Capitol Records 2-track Reel-to-Reel Tapes, 1957-1958

MLutthans,

I have good copies of both tapes. The Music Man is superb. The Gaite Parisienne is very nice.

 

I did find a different catalog in my ZC-34 Ray Anthony "Young Ideas" tape. It looks to be an earlier version. The highest catalog number shown is ZF-27 and all of the titles are shown with an illustration. I will scan it tomorrow.

 

Here are the scans:

 

That does.
Also Stan Kenton's "Back To Balboa".
My middle school band teacher (Phil Gilbert) plays on that and flipped out when I told him that I have it.
He runs Concordia Music in North Miami.

 

Wish I knew! That said, a quick Google turns up a few things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reel-to-reel_audio_tape_recording

http://books.google.com/books?id=xV...=onepage&q=emi stereosonic tapes 1955&f=false

It appears this might offer more information:

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/48571448/stereosonic-tapes-revolution-that-never-was

Let me see if I can dig up that article.

 

It's possible that they didn't make their way to consumers until a bit later, kind of like how Ampex was a bit premature with their announcement of 24-track at the 1968 AES convention (I think the first machines weren't hitting studios for about another year). But, even if that's true (which...is just a guess), one would assume they were out by at least early '56.

 

There's this thread:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=67862

With this:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showpost.php?p=422700&postcount=5

Ted Kendall wrote the piece above (now known as Classical Recordings Quarterly), and I would guess he's the expert.

 

Hi-
Not sure this is the right place for this post but here goes....
I recently acquired some Capitol 2 track tapes..among them Johnny Richards "Wide Range" ZC-16. Just for fun I compared the Johnny Richards Mosaic Set binaural takes of Walkin' and Cimmeron (which the mosaic notes say are from Capitol ZC-16) to my copy of the same played on a Revox A77 4 track (I realize the problem with playing 2 track tapes on a 4 track deck). To my surprise my tape sounds nothing like the Mosaic track of supposedly the same thing. The Mosaic sounds thin, the balance is different (much more R-L isolation) and on Cimmeron the trombone solos are almost inaudible. I'm wondering if perhaps the center channel is missing on the Mosaic (maybe accounting for more separation in the soundstage and the inaudible solos which might have been played into the center channel mike) or if something else is happening. Thanks!!!
Joe

 

Columbia's 2 tracks weren't too shabby, either. My first taste of "hi-fi" was my dad's 2 track copy of Merry Christmas by Johnny Mathis back in 1958-9. I can trace my lifetime of interest in audio directly to that.

 

Stacked or Staggered heads, that is the question! I assume that tapes made on staggered head machines were unplayable on stacked head machines.

 

Indeed, stacked head machines could not play staggered tapes.

 

They play, as long as you don't mind the delay between channels. These days someone handy with digital editing software can easily time-align the channels. I've hardly ever run across recordings for staggered heads - and I don't recall ever seeing a staggered head machine.

 

A friend with some of these tapes had done transfers for himself with a correction for the delay between the channels when played without staggered heads. It's fine after that.

 

Is there a listing, or even better, photos somewhere of staggered head machines? Does anyone here happen to own one? I'm curious because I've never seen one. They must have been manufactured for all of three months before stacked-head machines became the weapon of choice. The staggered head layout would have made physical tape editing a bit of a challenge (ha).

 

Re: EMI StereoSonic tapes. Yes, EMI made 1/2 track Stereo reels at 7 1/2 IPS. All classical. Some UK Columbia titles were also available. Very expensive.