Avakian was gone from Columbia by the early '60s, so if those photos are from the '70s, it's very unlikely that he would have been present.
This pic is from the Masterworks site, Kismet December 1953. Isn't that the same machine as this? Oh, no, it isn't! This one has a two piece bottom, the Kismet one has one piece. Did Ampex have mono machines in that travel case? Same stand, though.
I don't know when the photos were taken, I was looking at Fred in the ones where they're together and guessing that it was later rather than earlier and using that as an example of how old someone born in 1919 would be. In 1959 he would have been 40. That picture looks like he would have been a pretty hard 40.
The Kismet machine appears to be a 300, vs the 350 stereo machines below. Here's one such 300: https://www.flickr.com/photos/10661790@N05/6795753464/ We can't see the electronics, so I can't say the Kismet machine was *necessarily* mono, but I'd still bet on it. Avakian in 1964: From another D. A. Pennebaker film, Audition At RCA:
I don't know that you can easily pull up flooring like that without tearing up a significant portion of it; anyone here a floor layer? Although there are a bunch of marks on it, they all span more than one board and I don't think they'd number each one if they took up the entire floor and put it back. That studio was in use a lot, and right in front of the control room window seems like a high-use area. And it looks like there's a little finish on it, although maybe not a high gloss one like we're used to today. I would think in those days it would be oil or varnish or something. Agreed with you about the timing of the refinishing in your last sentence; the later 70's pics all look like high gloss, IIRC.
I just talked with Frank's widow, Colette, and told her of our theory that it was Goddard who was able to say "leave it alone" and make it stick, and also that he had been on Columbia's board since 1948. She was surprised by the latter, and agreed it was likely that he was in a better position than Mitch to set policy like that. We also agreed in regretting that Frank isn't here to see all that we're finding and that he would have gotten a big kick out of it. Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!
I'd guess two-track vs. three changed over sometime between July and October of 1957. Tony Bennett's BEAT OF MY HEART has its earliest session from July in "binaural", while the other tracks - which began recording that October - are in more conventional stereo, from a three track.
Must have been between July and August. The May 1957 sessions for Miles Ahead were done on 2-track (and mono), while the August 22 overdub session was done to 3-track (albeit not in any sort of "conventional" way).
Since we are talking about tape recorders, we'll revisit this sub-conversation. My buddy Gary Louie, who is the long-time technician at the University of Washington School of Music and almost-as-long-time Secretary of our local AES Section, was who was with me at the Mullin incident and who preserved that bit of tape and made the plaque. He has sporadically read this thread, and sent over more info about why Jack Mullin was there at an AES Convention: "I dug up more details on the convention. "My recollection is that Mullin brought some of his collection to the 1988 AES convention in LA, and I failed to find time to go, or wandered through quickly, and I did get a flyer - 2.5MB scan PDF. "Then at the NY convention in 1989, they presented this again, and we went through together. From the 1989 program (wording is identical to the 1988 program except for the room): "AES 87th Convention "NYC Oct 18-21, 1989 "NY Hilton and Sheraton Centre '"The History of Sound" "(Jack Mullin Recording Archive) "On display throughout the convention, at the Sheraton Centre, will be the unique John T. Mullin Collection, "The History of Sound." It includes an extensive selection of historic radios, phonographs, gramophones, and microphones, including an exact reproduction of Edison's recorder playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb."' I think I put the shred of tape in my wallet for safekeeping during the trip." Also: "We'll never know for sure what we were hearing, but as I recall, it sounded like a full, recorded radio show, with Bing Crosby, Jimmy Durante, an orchestra playing, audience sounds, etc. Whether it was a real original, a copy, a rehearsal, an outtake or whatever, who knows. As you note, it was certainly the German homogeneous tape. "If you really wanted to find out, we could ask Rich Hess, who transferred what seems to be the last surviving Mullin German reels. Perhaps Rich has notes on a certain tape with said program, and a sliced-up tape! "AES Journal article on the restoration here: http://www.aes.org/journal/suppmat/hess_2001_7.pdf "I have no problem believing Jack kept originals himself; my guess is the networks were not interested in keeping that stuff yet. I have no idea how Jack sold/rented his services/machines/tape. And us AES people often get access to rare materials for demos. If Jack wanted to demo his machines on original tapes, I'd certainly let him if I owned them." As you can tell, Gary is an extraordinarily organized person, and clearly remembered more than I did about that day. And he scanned and kept that flier so we can enjoy it today! Here is the four-page flyer for the 1988 presentation which was duplicated AFAWK at the 1989 Convention that I attended: Hope that clears up your questions, or maybe it makes more!
