[78-L] Columbia classics

[Royal Pemberton]

Did they have some kind of dynamic expansion taking place in some of their
models?  Some of their pop records around that time sound like hell
too....check out 'Good bait' by Dizzy Gillespie's ork on 20-2878....they
just did not know how to cope with all the percussion (Chano Pozo et al) Diz
had going on.

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:09 AM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> Yeah, Victor had a very distinctive "sound" around 1946. The odd thing is
> that
> they made players that compensated for it. I heard a 1946 vintage table
> model
> player and "Managua, Nicaragua" was played on it, and the damn thing
> sounded great.
>
> Nothing's as horrible as Victor's first post-ban Red Seals, like the Boston
> Pops "Salute to Our Fighting Forces" and the "Oklahoma" album, all full of
> wow
> and distortion and more wow. I think they were going through 3 stages of
> dubs
> for a while (Ted Hering confirms as much in his discographical notes to
> Jack
> Myrtle's Spike Jones Bio-Discography).
>
> dl
>
> Royal Pemberton wrote:
> > I've not heard many classicals by either Columbia or Victor, but of what
> few
> > I've heard the worst sound I've found was on some 1940s Victors, where
> they
> > went OTT with limiters and as a result, massed ensemble passages are a
> > congested mess.
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:15 AM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca
> >wrote:
> >
> >> Michael Biel wrote:
> >>> From: samhopper at mail.com
> >>>> I totally disagree with your comments re: Columbia orchestra
> recordings.
> >>>> After writing 250 pages of my pet project - the Columbia Masterworks
> 78
> >>>> rpm discography and having listened to hundreds of Col. recordings -
> >>>> I can say that there are countless excellent electrical recordings
> >>>> released by Columbia of US orchestras!
> >> http://masterworks.gramophile.com/
> >>> And that discography is coming along great.  I will be providing
> >>> additional info and photos in a little while.  I have 4 or 5 of the
> >>> first dozen of the acoustical albums.  And yesterday I finally got a
> >>> chance to see and photograph the Kosty-Godfrey Peter and the Wolf MM
> >>> 1034.  Didn't get to listen to them to compare with the LPs.  I think
> >>> these past two weeks I have solidified my worldwide reputation as that
> >>> guy who comes to sound archives to look at the records instead of
> >>> listening to them.
> >>>
> >>> From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
> >>>>> When Sony issued the Mitropolous recording of Mahler's 1st Symphony
> >>>>> and some Bruno Walter recordings by NYPO, they proved there was a
> >>>>> lot more quality tucked away in the master grooves than was ever
> >>>>> evident on the issued 78s.
> >>> I think these were reprocessed by Seth Winner, and he gave an ARSC
> >>> presentation about these.  Considering playback equipment in the 40s
> was
> >>> not anything at all like we now have, it is obvious that the dubbed 78s
> >>> can not compare.  It has been my experience that the sound quality of
> >>> different transfers to the 78s can sound vastly different.  I noticed
> >>> that many decades ago when comparing two copies of one of the Rathbone
> >>> dramas, and this has led me to check every alternate copy I've come
> >>> across to see if the numbers are different.
> >>>
> >>> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
> >>>
> >> I believe the Mahler 1 was transferred from lacquers that had not
> >> previously
> >> been used as source material. Dave Burnham is correct that many Columbia
> >> orchestral recordings are bloody awful in their 78 incarnations. My
> >> experience
> >> is that the earliest ones, in late 1939, may have been direct 78 cuts
> with
> >> 33RPM safeties being made simultaneously but that they switched to 33rpm
> >> originals as sources not long after, necessitating dubs. Rodzinski's
> >> "Scheherazade" and Tchaikovsky 5th sound fabulous on early 78 pressings.
> >> Columbia's recordings of the Minneapolis Symphony from the same period
> are
> >> shrill and unlistenable. The Mahler 1 on 78s has a climax that sounds
> like
> >> a
> >> car crash and for some reason, later pressings were never made from new
> >> transfers but from the original 1941 dubs. I've never listened to
> "Karma".
> >> Their late 20s recordings of Damrosch and the New York Symphony are no
> >> great
> >> hell either but no worse than Brunswicks, and Victor made some pretty
> bad
> >> orchestral recordings in those days as well, like the Detroit Symphony
> >> records
> >> under Gabrilowitsch where they used a portable cutter that fluttered
> when
> >> large
> >> waxes were placed on it.
> >>
> >> Columbia also had some pretty mediocre playback equipment in the early
> 40s,
> >> and
> >> there's a Music & Arts CD that has a photo of Leopold Stokowski
> listening
> >> to
> >> one of his playbacks and probably re-equalizing the living daylights out
> of
> >> it.
> >> Wonder if it was Cowell's "Tales of Our Countryside"?
> >>
> >> dl
> >>
> >> _______________________
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