In article , Iain
wrote:
torstai 2. marraskuuta 2017 11.24.33 UTC+2 Jim Lesurf kirjoitti:
In article ,
Iain wrote:
Tony D'Amato, whom I knew well, was trying to make the loudest and
most spectacular MOR recordings available at that time. He was an
excellent orchestral producer. He used to set up a music stand above
the bridge of the console facing the engineer, where he could see
the stereo meter pair, and give every cue with great clarity. So as
an engineer you knew exactly what was going on in the piece without
having to even glance at your own score.
His exaggerated "fortissimo" and "sforzsando" meant that the
engineer responding to them was in danger of driving the tape into
distortion. So Decca engineers used to align the stereo master
recorder 4dB "hot" on replay, and turn the record level down by a
similar amount, So that the peak levels would appear to be the same.
Mr D'Amato soon got wise to this :-)
Yes, the distortion on the results in some cases does support that,
sadly.
Your obsession with distortion and "rifle shots" must surely detract
from and limit your listening experience ? I remember Keith G's advice
to you, "Jim, listen to the music"
Given that you remember it, a pity that you seem not to have heeded it
for yourself. :-) If you had, you might not be wasting so much of your
time and ours on telling us what a miracle-worker D'Amato was.
Last night I was listening to some old but very fine Otto Klemperer
recordings. (Brian could have great fun with his middle name, continuing
his car joke theme) The Klemperer recordings were not technically good
by modern standards, but still outstanding as performances.
Agreed. I'd also agree that, say, the some of the very early experiments
like the EMI recoding of a Prokofiev symphony are actually excellent. None
of which alters what I'd written.
Mr D'Amato was widely considered to be the finest light music record
producer of his era in the UK. The recording projects which he
conceived and produced sold in huge numbers, and received very good
reviews worldwide.
Yet as you've told us, the other Decca people tried to stop him from
recording at the levels he was wanting. I presume from what you're saying
that you think they were wrong to try and avoid saturation, etc?
Phase Four Records were ubiquitous at audio fairs, and there were long
queues of people wanting to buy the records which equipment
manufacturers were using in their demonstrations.
Decca publicity department received frequent telephone calls asking
about release dates for upcoming albums, and dealers were kept busy
taking advanced orders for the next Phase Four recording, whatever it
might be.
You may well be correct, but does that invariably justify high peak
saturation or clipping which could be avoided? Is that what you do nowdays
youself? If so, because you like the effect, or think it will sell more
copies?
Oddly, Radio 3, for example, seems to think otherwise. And IIUC Phase Four
isn't the norm for classical music nowdays Although I'd agree that some
think that - when it comes to 'popular' music - clipping and upward
compression are what sells.
In fairness, of course, back then the distortion levels for many 'hi fi'
disc replay systems when operating at these peak modulation levels would
have been quite high, so may have masked the problem. Perhaps more evident
now we can hear digital transfers. Hence perhaps something to reget now it
is too late to avoid saturation changes having been added to performances
we can't re-record.
Jim
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A phase question
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