CRC tapes were filed under their own alpha-numeric series, and Special
Products also had another.

DDR

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Steve Smolian <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Is there a particular matrix code that identifies these club issues?
>
> Steve Smolian
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Tom Fine
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 10:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] early stereophony
>
> Hi Dennis:
>
> First of all, this is great historical perspective, thanks so much for
> sharing.
>
> Your mention of the Columbia Record Club jogged my memory. Part of the low
> opinion of Columbia's LP
> output in Mercury's offices was the bad sound on Mercury records sold thru
> the Club. Columbia
> insisted on getting 2-track tapes and doing their own mastering, at least
> for part of the "golden
> era." The mastering was deemed timid and weak, and of course that's what
> Columbia was aiming for --
> optimal tracking and decent sound on every two-bit console player out
> there. None of these deep and
> wide Piros cuts that would jump the grooves on those POS players or make
> the cheap speakers rattle,
> by golly. But, despite the grumblings, I don't think a royalty check from
> the Club was ever
> returned!
>
> By the way, somewhat relevant to this thread -- I just noticed in an old
> Radio & TV New magazine
> from 1961 a surplus sale on 2-track stereo tapes from Mercury, Columbia,
> RCA and the smaller fry
> like Livingston and StereoTapes. Sold on Radio Row for $2 a tape. By then,
> all the consumer machines
> were 1/4-track and stereo LPs had taken over the still niche market for
> 2-speaker sound. Fred Plaut
> was actually correct in a way. According to an article John Eargle wrote
> in the AES Journal in the
> late 60's urging continued mono-stereo compatibility in mixing and
> mastering, the mono LPs outsold
> stereo until they were taken out of print because retailers refused to
> carry both formats of the
> same albums, in the mid-60's. As late as the 70's, EMI/Capitol/Angel
> engineer Carson Taylor was
> using classical recording techniques compatible with mono because he knew
> that European classical
> radio was still mono.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis Rooney" <
> [log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 5:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] early stereophony
>
>
> I never read Mike Gray's account in TAS, but here are some thoughts about
>> Columbia based on what I encountered doing CD reissues for Sony Classical.
>> Let me preface them by noting that my experience focused almost
>> exclusively
>> on Masterworks division source.
>>
>> By the mid fifties, Columbia manufactured an excellent Lp physically and
>> their mono disc mastering was unexceptionable. However, their focus was
>> on
>> mass sales, especially their Columbia Record Club which enabled them to
>> dominate the U.S. market. They emphasized a quality product and had
>> introduced the "360" phonograph in response to the burgeoning interest in
>> "hi-fi". Nevertheless, engineering was not at the forefront of their
>> image.
>> An unwritten rule governed Columbia's disc mastering: "Make it loud, make
>> it present", and the product reflected it, as it had done since CBS bought
>> the label in 1938.
>>
>> From that time, when mastering began to be done on 16-1/2" lacquers, the
>>>
>> assumption was always that the master would INVARIABLY be subjected to
>> post-production, and it continued throughout the Lp era. Whereas Mercury
>> pursued a very different ideal, one as close to the master as possible,
>> Columbia never intended the master to be anything but raw material. EQ,
>> reverb, gain riding and compression all contributed to the released
>> Columbia product from 78rpm to stereo. When I began doing CD reissues of
>> Masterworks material, I was encouraged to always use master generation
>> source. Much of it had been stored for years and often resisted discovery.
>> But Columbia had been careful to preserve session tapes, which meant that
>> enough material existed to fix problems due to wear in the edited
>> originals. In the case of pre-tape material, I was successful in locating
>> original lacquer source, a surprisingly large amount of which had survived
>> in storage for four decades and more in excellent condition.
