4-track Stereo Question (cinema sound)

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by paulisdead, May 3, 2012.

  1. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous Thread Starter

    I have a question in regards to 4-track stereo. I understand that 4-track stereo has been around since the 1950's. But is it a discrete 4 channel system (like modern surround sound) or was it stereo matrix like with quadraphonic and Pro Logic?
     
    Tim Bucknall likes this.
  2. Back in the '50s, 4-track stereo sound was a discrete and magnetically based format encompassing the width of the screen, if I'm not mistaken, with fully directional sound effects, music tracks and dialogue!!!:wave:
     
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  3. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Close.

    The original mainstream 4-channel cinema sound was for CinemaScope in 1953, and it was magnetic-based left-right-center full-range tracks, with a reduced-range, monophonic surround track, so sound effects were directional in the sense that they could be left, right, center, or surround, but the surround was mono.

    Cinerama from a year earlier (1952) was 5 discrete screen channels and a bizarre surround system that involved two recorded tracks that could be steered to two different surround settings that involved either:

    •"Surround one" (for lack of a better name) going to left surround, while "surround two" went to right surround; or
    •Surround one" going to left and right surround, while "surround two" went to rear surround, which was dead center in the back of the theatre, and not a part of the left- or right-surround speaker system.

    Todd-AO 70mm, 1954, was 5 magnetic-based screen channels like Cinerama, but mono surround like Cinemascope.

    Matt
     
  4. :righton:Appreciate the correction, Matt...I forgot that this was the early beginnings of cinematic surround sound as well!!
     
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  5. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous Thread Starter

    Just to make sure I understand this, was "mainstream 4-channel cinema sound"?

    Four discrete channels:

    Channel 1: Left
    Channel 2: Centre
    Channel 3: Right
    Channel 4: Surround

    The first 3 channels where pan respectivley, but channel 4 was automated to be panned were ever

    OR

    A stereo matrixed system were a stereo signal would be partioned into

    Channel 1: Left
    Channel 2: Centre
    Channel 3: Right
    Channel 4: Surround

    With the mixing done at the post-production level, bounced into stereo then unfloded into surround.

    Am I close?
     
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  6. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    There was no matrixing involved -- it was four discrete tracks, like in your top scenario, only channel 4 was not automated or panned or anything like that. Channel 4 just played simultaneously out of every surround speaker at once. The only automation of an audio variety was a cue tone that would turn the surround channels fully on or off. Why? That magnetic stripe was physically thinner on the film print, so it was therefore significantly more hiss-y that the three primary (screen) channels, so not something that you wanted to be cranked from a bunch of surround speakers when there was nothing actually going on in the surrounds to mask the inherent hiss.

    Matt
     
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  7. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous Thread Starter

    Got it! Thanks! :D

    So the surround channel would be activated by a tone which opened a noise gate (I'm guessing). Which would close again when the audio dropped out above a certain level. Pretty clever.

    The word "Stereo" being used always confused me as the term "4-track Stereo" is an oxymoron in itself.
     
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  8. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Well, "stereo" is commonly used to mean "two-track," but "stereo" actually just means "solid." It's a semantics issue, and a confusing one.

    Matt
     
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  9. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    By the way, I've posted this before in another thread, but the film nerds (like me) might like a gander at this thing.

    In the '50s and '60s, the Cinerama surround tracks were steered BY HAND, *LIVE,* during each screening, by an "audio control engineer" seated behind this console, which I have proudly stored out in my garage. I seriously think this may be the only one of these still in existence:
     

    Attached Files:

  10. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous Thread Starter

    Wow!

    This would mean that no two screenings of a film would have the same mix!

    So when the magnetic 4-tracks are transferred for DVD/Blu-Ray, a bit of automation is still required.
     
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  11. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Did you mean 7-tracks, for Cinerama? If so, then yes, but the only dvd/BD that's out there right now is HOW THE WEST WAS WON, which I hear was beautifully done. (I don't have a home theatre, so haven't seen the disc, aside from a few minutes at a friend's house.)

