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Hi Mark:

Your comment
> Finally, with regard to Tom's comments about matching the sound of the LP,
> it is a useful reference that the mastering engineer should consult, but
> ultimately the remastering should take the aesthetic of the original
> recording and apply it to the modern medium with greater resolution and
> detail.

Is a much more concise and literate version of what I was trying to say. "taking the aesthetic of 
the original recording" is the tricky part. One interesting thing Mark Wilder did successfully (to 
my ears) with the new Miles Davis mono box set was to use a quiet, well-working tube equalizer (I'm 
not sure if they use a real-deal Pultec there, or one of Steve Jackson's built-to-Pultec-designs 
clones, or one Doug Fearn's similar but not identical tube EQ, or something else). Mark wanted to do 
some nip and tuck on some of those tapes so they'd sound more like the original LPs and less like an 
old mono tape being played back on an Ampex ATR-100. Rather than go through old tape electronics, he 
just introduced a little tube and conservative EQ into the sound, and go the nice crisp attributes 
of modern playback but with the "full body" of the old releases.

I also agree with you that a lot of the original sound character came in at the recording. I'd say 
the most characteristic-sounding things in the old days were the mics, followed immediately by how 
they were placed and used, then the actual tone of the instruments and venues used (for instance, 
the distinct sounds of Boston's Symphony Hall, Watford Town Hall in England and the large-sized 
floor tom used by Art Blakey, also the fact that Freddie Hubbard and Clark Terry often played 
flugelhorns and Miles Davis used specific kinds of mutes at specific distances from specific 
microphones, etc). As long as the original tape machines were set up properly (following the NAB or 
CCIR EQ curves correctly, tubes were quiet, little to no hum from the power supply) and were running 
on-speed, they shouldn't have imparted too much "sound" to the process. I'd also say the old tape 
formulations had a characteristic sound and were a limiting factor for things like noise floor and 
saturation limits.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Donahue" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 7:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fwd: [ARSCLIST] classifying tape playback machines


> One or two quick comments.
> One thing to think about is that the real source of limitation in the
> record play process has always been in the playback side of things. The
> amount of information recorded has always been greater than the playback
> systems could retrieve.
> I have first hand knowledge of tapes made in the 1950's that had material
> well above the 15kHz rated performance of the original recorders. If you
> are trying to hear what is actually on the tape there is no substitute for
> modern playback electronics and heads. The only reason to use the old
> playback electronics is for the euphonic distortions that those electronics
> impart. Others may disagree, but I'm of the school of thought that most of
> the character of these beloved recordings are baked in at the recording
> stage.
> Second, the low frequency performance of playback heads has been improved
> plenty in the last 60 years. Modern heads with extended response gain you a
> whole half an octave of performance.
> Finally, with regard to Tom's comments about matching the sound of the LP,
> it is a useful reference that the mastering engineer should consult, but
> ultimately the remastering should take the aesthetic of the original
> recording and apply it to the modern medium with greater resolution and
> detail.
> As always, YMMV.
> All the best,
> Mark Donahue
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 3:50 PM, DAVID BURNHAM <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I think what Tom is saying, and I totally agree with him, is that there is
>> no virtue in playing a historic tape on an historic transport;  modern
>> transports treat the tape far more gently and have much less flutter;
>>  however there is every reason to play historic tapes using the original
>> restored playback heads and electronics or their equivalents.  If a tape
>> was made on a machine capable of recording 18 to 18khz and played back on a
>> machine capable of 40 to 40khz you have lost the bottom octave and gained
>> an octave which contains no recorded signal.  As I've opined before, any
>> tape specs I've seen seem to cover 10 octaves - a situation where the upper
>> limit of reproduction is 1,000 times the lower limit.
>>
>> db
>>
>>
>>
>
>