>>
>> Working with master material, I was pleased to discover a level of audio
>> quality that was far more sophisticated than what the commercial releases
>> suggested. Analogue tape was out of the picture by that time and careful
>> a/d transfers could be further improved by digital noise-reduction
>> software
>> and editing. Use of CEDAR to aid in correct stylus selection before
>> transfer yielded a s/n quotient where the lacquers were very often quieter
>> than the original chain. Most tapes survived in very good condition.
>> Blocking was almost never encountered and the mostly 3M type 111 and
>> Audiotape that had been used had survived extremely well. Binder
>> hydrolysis
>> wasn't a factor until Ampex tapes began to be used in the eighties.
>>
>> Goddard Lieberson was immensely influential in the story of Columbia
>> Masterworks but he was a producer who had faith in his engineers and they
>> achieved the results you hear. Producers and engineers were not named on
>> Columbia records for many years. The brand was the focus. Howard Scott was
>> a principal producer of Masterworks recordings throughout the fifties. He
>> recorded in New York with Fred Plaut (they did Glenn Gould, Isaac Stern,
>> the NY Phil., etc.), and in Philadelphia and Cleveland, with a road crew
>> that usually comprised Harold Chapman ("Chappy") and later Buddy Graham as
>> balance engineers. and Ajutor {"Pappy"} Theroux as tape operator. Chappy
>> was probably the only engineer Columbia had who truly understood
>> stereophony. His setups have a cohensiveness that suggests a superior
>> ability to place microphones. Pappy was a veteran who had been around a
>> long time but not, I think, in the acoustic era. He arrived in advance of
>> the sessions to set up and test the lathes and then the tape recorders.
>>
>> If they were not on the cutting edge of stereophony, those men all were
>> careful craftsman and the studio practices they pursued made Columbia a
>> very well run shop. It was easy for me to fix a bad splice in SONIC but
>> knowing how they often had achieved success with limited means gave new
>> respect to their "old-fashioned" ways.
>>
>> The reason Szell went to Epic was only partially to not dilute Ormandy's
>> sales. Epic had been created to release the Philips recordings that were
>> available when Columbia ended its exchange agreement with EMI in 1952.
>> Philips, a relative newcomer, wanted a U.S. presence. But Willem van
>> Otterloo, Eugen Jochum and Eduard van Beinum had little or no U.S.
>> identity. It was decided that the label needed a major orchestra and
>> conductor at the top of the roster and Szell was chosen. When Bernstein
>> began to make headway against Ormandy on Columbia, the wisdom of that
>> decision was plain.
>>
>> As I believe I wrote earlier, Columbia was resistant to stereo. Plaut
>> particularly doubted that stereo discs would be an important part of the
>> label's sales. 1/4-in two track stereo recordings began in the Masterworks
>> Division with Berstein's MESSIAH in Dec. 1956. Columbia finally got a
>> three-channel 1/2-in. Ampex machine, just one at first, in summer 1957.
>> Afterwards, sessions were often recorded in mono (a&b sets), 2-channel
>> stereo (or binaural, c&d sets) and one 3-channel with a different mix than
>> the binaurual. As soon as more three-track machines arrived, the 1/4-in
>> sets were discontinued.
>>
>> This post is longer than I originally intended. Mea culpa.
>>
>> DDR
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>*
>> *wrote:
>>
>> What I was always told about Columbia -- and keep in mind this is from
>>> the
>>> perspective of competitors, although my father did have contact here and
>>> there with Columbia over the years, including in the early LP days since
>>> Reeves developed their own microgroove system with Fairchild -- was that
>>> Columbia was very hidebound and conservative in all matters technical.
>>> Their recordings were considered technically "boring" and "dull,"
>>> although
>>> I now thing that was more the fault of their mastering techniques.
>>> Columbia
>>> never embraced 2- or 3- mic stereo, opting for more mics than Mercury or
>>> RCA from the get-go. They also seem to have had some strange procedures
>>> and
>>> techniques, based on what veterans have said and written. And there
>>> seemed
>>> to be technical factions, meaning the product was uniform-sounding or
>>> consistent.
