On 2014-09-18 1:48 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
> One more point about recording booths. I think some of what we like
> about the more primatively-recorded blues, hillbilly and other "folk"
> musics recorded in the 30s and 40s is a result of the highly damped
> small recording spaces often used. I've read accounts of Paramount
> artists talking about a small studio so blanketed and damped that they
> could barely hear themselves or their instrument.

When I was at ABC-TV in the late 1970s, the ABC morning show invited the
choir of men and boys from St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue to perform
a short segment. I had been recording the choir for a while and became
good friends with the late Dr. Gerre Hancock, the director.

When Gerre returned from the gig (which I had no involvement in) the
next time he saw me, he asked "Richard, why do you make these studios
sound like pillow factories?"

He was most displeased with the sound to no one's surprise. I think this
took place in TV-2 which was half of what used to be a horseback riding
arena and went between 66th and 67th Streets, but it might have been
TV-13 in the then new Seven Lincoln Square building--a project I did
work on, but not for acoustics--that was 8,000 square feet (let's say
240,000 cubic feet and highly padded.

Dr. Hancock was used to conducing in a stone church of about 2,200,000
cubic feet according to my friend David L. Klepper's 1995-07/08 JAES
article.

Just to point out the other extreme of the continuum of acoustical space
influence.

Cheers,

Richard
--
Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.