Mark Waldrup of AIX Records, Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast, Keith Johnson of Reference, Bruce Leek of Studio in the Forest, Peter McGrath of Wilson, Tod Garfinkle of M and A and John Atkinson of Stereophile are among a handful […]
Another …shower… of valuable information. :ar!
http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/golden-age-recordings/10619/
=))
Uh…uh, no I didn’t really laugh at that. I don’t even know what he’s talking about. 
Doh! :(( Thanks for the correction.
"My guess is that the new and struggling record label industry of the time did their level best to prove to folks that they could capture, preserve and reproduce that which most music lovers were used to – live performances."
Probably true, but they also had no other option. Two and three track recording was the functional limit and expensive, multi-track mixing and editing did not exist, nor even did non-venue studios. You could not balance between an orchestra’s various sections without backing away with the mics and achieving a meaningful blend - too close and you hear only the first couple of rows of strings. Too far and room reverb overwhelms.
You either captured what was there or you didn’t. The good engineers maximized what they had available.
Perhaps we should get rid of the really big fancy mixing boards for a while and get people back to basics. there is a lot of over-engineered sound out there. Certainly no one should have ever allowed DG the ability to take so many mic feeds and make their unnatural sounding melanges
Recorded sound will change only if end users demand a change. The average listener loves close-miked, multi-tracked and heavily edited for perfection.
Consider Krall’s “The Look of Love.” she is close mic’d, but many here adore the sound. She didn’t sing with the orchestra - it is all phoned in. There is added unreal sounding reverb. Do not ever listen to the multichannel version if you want "real."
It is all “look” and little “sound” of love. Yet it is called out by many audiophiles as wonderful sounding.
In orchestral recording, we are addicted to tympani with power and begin each stroke with a crack, bass drums that flap pant legs, etc. None of these sounds are possible without multi-tracking and spot mics (this is not the DG sound, but very common among all classical recordings).
yes that is why it is stereo production, not reproduction. It’s not too often one gets to compare the real thing, either. I sat really close to Patricia Barber’s band one night and it felt about as immersive as her recordings.