Hi, Randy,

I do recall an article about the making of "The Sound of Music" in, I 
think, "American Cinematographer" or some such magazine which indicated 
that the musical numbers were played back. My recollection was there was 
a devil of an issue with the large-scale dance number in the woods and 
there were multiple speakers all playing back together (with no delay) 
so that everyone was "in time", no matter how far away from the camera 
they were.

If I further recall this correctly, the little battery-operated Nagra 
speakers of the era were used.

As to your other question about equalization, I do recall the need for 
an "Academy EQ" on playback in screening rooms, but I did not keep 
extensive notes on it as it was handled by other people where I worked 
and I was only involved in one or two screening rooms that required 
that. I don't know if digging deeper on that phrase might help you in 
your search. I do not recall a reference to mag stock in IASA TC04...not 
saying it's not there, just that I don't recall it.   
http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation

Cheers,

Richard

On 2012-04-26 6:56 AM, Randy Riddle wrote:
> With musicals, they used a combination of live, on-stage dialogue
> sequences with pre-recorded playback for the musical numbers, a
> practice that started in the early days of sound after someone figured
> out that recording a full orchestra hidden off-screen and a performer
> singing live wasn't so easy to pull off, especially if a complicated
> number needed to be restaged.

-- 
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada           (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.