Someone wrote that the mixdown sounded better due to that the reverb on the stereo had some issues. Is a mix down same as mono then I assume?
I have a stereo 80's LP pressing of My Funny Valentine. As of the last time I listened it sounded quite good considering the vintage and the amount of music (around 60 minutes on one LP).
My guess would be that the stereo and mono are both mixed down from the working tapes, so I don't know. Would you mind linking me to that post? I'll do my best to help you find out.
It's called print-through. It's there on practically every tape recording ever made, but you can only hear it clearly when a loud passage comes after a very quiet one. Here is more info: http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/3mtape/printthrough.pdf
The post you refer to states it pretty clearly, I quote: "But your list could include "Four and more" and "My funny Valentine" (the 1964 NYC concert albums), which exist in two different mixes (original stereo mix, new mix-down from the 3-track tapes), where the remix sounds better IMHO because of the absent artificial reverb." "My Funny Valentine" was recorded on multi-track tape (a three-track, meaning 3 separate tracks to work with, on which instruments are laid down depending on the engineer's wishes). When a stereo LP is made, a stereo mix is made from that 3-track, during which the panning of the instruments is decided upon and their placement in stereo space; also, artificial reverb may be added at that phase, and edits can be made. That is what is meant by "mixdown". It has nothing to do with mono, although the same steps are required to do a mono mix. Usually that stereo mix is the "master", not the three-track. However, in some cases, remastering engineers may decide to go back to the three-track and make a NEW stereo mix, which is called a remix. They can do that if there are problems with the original mix (tape worn out or damaged), if they want to omit the artificial reverb or, in case a performance was edited, bring back the unedited version. That is what happened with most CDs by Miles Davis that came out on Sony/Legacy, most of them are remixes. Other companies, like MFSL, may want to re-release the original stereo mix instead for the sake of historical accuracy.
On Miles In Tokyo, which release offers the best sound quality? The only version I have is the 1983 CBS/Sony Japan 35DP 67 CD pressing and think it sounds just fine. The cover artwork looks like this. I never noticed any tape print-through but hadn't exactly been looking for it either. Has anyone done a shoot-out between the other releases of this album?
On some albums there are edits directly to the original multitrack tapes (I have read that this happened on Bitches Brew) but more often yes, the edits happen at a later stage and for reissues it is possible to get the unedited versions from the multitrack source.
Eagerly awaiting ESP, what a monumental album that is. Building on all the exploratory live work we've been discussing but with all new, excellent material.
Are you sure about Bitches Brew? Because there was a long article when the Legacy CD came out that told the story of how Mark Wilder had to recreate all of the edits when he did the remix: “Astonishingly, given that the record company blurb was hailing the 20-bit digital mixes that Wilder was supposed to have performed, he actually did all the edits in analogue, using razor blades on his two-track mixdowns.”
Be that as it may, the article does concede it doesn't replicate the fader movements of the original and was mixed for 'musicality'. It seems to be common knowledge (but I can't find a link - I'm sure I used to have one bookmarked that highlighted the differences) that the echo is different on the trumpet in particular (Teo wouldn't allow access to his particular echo device) and there's a couple of instances where it's not applied at all and was on the original, or vice versa. I'll keep looking for the article, but I'm grateful if anyone can help me out! Edit - I can find, ironically, a post by yourself, crispi, pointing this out. So it seems Wilder did use the old-fashioned method to edit, but edited, on occasion, the wrong bits!
I haven't found the reference yet but I believe it was some of both, edits to the original multitracks and then further edits to the two-track mixdowns.
Yes, the most obvious examples are on Pharaoh's Dance. The bit about not having the original tape echo device (called the Teo 1) is true. The recreated echo in the affected part is not as musical and seems to be rhythmically slightly off, as is the looped rhythm part that loops the wrong bit of tape. Except for that, I like the remix a log, but I still can't get my head around to why it happened. How could they not have missed that if they were so slavishly following the original edits? I wasn't the first one to point out the wrong edits, there were others before me, but I think I identified which parts were affected. But I think we'll have to continue this discussion when we've arrived at Bitches Brew.
next up: Miles in Berlin CBS Germany Recorded September 25, 1964 at the Philharmonic of West Berlin, with Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone) Herbie Hancock (piano) Ron Carter (bass) Tony Williams (drums). “While there isn't a huge difference in the sound of this band or choice of songs from the group that recorded Seven Steps to Heaven or Miles Davis in Europe, there is a palpable sense of creative abandon in Davis' performance as well as synergy to the group sound that seems to foreshadow the innovative music to come. — Allmusic The birth of the Second Great Quintet!
A great recording... harbinger of the historic, landmark music to follow. I count at least three versions on CD, the original Japanese CBS issue with pre-emphasis, the Columbia/Legacy remaster with "Stella By Starlight" as a bonus track (which sounds amazing) and a newer 'DSD mastered' re-creation of the original album in mini-LP packaging. Anyone care to express a preference? One of the last all-monaural recordings in the catalogue (as far as I can tell, the stereo version is just 'rechanneled' mono). But so alive.
