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ARSCLIST  September 2014

ARSCLIST September 2014

Subject:

Re: Asch vs Lomax- was Duke Ellington accidental stereo comparison

From:

Steve Smolian <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sat, 6 Sep 2014 05:31:13 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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text/plain (70 lines)

Lomax learned to use his disc cutter but had little background in 
electronics whereas Moe had considerable technical training.  If memory 
serves, he chad training in electronics and had a radio repair shop at one 
time.  Lomax.s "capturing the moment" may have been a result of having a 
limited number of blanks and budgetary restrictions.

When I worked with Moe on a few projects, he cut at Nola Studios.  Many of 
his LPs have hum in the track separation bands as well as in the audio, 
indicating that the cutter was the source of the hum.  The 
Sithsonian/Folkways issues are to be preferred if only for this reason, all 
other factors being the same.

Steve Smolian



-----Original Message----- 
From: Paul Stamler
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2014 1:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Duke Ellington accidental stereo comparison

On 9/5/2014 8:08 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
> The Lomax and Asch comparison is very interesting. I always had the
> impression that Lomax was collecting sound first and music second,
> whereas Asch was running a commercial music label. If that assumption is
> true, then Asch would want a result that sounds like a professional
> music recording, with a sonic reference buyers would be accustomed to,
> even if the music itself or the artist was new to their ears. Lomax, on
> the other hand, started out working for the government (with no need to
> be concerned with a commerical product aesthetics) and his recordings
> indicate a really interesting fascination with the background sounds as
> well as the primary performances. Take the Son House recording in
> Klack's Store. A train runs right through town, loudly passing the store
> even rattling the recorder. Does Lomax stop and try a re-take? No. In
> fact he didn't even ask for a second performance of that song. I have to
> assume he thought the train passing was a part of what he was capturing,
> not just Son House but also Klack's store and the rural Mississippi of
> that time. The same is true of his recordings of the fife and drum band
> and also the prisoner singing. He made recordings where we hear not just
> the musical performances but also the environmental audio around the
> performers. In those cases, it's fascinating.
>
> Emory Cook's approach seemed more Lomax than Asch. In fact, plenty of
> his commercially-released products were ONLY environmental audio
> (trains, weather, a strip club, etc).

And the famous cricket on one side of Cook's steel drum album.

The Lomax-Asch comparison is fascinating; Tom I think you've hit the
nail on the head. But Asch considered himself a documentarian too -- he
said that Folkways Records was his attempt to document the twentieth
century in sound. Hence the joke, "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"To record 'Sounds of an American Highway' for Folkways." And yet his
studio recordings were carefully edited.

Still, he made his studio recordings very simply, with few microphones
and no apparent EQ, in a neutral room, and he reissued lots of
folklorists' field recordings. He once told an interviewer something
indicating that he issued those without high-frequency pre-emphasis,
though the interview was kind of garbled and he may have just meant that
he didn't add eztra treble boost over and above RIAA. I asked Peter
Bartok (who cut a lot of discs for Asch) about this, and it didn't ring
any bells with him -- he didn't remember cutting anything without
pre-emphasis. So I may have misread the interview. But in any case, Asch
put out very straightforward LPs.

Peace,
Paul 

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