As I recall that period from a broadcasters' perspective...prior to the FM
stereo system we sometimes used an AM/FM combination (one channel on an AM
station; the other on a mono FM station). Imagine trying to get away with
much more than ping-pong-type audio.
Even when we had an FM stereo transport it was straining the envelope to
maintain 30 db of (measured) stereo separation; especially in the days prior
to the first "Optimod" integrated audio processor/stereo generator. Some of
us ran "unganged" audio processors that actually made things worse.
Material that pushed the "separation envelope" didn't always make it intact
through the radio system (which included early-art receivers). We found
that some of the vinyl that had a really good stereo perspective was
difficult to pass through the audio chains of the early FM stereo days.
...and at home some of us were trying the Columbia 360 and other matrixed
ideas...
Perhaps some of the mix-downs took these factors into account?
Mark Durenberger
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Fine
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2014 9:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Duke Ellington accidental stereo comparison
Hi Mike:
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).
Regarding your comments in another posting about early stereo, I have plenty
of demo tapes and
records from the early and mid 50s. Every which way of stereophony was
recorded and commercially
released. I don't think the industry settled into anything approaching
accepted norms until the 70s.
Then, the accepted norms for rock and pop and even a lot of jazz was
near-mono (most information
placed loudly in the center with some stuff mixed to the sides mainly so FM
radio didn't sound just
like AM radio). I've always thought it ironic that recording techniques
moved to where a "mix" of
tracks not recorded at the same time or even in the same place was then
built into an artificial
(illusionary) sound-field, yet many producers and engineers chose to just
build a bigger and muddier
mono mix.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Biel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2014 9:01 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Duke Ellington accidental stereo comparison
> From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, September 05, 2014 8:05 pm
>
>> [to George B-N] I disagree somewhat with your statement that
>> accidental stereo "has no relevance. . . .
>> On the Duke Ellington recordings, I hear more clearly how dry
>> the studio was (heavily draped, almost claustrophobic), but
>> also I hear more clearly individual brass and woodwind parts.
>> In mono, Duke's arrangements are somewhat dense and his guys
>> played in almost perfect lock-step, so it's harder to pick out
>> individual parts. For instance, in the second medley, the snippet
>> from "Black and Tan Fantasy" appears to have two muted trumpets,
>> playing exactly the same thing, sitting on each end of the section,
>> with the players in the middle playing different parts. I can't hear
>> that, or the separation of the saxes, in mono. -- Tom Fine
>
> I was just going over our video of Vince Giordano's ARSC NYC talk where
> he discusses the problems of trying to recreate an arrangement from
> recordings. I know he would welcome this type of perspective in the
> recordings he has to use. The only analogous aid are films of the band
> performing where you can see who plays what. I was literally
> front-row-center for Vince's Town Hall Whiteman concert on Feb 12, and
> there was one piece where four reeds sitting side by side were trading
> off measure-by-measure. It was amazing -- in mono it would have sounded
> like one player. (I had my Zoom recorder in my tote bag -- I wish I
> would have had the guts -- and permission -- to have recorded that in
> stereo.)
>
> This use of multi-channel recording -- stereo or not -- was something
> that Alan Lomax embraced in his field recording when portable stereo
> tape recorders became available. On the other hand, Moe Asch HATED
> stereo, and preferred his folk recordings to be a dense mono mix of
> instruments and voices all coming from one point. I don't think Lomax
> minded if the soundstage was a beautiful curtain of sound -- he was
> pinpointing individual instruments or voices for transcription and
> analysis.
>
> Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
>
> Section omitted from George's above quote:
>>> By relevance I mean something that will teach us something
>>> about the soundscape at the time, or recording practices
>>> or -- by giving greater transparency -- a deeper insight
>>> into the performance that was manifestly going on while
>>> recordings took place.
>
>
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