[78-L] Dubbed contemporary matrix questions (Columbia related).

[Michael Biel]

David Lennick wrote:
> I was still glad to get that album when it came out in 1968

If nothing else, for that great cover!  Now THERE'S a Potato Head!!

>
>>> Royal Pemberton wrote:
>>>>  particularly since they did have
>>>> some blurb on the LP regarding use of a 'unique piece of filtering
>>>> equipment developed in the Columbia laboratories' to make the old
>>>> recordings sound better than they ever could have before.
I think it was just a Lang-Pultec parametric equalizer.  In that era 
Columbia was doing all of its reissues using a Gates 16-inch turntable 
(the type with the "gear-shift" type speed change mechanism although it 
was idler wheel-rim drive) and a Grey viscos-damped tone arm with a 
GE-VR II cartridge.  To their credit they did have about 15 or 20 
different size styli for that VR II.  So everything was 78.26 to 30 
inches per second tape, with razor-blade declicking.  In 1968 I sat in 
with Miles Kreuger one evening while he was declicking "Dick Powell In 
Hollywood" with Larry Keyes as his engineer.  Don't tap your feet to 
"Wonder Bar".  You'll break your ankle.  I can still hear the click they 
tried to remove but couldn't and had to put it back in.  He showed me 
the copper metal mothers he was going to use for "Alice Faye In 
Hollywood" once he got the Powell album in the can.  The Powell album 
also largely came from copper mothers.


Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com