 |
 |
On 06/09/2014, Paul Stamler wrote: > 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. > The other person to compare with these two is Hugh Tracey, who recorded vast amounts of African folk music from the 1930s to the 1970s. He normally used a single microphone, not on a stand but held in his hand, and he would move closer to a soloist that he wanted to bring out in the sound. A different way to record acoustic space. Most of the CDs that have been released from his tapes are from the earl;y 1950s. Many LPs also appeared. Regards -- Don Cox [log in to unmask]