The Cleveland Symphonic Winds session (Holst, Handel, Bach) was mentioned
here recently. Hadn't put it on in years and forgot how deluxe the gatefold
album is. Nice photo of Dr. Stockham with his baby accompanies a ton of
info. My copy, maybe a second press- or packaging-run, or a special edition
as it says it's distributed by Audio-Technica, also has a folder stuck in
with the record advertising the first Telarc digital releases and a review
excerpt from Stereo Review. "Coming in Fall 1980 - Rite of Spring - New
World Symphony - Bolero."
But what’s really charming is a little mimeographed notice: "CAUTION! THIS
RECORDING WILL CHALLENGE THE BEST PLAYBACK SYSTEMS TO AN EXTRAORDINARY
DEGREE! The powerful low frequency transients, if played at excessively high
levels, could cause speaker damage."
I bet it did! BAM! It is one amazing LP. As the notice proclaims, it is not
overcut. Mine is a second hand copy and it tracks perfectly.
Wikipedia's article says the Soundstream deck ran initially at 35ips, later
at 30ips.
I don't have the 3M-mastered Copland/Ives album anymore. I remember it being
an annoying multi-mic dissection. The Cleveland disc, otoh, is a very fine
production. Worth seeking out if you haven't heard it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Shai Drori
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2012 2:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Early digital recording history -- RCA's first
(according to Billboard)
Any info on tape speed and recording time per reel? Just my quirky brain?
Shai
בתאריך 09/11/12 7:01 PM, ציטוט Tom Fine:
> Ye olde Billboard via Google Books yields another tidbit ...
>
> Levine/CSO - Mahler #7 was RCA's first digital recording. Medinah
> Temple, July 1980. The Soundstream system was used, and according to
> Billboard interviews with both producer Thomas Z. Shepard and
> Soundstream head Thomas Stockham, it was a more elaborate setup than
> previous Soundstream projects. Stockham said that his tape machine (a
> Honeywell instrumentation recorder) was capable of up to 8 tracks,
> although the typical Soundstream setup was 4 tracks and usually (in
> the case of Telarc at least), it was duplicate stereo sends. For the
> Levine/CSO recording, Soundstream was sent 8 channels from RCA's
> recording setup. So two Soundstream electronics units were sync'd
> together and the 8 separate digital signals were fed to the tape
> recorder. One can imagine how slow the editing was with 8 tracks
> loaded into the DEC computer. This was all probably pushing the
> capabilities of the Soundstream system. According to several different
> interwebs sources, the record wasn't released until 1982. I wonder if
> there had to be some R&D at Soundstream to get the project edited and
> mastered?
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
--
בברכה,
שי דרורי
מומחה לשימור והמרה של אודיו וידאו וסרטים 8-35 ממ.
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