    If you go see THIS IS CINERAMA at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood or in Seattle, there's a scene that BLATANTLY cries out for "rear surround setting" -- the scene where the choir processes in from the rear of the church to the alter area -- but because these two theatres did not include a mixing console like the one above in their remodels, the choir processes in with sound coming not from the rear, but from the far left via the left surround channel. The film is shown with the same audio setting, start to finish, and in places, it's just not quite correct! Oops.

    Matt
     
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  12. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous Thread Starter

    Ah! Cinerama. No, I miss read and thought that was common practice for 4-track (my bad :rolleyes:).

    It's surprising if the information is out there to represent the material propley that they don't upgrade according to spec.
     
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  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yep, what Matt says.

    The earliest 4-track magnetic 35mm master I ever had in my hands was the track for the 1955 Fox film Prince of Players, which was a Bernard Herrmann soundtrack. I was bloody F'in blown away by how wonderful it sounded: left, center, right, surround, all discrete.

    I mastered the home video title for Fox around 1993 or so, and they sent over a 1989 Dolby mag that sounded horrible (bad azimuth, dodgy Dolby A encoding, etc.). I rejected it and asked if they had anything else. The vault sent over the original 1955 master, which was all they had! I put it up and was stunned by how incredible it sounded. The oxide was flaking off a little bit, and the mag was starting to stink with "vinegar syndrome," but I just transferred it in 3- or 4-minute sections and cleaned the heads scrupulously. It's easily in the top 5 best "old tracks" I've ever heard in my life -- a remarkable mix, well-recorded by top professionals. It sounded like a 10-year-old track, not one closer to 40 years!

    Here's a re-orchestrated version of the score:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGCX3BaToZE

    Man, just listen to that opening fanfare. I was particularly blown away, because this was a Herrmann score I had never heard before. Trust me, the original is about 279 times better than this Russian-recorded session, but even this is pretty damned good.

    I think the idea of 4-track was a Fox invention, basically an economical way of imitating Cinerama's 1951 7-track idea. Just as CinemaScope was "poor man's Cinerama," their 4-track system came close to duplicating the sonic experience of Cinerama for less money, plus it put the mag stripes on the actual print -- not a separate soundtrack, as Cinerama originally did.
     
  14. Derek Gee

    Derek Gee Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit
    Glad I got to see TIC at the New Neon in Dayton, where the sound was mixed correctly! I'm still in awe of how that choir sound came in both rear channels and travelled up each side to the front. Amazing!

    No discussion of Disney's Fantasound yet, so I'll get you started...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasound

    http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/fantasound1.htm


    Derek
     
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  15. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Do you think that was recorded with 4 mics to 4 tracks? The reason I ask is: On Cinerama titles like SEARCH FOR PARADISE (1957 -- the best sound I have ever heard in a theatrical presenation), the orchestra was recorded with 7 mics to 7 tracks, reducing intermodulation distortion to zilch, and the sound is (I'm not using hyperbole) STUNNINGLY good. I wonder if that sort of approach was being used on that Fox score. (Actually for the Fox score, I would guess the music stems were done -- if in this style at all -- 3 mics to 3 tracks, LCR.)

    Just curious.

    Matt
     
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  16. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    I spent many happy hours in 1990 with Fred Hynes, the inventor of Todd-AO six channel sound. He was an old man but happy to talk about the topic of film sound. His six channel recordings sound amazingly good today.
     
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  17. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    You ain't kidding! A friend of mine has a 30 fps, now-totally-faded-to-pink 70mm print of OKLAHOMA, and even though the color is all faded, it's great to watch just for the audio, which is top notch. -- and that's on a decades-old release print. I'm sure the masters a vastly superior.

    Sadly, for many years, the only surviving still-full-color print of this title in 70mm 30fps was a print struck in the early 80's that I had the good fortune of seeing on the big screen at the Cinerama in Seattle about 7 years ago. That print is now no longer with us, as they say. :(

    See bottom of this page: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingto7.htm

    Matt
     
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  18. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    All the print masters were over at Todd-AO on Seward Street in Hollywood. Same room that had the Director's Cut of BLADE RUNNER that Jeff Joseph and I sent over to WB and started this entire "DIRECTOR'S CUT!!" thing.

