Excellent work on the CD! Midsommarvake is very fine, and a valuable
document, but the recording of Festspel from 1957 is spectacular.

I've been absorbing some other early stereo sessions lately: the 2-CD set
from EMI of their Rodzinski recordings of 1957. They have the kind of
focused imaging that M/S or Blumlein render. Fabulous performances and very
good sound.

EMI was also rather late to stereo, right? There is a disc of Beecham
rehearsal excerpts where a little pop happens above his head. "What the
devil," or words to that effect, he exclaims. When someone says it's the
stereo, he dismisses it, as he did stereo itself.

I'd like to know more about the resistance to stereo at Columbia and
apparently at EMI. Certainly the challenge of cutting stereo discs must not
have been appreciated, so soon after they got a handle on monaural
microgroove. Tape, too, was still relatively new. Besides engineering, the
front offices must have been feeling cautious about a new format that, as I
understand it, didn't really have mass-market demand until a decade later.

Great thread - thanks all.

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Goran Finnberg
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 2:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Early stereophony

Tom Fine:

> Going from the liner notes on various commercial
> issues plus online stuff, I've arrived at this
> list.

Hugo Alfven: Midsommarvaka Swedish Society Discophil SCD 1003

Was recorded in true stereo in 1954 using two mono Lyrec tape recorders
cannibalized to give one recorder with a true stereo rec/play head using
both mono machines electronics to provide a stereo recorder.

I, together with a colleaugue did the tape transfers from the original
stereo master tape in 1994.

We had on hand the original recording electrical engineer who told us about
the problems converting the Lyrec tape machines and trying to tweak the
bisas frequency on one channel trying to match the other one to avoiud beats
minutes before the recording started.

The recording sounds exceedingly natural which puts to shame many of todays
hi-tech digital recordings of today.

The recording engineer used two Neumann U47 switched to omni mode in A/B
stereo 15 meters from the conductors podium.


http://www.amazon.com/Alfv%C3%A9n-Festspel-Midsommarvaka-Bergakungen-f%C3%B6
rlorade/dp/B0000262QC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348596194&sr=8-1&keywords=Alfv
en+Midsommarvaka+Swedish+Society

The whole of the above needs to be put into your browswer whatch out for any
line breaks or use:

http://tinyurl.com/brxx7ss



-- 
Best regards,

Goran Finnberg
The Mastering Room AB
Goteborg
Sweden

E-mail: [log in to unmask]

Learn from the mistakes of others, you can never live long enough to
make them all yourself.    -   John Luther

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