[78-L] Columbia classics

[Royal Pemberton]

And if you get the right copy of 'Lemon drop' by Woody Herman on Capitol
15365, you'll hear a lower average level, but with more dynamic range than
on such rereleases as 1637 or the LP H324.

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:20 AM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> My theory has long been that Victor and Columbia each made records that
> would
> sound like ratsh*t on the other's player. Big mid-range hump on each, but
> never
> in the same place. Then you had some Capitols c. 1947 that had wide treble
> and
> wide bass and NO mid-range, assuming you could hear anything through the
> surface noise (boy did their DJ vinyls sound wonderful..CD quiet).
>
> dl
>
> Royal Pemberton wrote:
> > 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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