What I like so much about Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964 is that you can hear Miles and the core of the Second Great Quintet developing their sound as Miles searches for his next permanent tenor saxophonist. After losing John Coltrane from the band, Miles Davis was looking for that creative foil again. He had very good players in Hank Mobley, George Coleman and Sam Rivers, but none of them inspired him the way Trane had. I recall reading, someone correct me if this is recalled incorrectly, that Trane had even recommended Wayne Shorter to Miles on his departure from the band, but Wayne was committed to the Jazz Messengers. As soon as Wayne was available, Miles snatched him up. And you get the exploration heard on Miles in Berlin, the full performance of which closes the Complete Seven Steps box. To me, that box begins with a question: where is Miles going after losing the First Great Quintet? And it ends with the answer. Here it is, the Second Great Quintet. Miles could have phoned it in for the rest of his life. He could have been an elder statesman of hard bop, playing straight-ahead versions of My Funny Valentine to Carnegie Hall-style, upper-middle-class white audiences well into a comfortable retirement. He didn't. He chose, again and again, to reshape the future of modern jazz. The vision belonged to Miles, but this is the band that pushed him. This is the band that took him from the relative safety of hard bop to the doorstep of jazz-rock fusion. Wayne, Herbie, Ron and Tony. Each a legend in his own right. Each a very young man at the inception of this band, and each stretching further with every performance. This is it. Listen to this.
Excerpted from the liner notes to Miles Davis - Heard 'Round the World, C2 38506, with my notes in brackets: [T]wo other concerts had been recorded between Philharmonic Hall [producing the albums My Funny Valentine and 'Four' and More] and E.S.P. Previously released in Japan, they are now being made available by Columbia Records for the first time. They fill in an important gap. Miles in Tokyo is the only record that captures a short-lived edition of the quintet with Sam Rivers on tenor, and includes an enthralling second version of "My Funny Valentine" [second to the version that appeared on My Funny Valentine]. Miles in Berlin is the debut recording of the quintet with Wayne Shorter; excepting the Plugged Nickel sessions, released here last year, it's the only example of this band playing the standard Davis repertoire of the '50s. Davis had spoken to several tenor saxophonists about joining his band in the early '60s, among them Jimmy Heath, Sonny Stitt, and--oddly enough, considering Davis's acerbic comments about him in an interview--Eric Dolphy. The musician he most wanted, however, was Shorter, with whom Davis recorded a few tunes at a session in 1962 [these sessions produced "Blue Christmas," if I remember correctly]. But Shorter was playing and composing for Art Blakey and was reluctant to make the change. George Coleman was a solid interim choice; he had roots in the blues and experience in hard bop (he'd earned some prominence with Max Roach's band), and had a strong, lusty style that contrasted well with Davis's. Still, he was no Coltrane, a fact that critics persistently harped on. Partly because Davis was plagued with illness, increasing the pressure on Coleman, the tenor saxophonist decided to leave the band a few weeks after the Philharmonic Hall concert. Davis was scheduled to play a six-day festival in Japan that summer, and chiefly on the advice of his remarkable young drummer, Tony Williams, he agreed to try Sam Rivers. . . . When the band returned to New York, Davis replaced Rivers with Shorter, and that fall the new quintet recorded at a concert in Berlin. (Interestingly, Williams, who helped convince Shorter to leave Blakey and join Davis, united the two tenors a year later, when Rivers and Shorter appeared on his Blue Note album, Spring.) From the first measures of "Milestones," the rhythm section reveals a whole new power. At one point, Williams seems to suspend the time with his ride cymbal, while Hancock adds effective on-the-beat chords. When Davis pauses in his solo on the superb "Autumn Leaves," Carter jumps in with responses that are so fully conceived they sound like obbligati. In other words, here more than on the previous concert recordings, Davis and his rhythm section are firmly established in dialog. As to Shorter: he is surprisingly harsh, still under the influence of Coltrane sonically and of Blakey conceptually, but his long, assymetrical phrases complement Davis at every turn. Already, we can hear the beginnings of the more personal sonority that would come into its own on E.S.P., Miles Smiles, and Sorcerer. The material here wasn't new, but the authority with which it was played--the determination to give it new life--was. Miles Davis was working on an expandable form that would guarantee new freedom in improvisation without courting the chaos he resented in the avant-garde. His music in the middle and late '60s offered a lyrical oasis in an excitable era; Davis was convincingly modern without sacrificing traditional consonance and swing rhythms. He may have seemed conservative then, but today his music endures as more challenging and genuinely innovative than some of the free-for-alls that were once considered the cutting edge of musical expression. Gary Giddins April 1983 I couldn't have said it better, myself.
On the subject of the saxophonists after Coltrane, here's an attempt at a more complete list: Sonny Stitt (appears on several concert recordings from Europe in fall 1960) Jimmy Heath (approached by Miles but couldn't tour due to a drug arrest) Hank Mobley Eric Dolphy (was he actually approached by Miles?) Rocky Boyd (a little known saxophonist who played with Miles in 1962 according to Jack Chambers's book) Frank Strozier (alto saxophonist who was in a short lived two sax lineup with George Coleman, Harold Mabern, Ron Carter and either Jimmy Cobb or Frank Butler) George Coleman Sam Rivers Wayne Shorter (played on a few sessions with Miles in 1962, then joined in 1964)
