of the still-existing Mercury film masters were reissued on CD in the 1990's, and some of that playback was difficult even with the forgiving Westrex transport (the Westrex drive has small sprocket wheels and thin sprocket pegs, so it can play through a moderate amount of shrinkage as long as it's uniform and the film can rest flat against the head). Another 15 years of aging, and the only solution nowadays is probably playback on those sprocket-less transports that also hold the film firmly against the play head. I doubt there's any will to invest in that kind of effort.

Anyway, if Rippe did transfer film masters, are there plans to reissue those titles on CD?

BTW, I've been surprised to pick up Everest records pressed in California long after the original company went out of business. This was from that iteration of the brand based in Los Angeles. Some of those records appear to be re-presses from original masters or metal parts since they have the same deadwax inscriptions in the same handwriting. Also same cover art, but not the fancy silver-foil covers with the cardboard pull-out sleeve.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- From: "Gray, Mike" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Everest UK reissues


> According to Lutz Rippe, the classical engineer at Countdown Media in Hamburg, Bernie Grundman used a vintage Western Electric 35mm
> transport, which had problems reproducing some of the Everest films, while Rippe himself had a 4-tr transport that played them just fine.
>
>
> Mike Gray
>