[78-L] Recording Quality - a relative term

[Ron L'Herault]

I had the privilege of meeting Ewing Nunn in the mid 1970s.  He recorded a
New Black Eagles Album, "Midsummer's Night Dream" in the auditorium of
Fontbonne College (if memory serves correctlyu) in St. Louis, MO.   A
picture of me (back to camera) ended up on the inside cover of the album.
I'm wearing a Sticky Wicket Pub Tee shirt.

Ron L

-----Original Message-----
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
[mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Julian Vein
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2014 4:59 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Recording Quality - a relative term


On 29/06/14 17:04, Ron L'Herault wrote:
> I don't know if quality has improved but I think the overall result 
> has gone downhill.  Recording each musician/instrument independently 
> and then mixing them in at the end gives a one-dimensional sound image 
> to these ears.  I find it all most impossible to hear and understand 
> modern vocalists because they are lost in the sonic plane.  First off, 
> you don't hear the interplay of the instrumental sounds as they were 
> created.  And then you don't have the depth.  If you close your eyes 
> it seems like there is a line of sound in front of you, everything mashed
together, including the singer, just another
> sound in the jumble.   Even old mono recordings had a sense of depth.  You
> could kind of feel the singer was in front of the band, and I am 
> convinced that you get a feeling for where instruments were place in 
> relation to the singer on an early mono recording (30s)  Was it just 
> the time delay?  Once stereo got over the "ping pong" era, one could 
> easily spatially and sonically place instruments and singers in a 
> group recording as you hear it played back.  There was definition and 
> separation for a while, and not just the side-to-side separation you'd 
> expect.  It was a separation between musicians/singers.
>
> Ron L
>
==================
My sentiments exactly. Early 50s recordings were "honestly" (i.e. 
simply) done. In the jazz world the problem seems to have started with Rudy
van Gelder who, at Blue Note's Alfred Lion's bidding, starting using his
mixing console to obtain a balance that suited Lion. It was thise
"hear-all-instruments-equally" requirement that meant the end of hearing
instruments in their natural ambiance. Of course, not all engineers followed
this method. Ewing Nunn of Audiophile records continued to use natural
ambiance, although he sometimes experimented with different methods to
obtain a particular effect, and not always successfully. When I first
started hearing van Gelder's efforts in the late 50s/early 60s, I was often
straining to hear some aspect of the music, usually the recessed sound of
the bass player. He wasn't an incompetent engineer--some of his efforts are
excellent--so he knew what he was doing. With Blue Note he was "just obeying
orders". Some of his mid-60's stuff was bad by any standard (Blue Note and
Prestige). When I play a RVG recordings, I'm always conscious of the
recording quality, and knowing that it isn't an accurate representation of
what was happening in the studio.

Perhaps there's a theory that using natural ambiance distracts from the
music making, and that a distillation of the individual sounds is the best
way to represent it?

As it happens, I've been listening to a lot of George H. Buck's catalogue
lately. Some of the sound is rough, to say the least, but they are mostly
recorded using simple mike setups, and the best of them (even with
imperfections) make you feel the band is in the room with you.

The best recordings are those that don't make you think about the recording
methods.

      Julian Vein
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