    Over at Todd-AO in 1990 they still had the various perfumes and scents for the rare "SCENT OF MYSTERY" movie in SMELLOVISION! It was a great place to hang out. Totally bulldozed to the ground a few years ago now, sad to say. Fred died a few years ago as well but I still have all of his notes on track/Channel selection, mic placement, etc. for all the Todd-AO music scores, especially 80 Days. Neat stuff but useless..
     
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  19. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    My guess is, it was probably multi-miked, depending on the limitations of the console they were using. It definitely was a big studio orchestra, probably at least 70-80 musicians, so there could've been up to a half-dozen overall microphones and then spot-mikes for certain instruments (brass, soloists, percussion, accents, etc.).

    It definitely had a big stereo spread, but the surround channel was only used very sparingly, as I recall.
     
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  20. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    That (the miking setup) wouldn't be surprising. I know that once Cinerama became tied to MGM (rather than being fully independent), the music became a typical multi-mic affair, leaving the one-mic-per-channel routine behind.

    Matt
     
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  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I did the home video restoration on both versions of Oklahoma around 1992 or so for Fox, supervised by the THX people, released on Laserdisc. I believe Chace Productions did a new 5.1 surround mix based on a 4 track copy they had, and my memory is that it sounded pretty good.

    The 30fps Todd-AO element we used was a 35mm reduction IP, which actually looked very sharp (and had been struck off the original 65mm Todd-AO negative). Nowdays, there are 65mm scanners that would go directly to 4K or 6K data files, and that would be the best way to transfer a show like this.
     
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  22. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    When the scent-free version of SCENT OF MYSTERY ran in Hollywood in 70mm a couple of years ago (as "Holiday in Spain," in 70mm), it was sad that nobody could track down the info and "stuff" for the Smell-o-vision thing. That would have been a total hoot! Gotta say, it's not nearly as bad a movie as I always thought it would be, smells or no smells. I'm glad I made the trip down to see it!

    Matt
     
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  23. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Matt, I never actually saw the movie projected.

    At Todd-AO (in the "WE DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS STUFF" vault), they had it stored. The "smell bottles", shooting script", camera negs, music score, mag print masters etc. were all sitting there. Probably all destroyed by now. A shame..
     
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  24. paulisdead

    paulisdead fast and bulbous Thread Starter

    Yeah, this is another thing I'd like to know. Do studios still junk film elements in the home video age? Since laserdisc, there has been a market for film restroration so I would have thought post-laserdisc that studios would be hanging onto anything they could "just incase".
     
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  25. Collector Man

    Collector Man Well-Known Member

    It makes one shudder, thinking "What if they were not such present enthusiasts around ,that fight to find and save the best remaining elements of various film and sound materials?" It was sad to read Andre Previn's auto- biography where he described how MGM had trashed and bulldozed into the ground ,all their held scores and orchestrations for various MGM films. Now lost for all time!

    Even here in Australia, it might interest you , paulisdead: I asked one Australian Broadcasting Commission official I knew , whatever happened to various tapes of complete operas and that of concerts by the World's greatest classical performers visiting, that they had also recorded for radio, dating even back to the late 50's. At one time A.B.C (Aust) were the biggest classical concert circuit management in the World. His answer "Oh! due to penny- pinching, A.B.C (Aust) used to just get the tapes and re-record over them, probably even for news stories. Had they known , what we do today, they could have cleared the copyrights and made a fortune out of them" Later I found out a lot of what did still exist , went to landfill, while they built some new premises. :realmad:
    The pathetic upshot, that comes from all this, today the ABC now busily records and markets dvd and CD new produced material that is , - just absolute 3 rate dreck by comparison. I am staggered and wonder "Who the hell, buys this new shallow rubbish -produced solely, to make a buck off someone?"

    I am old enough to remember as a kid, the wonders when one first experienced Cinemascope, Todd-AO and Cinerama ,being shown in their full visual and ascoutic glory. I used to know what seats to sit in -in which theatres, to realize that really big true experience. One day at a gathering I met several projectionists and sound engineers and told them of my choices. I was tickled pink when I found my thoughts on these same matters were not far out of tilter with their own individual judgments. of various venues.
     

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