Thanks very much to both of you. Mr. Gray, I know of your research, but
except for a few old TAS issues, I haven't seen any of it. It may be that
without reading your histories, short of having been there, one can't know
essential aspects of how the trade was practiced by RCA.
We can infer a lot from knowing what equipment was used on a session,
approximately how it was deployed, and what post-production tools each team
had. What's a little harder to get at is the finer-grained decisions
governed by taste or philosophy, or the bigger picture of corporate policies
of sound and marketing. It's all instructive, but what makes Mercury's
classical projects fascinating for a recordist in this time is the unique
consistency of method and apparent consistency of intention. Much to learn.
"'timid' cutting was held in disdain." No kidding!
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 11:37 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Mercury 51-CD box set now officially set for USA and
Europe m...
I agree with Mike on all of this, but would add that the real voodoo as far
as EQ was often as not
at the LP cutting stage, at least in the US. Especially with early Westrex
stereo cutters, it was
not possible to get onto a disk exactly what was possible on a master tape,
as far as dynamics and
also upper midrange and high-frequency saturation. In the US, the business
model allowed for shorter
sides, but the vinyl wasn't as quiet as what was used in Europe, so a goal
was to raise average
level high above the noise floor. This made for all kinds of tricks to
prevent especially the high
frequency energy from blowing out the cutter head, and also keeping bass
peaks trackable. Remember
that there wasn't a preview-head system back in the late 50's and early
60's, so this was all done
by hand and ear and experience. In the case of the Mercury team, "timid"
cutting was held in
disdain. The cutting amplifiers at Fine Recording were capable of 1kw peak
power, so there was no
musical peak that couldn't pass through the amplifier, the limitation was
always the cutter head
and/or getting a record that the majority of 1958 cartridges could track.
Photos of LP mastering
rooms from that era often show a lot of Pultec and other equalization gear
in the racks, also
usually one or more type of limiter/compressor (although some labels applied
compression and/or EQ
when they made a second-generation "mastering dub").
In the case of Mercury Living Presence recordings, there was a direct and
unbroken chain from the
microphones directly into the record electronics of the tape machines, then
the first generation
tape was edited and a disk master was cut from that. I have no doubt there
were times when some
subtle gain-riding took place and/or EQ was applied to make a disk
marketable, but I cant cite any
examples I know of as fact.
An example I can cite from hearing the stories directly from the
participants is the Command hit
"Persuasive Percussion." One song uses loud Chinese bells in one channel.
There were more than 30
test-cuts made and two cutter heads were blown out before a result that was
satisfactory to everyone
was achieved. Even then, two decades later, my father and George Piros still
talked about that
record and their dissatisfaction with what they could get out of the early
Westrex cutter. I always
thought it sounded fine, until the short-lived Verase Serebande (sp?)
reissue CD came out in the
1990's. For the CD, they happened to have done a good transfer from the
first-generation 2-track
master tape, including little if any dynamics control. Whatever tape deck
they played it on, they
set levels in such a way that the electronics handled the extreme dynamics
and close-mic'd frequency
extremes, and translated everything to digital very well. In that
perspective, yes the Chinese bells
sound much more natural, less "splashy" and with more overtones and moving
air around them. There
was an LP remaster done by MCA in the 70's that doesn't have issues with the
Chinese bells but has
issues with everything else (whimpy overall levels, loud surface noise,
dynamics compression, sounds
like it's not from a first-generation tape, etc).
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gray, Mike" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Mercury 51-CD box set now officially set for USA and
Europe m...
> The brief answer is that, aside from Mercury, early stereo mixing boards
had treble and bass,
> boost and cut pots that, and judging from the hundreds of engineers
recording sheets I have seen
> from the 50s and 60s, were often used to adjust the sound of an individual
microphone prior to
> printing the mix to tape.
>
>
> As for the microphones themselves, the condensors commonly used then had a
nice treble boost from
> ca. 9K upwards - this added a nice tingle to the sound. But this boost was
most common when the
> mikes were used 'on-axis', and was less when the sound was coming
'off-axis'
>
>
> Insofar as treble boosting at the cutting stage was concerned, LP cutters
had limiters and other
> black boxes that were used to
> transfer from tape to lacquer. The most common modification at that stage
was blending bass to
> mono below about 150Hz,and adding diameter EQ (a treble boost) to overcome
the pinch effect as the
> groove reached the label.
>
>
> Mike Gray
>
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