>>>
>>> Mike Gray wrote a really good technical history of Columbia that was
>>> published in The Absolute Sound right after they went to the larger
>>> format.
>>> It was the usual Mike article -- well-researched and vault-verified with
>>> cooperation from the company (Sony by then).
>>>
>>> Columbia's engineers were capable of excellent classical recordings.
>>> Listen to the CD reissues Dennis Rooney did in the 90's, especially the
>>> Szell albums. To think that Szell was consigned to Epic so as not to
>>> ruffle
>>> Ormandy's sales. No disrespect to Ormandy's many fine albums, but Szell
>>> was
>>> a top-league conductor and he had Cleveland in top-league playing
>>> condition
>>> throughout his Epic career.
>>>
>>> One thing both RCA and Columbia had to deal with in the 1950's is that
>>> their technical staffs were led by guys (all men) who came up cutting
>>> 78RPM
>>> disks, sometimes going back to the acoustical-recording era. This was the
>>> same thing as in later years getting guys who came up in the early 60's
>>> to
>>> get into the age of DAWs and digital editing. There's a friction of the
>>> old
>>> against the new. Stereophony was just too new for some of the old hands.
>>> Notice that the smaller companies who jumped into stereophony early and
>>> with both feet tended to have younger technical people involved in the
>>> recording and production, and stereotypically (pun intended), younger
>>> people tend to be more open to new ideas and techniques. This is ironic,
>>> because 2-channel stereophony was proven and tested in the 1930's when
>>> some
>>> of the old guard were still kids.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lewis" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 9:31 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] early stereophony
>>>
>>>
>>> In his liner notes to "The Birth of the Third Stream" (Columbia CK
>>> 64829)
>>>
>>>> George Avakian touches on, but does not elaborate,
>>>> that some experimental stereo recording was made during the June 1957
>>>> sessions for the Adventures in Sound LP "Modern
>>>> Jazz Concert" but does not elaborate. Back when the CD was released I
>>>> sent
>>>> a query through the Sony grapevine, and what
>>>> came back was that the stereo equipment had just arrived at Columbia but
>>>> no
>>>> one really knew how to operate it, and that some
>>>> testing was done for the "Modern Jazz Concert" album in stereo, but none
>>>> was usable, and none was saved.
>>>>
>>>> I guess they had figured it out at least by the time of Stravinsky's
>>>> "Agon"
>>>> in 1958. If, as Tom said, Mercury was "late in the game"
>>>> in 1955 in dealing with the stereo phenomenon, then Columbia was almost
>>>> not
>>>> in the game at all. Personal opinion: Once they did
>>>> get it going, stereo did provide for a big boost in their overall
>>>> sound quality, though that opinion may be influenced by shoddy
>>>> mastering/pressing and the tattered condition of some mono Columbia
>>>> tapes
>>>> that have come down to us.
>>>>
>>>> Uncle Dave Lewis
>>>> Lebanon, OH
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Dennis Rooney <
>>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>>> **wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I found no reference to the MAR items in my archival research on
>>>> Szell's
>>>>
>>>>> Columbia/Epic recordings. It's entirely possible that RCA recorded
>>>>> them.
>>>>> There was great resistance to stereo from Fred Plaut and others. and I
>>>>> never found any evidence of experimental binaural setups that preceded
>>>>> the*Messiah
>>>>> * of Dec. 1956. However, when inspecting the tapes at IMAR, I came
>>>>> across
>>>>> an Ormandy/PO recording (I no longer remember the repertoire) recorded
>>>>> c1955 in 3-track, 1/4-inch format. The contents were never released.
>>>>>
>>>>> DDR
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> Dennis D. Rooney
>> 303 W. 66th Street, 9HE
>> New York, NY 10023
>> 212.874.9626
>>
>>


--
Dennis D. Rooney
303 W. 66th Street, 9HE
New York, NY 10023
212.874.9626