Sinatra's "Popping P's": Why aren't they corrected or softened?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by wave, Oct 31, 2010.

  1. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    Wouldn't those early Capitol 2 mic stereo recordings sound different if they were recorded with U48's instead of U47's? Could that type of recording be done with a figure 8 pattern pair of mics effectively?
     
  2. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    It certainly could be done, but the techniques of "spaced cardioids" or "spaced figure 8s" were certainly not typical for the time, whereas spaced omni recordings were all the fashion (Mercury, Everest, RCA, etc.). Many years later, Tony Faulkner brought the idea of spaced figure 8 mics into acceptance, although I don't get the attraction personally.
     
  3. John DeAngelis

    John DeAngelis Senior Member

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I totally agree!
     
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  4. bozburn

    bozburn Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, US
    Likewise. It kind of adds the feeling that you're there in the studio with Frank or Nat.
     
  5. John DeAngelis

    John DeAngelis Senior Member

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I've read that they were hoping that Sinatra would record that song. You can imagine him doing it with a walking bass line and some saxes and brass behind him.
     
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  6. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Were the Capitol stereo recordings made with the U47s in omni mode? I guess I had assumed they were in cardioid mode (in which case a U48 would have worked just as well), but I guess that was just an assumption.
     
  7. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    During the initial stereo period -- so I'm talking of a very set, defined time period, i.e, August of 1956 through about October 1, 1958 -- almost everything sounds like spaced omnis to me. For instance, on COME FLY WITH ME, there's a lot of (what I perceive to be) reflected sound coming into the mics when the drum set really bangs away. Also, Steve Hoffman has commented several times (including the liner notes for the Gleason album he remixed, although that was admittedly done at Capitol NYC, not at the tower in Hollywood) about the "mic way over the for the left" and the "mic way over there for the right." Also, phase seems to be 100% random when Frank is not singing, so they certainly were not using a truly coincident (non-spaced) system. One more anecdotal piece I would add is that wonderful and subtle "poom" of the concert bass drum that runs through the Sings for Only the Lonely album in stereo. Sounds like omnis to me.

    Another option would have been to use the EMI Stereosonic mic that Capitol possessed, but there's a published interview with Carson Taylor (Capitol mixer of the time) stating that it didn't sound very good because the capsules were too far apart, so I don't think that was used much for pop stuff. (As I've said before, I do think that it may have been rushed into service to "cover" the stereo recording of the title track to Nat Cole's Just One of Those Things LP when something headed south at the start of that session.)

    From that Carson Taylor interview:
    Screen shot 2013-10-18 at 1.31.13 PM.png Screen shot 2013-10-18 at 1.33.11 PM.png
    Taylor used the Neumann SM2 stereo mic (which he also disliked) for a time after this, and then really made his mark as a classical engineer with the SM69.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2013
  8. jtaylor

    jtaylor Senior Member

    Location:
    RVA
    For what it's worth, Hank Cicalo, Capitol engineer from 56/57 - 63, says they were U47s.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2013
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  9. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    I wonder if some of there were U47's Capitol had back in the day that they no longer have? It wasn't like every bit of Capitol from the old days was kept. I doubt they have their Ampex 200's from 1949, for instance...
     
  10. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    The Ampex 200 and 200A were able to be converted by Ampex into bathtub 300 machines. Most of them were. If I recall correctly. 300 machines often got upgraded and converted along the way. 350 machines sometimes went through 1/4" formats and electronics and head changes.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2013
  11. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Last edited: Oct 19, 2013
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  12. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    And is a rare survivor. A beautiful machine, it fomented a revolution in the recording field.
     
  13. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    This also confirms John Palladino telling me years ago that their 200 was a 201. He thought there might have been something else different about it too - like the head gap? I didn't read through all the details/scans yet. Thanks Matt...
     
  14. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Found this odd little blurb regarding microphones, in an article about Peggy Lee, from July of 1974:
    <<Her recordings have always been state-of-the-art. In fact, the night before we spoke, she re-recorded six of her vocals because she wanted to experiment with her own custom-made microphone. "It’s a Shure mike but it’s tuned to my voice," she explained. "There are only three of them. One for Tony Bennett, one for Frank Sinatra and one for me.">>
     
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  15. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Looking now, there are some live shots of her in the '70s with a Shure 565 (which is essentially an SM58), but I'd be pretty surprised if that was used in the studio.
     
  16. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    [​IMG]
    Another shot, same gig????:
    AAB-986-BS_F.JPG
     
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  17. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    A friend who I introduced to Sinatra by way of the Jobim album about 15 years ago had caught this special on PBS back then. I remember how impressed he was to see that Frank performed for people in jail, and that he brought the Count Basie Band with him!
     
  18. paulmock

    paulmock Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA
    Makes one want to have been a prisoner back there and then, huh?
     
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  19. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Um....almost. Maybe.
     
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  20. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    There's considerable chat on the last couple of pages about whether Capitol was using U47 or U48 mics, U47 mics being switchable between cardioid (single-direction) pickup and omnidirectional pickeup, while U48s were cardioid and bi-directional (aka figure 8 -- front and back pickup, but not on the sides).

    Posed or not, here's an acceptable use of a U48 in figure-8 pattern, one singer per side:
    Screen shot 2014-12-07 at 11.44.10 PM.png

    There are definitely photos at Capitol of multiple singers sharing a figure-8 RCA 44 mic:
    Capitol44.jpg Frank_Sinatra_5SHTV.jpg
    ....and there are photos of artists performing side-by-side on a pair of U47 (48??) mics:
    Capitol44 1.jpg

    Are there any vintage Capitol shots of somebody sharing a U47 (singers on either side), indicating that the mic would be a U48, which has the figure 8 option? I can't think of any, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there.
     
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  21. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Make that, likely would be a U48; in theory such a setup could also be a U47 in omni mode.
     
  22. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    True, but in the photos I see at Capitol in which a 44 is used, the engineers were pretty good at keeping "other sound sources" (orch., vocalist, whatever) in the null area, which makes sense. For instance, in the photos above, Frank and Nat are both positioned in such a way that the RCA 44 is (essentially) not picking them up to any degree. If the 44 were replaced with an omni, it would pick up much more Frank/Nat, which would probably not be desirable. Same with photos of sax sections gathered around the 44 (3 players on one side, 2 on the other -- nobody in the "null" areas): the 44 is positioned so as to null-0ut other sources as much as possible.
     
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  23. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    Agree. I know some insist Capitol's U47's from the old days are 48, though considering John Palladino's comments (which I trust) and the visual evidence of their use, I believe they are 47's. If 48's were acquired in later years, I have no idea about...

    Maybe they used 48's at Radio Recorders, after Capitol began their Melrose, then Tower studios. ;)
     
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  24. John DeAngelis

    John DeAngelis Senior Member

    Location:
    New York, NY
  25. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Singing a trio (of sorts) with his two daughters. My guess? He was trying to listen to Lee Gillette or somebody else, and the girls were not being as quiet as perhaps they could have been!
     

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