Nothing mind blowing, but I just stumbled across this while looking for information on the LA studio, December 1, 1962: "The report also noted that Columbia recently renovated its New York recording facilities and completed construction of a new recording studio in the CBS Columbia Square complex in Hollywood. The firm also acquired the Bradley Studios in Nashville last January and an improvement program is also under way there." https://books.google.com/books?id=O...#v=onepage&q="columbia square" studio&f=false Anyone have that stockholders report?
I appreciate the additional interesting info and recollections but it puts us no further along than our previous posts with reference to my bolded passages in your post. I think it unlikely that it was an actual original session tape as opposed to copy/outtake etc. If it were 1958 as opposed to 1988 then I would wonder more about the attitude about such historical radio spots.
I don't think I have too much to add to this thread, but I did look through "Studio Stories" by David Simons today. For his book, Simons interviewed Mitch Miller and Frank Laico simultaneously. This jumped out: Like others have said here, it does seem like the "don't change anything" edict was an exaggeration. More like "don't clean the floors." Mitch specifically talks here about the effect of cleaning vintage wood, not about defusers and curtains.
I don't know that it is important one way or another if it was original or not. The funny part (I think) was my feeling that it was a priceless original and that I had something to do with wrecking it, which hindsight has made me realize I didn't, he did. I appreciate you trying to minimize my anxiety, though, and hope the story was fun and somewhat informative even though that big detail will forever be missing.
Well, except that for about 6 years there or so (and longer if you figure they didn't remove the original control room because it might screw up the sound that they loved), the look of the studio with its patched and scuffed places and apparently-randomly-hanging curtains (even though we know that they were mysteriously moved around over time) said "leave me alone". During that period, from 1956-62 or so, it was not a slick and polished-looking studio like almost every other one looking like it had been designed by studio designers rather than like a random collection of stuff in a big space. Also, glad to hear that Mitch said the 100' tall thing, too, so it wasn't just Frank. FWIW I could imagine Mitch saying "it was about 1000' tall" almost just as easily. He seemed like a brash, brusque, big-picture guy.
OK, this'll probably be my last post of the year. Here is an unusual shot from the 1970 Company session (new control room) from Masterworks that caught my eye: Steve Elmore and Beth Howland taking five (Photo- Sandy Speiser) The photographer must have had his back up to the studio window, and Steve and Beth must be sitting on the floor or something very low because their knees are so far up. (Sidetrack: it took quite a bit of searching to determine that photographer Sandy Speiser is a he. The only confirmation I could find is a picture of a Dylan session in what is either 799 or 52nd St: Guessing "Pete Duryea" is who Frank identified as "Pete Doria". From https://books.google.com/books?id=M...DAQ6AEwBDge#v=onepage&q=Sandy Speiser&f=false /sidetrack) The producer's desk edge projects over their heads, so it must not be a normal sitting place except people probably found their way there periodically. The console starts to the left of his head. It's interesting seeing the cloth covering over the open side of the desk. I'm not aware of another picture taken from that angle of that place. Since it's the last day of the year, we'll have the chorus line dance us out and look forward to a New Year of finding out more Secrets of The 30th Street Studio. I have some pictures that I've been saving for the coldest time of the year, and that is nearly here, so we can look forward to seeing those soon. Best wishes for a Happy New Year, and thanks to Luke and everyone who has made this thread a bushel of fun and revelation. And mucho thanks to Steve Hoffman for having a wonderful website populated by wonderful, interesting people!
FYI, the Dylan photo is definitely 799 Seventh Ave, Studio A. I think I originally thought the Company photo was taken with them sitting in front of the control room, out in the studio, but looking again, you're completely correct.
Going through my pictures and found these of the same guy (Pete Doria) in the same place (Studio A, behind/near the rear rack), both taken the same day. Frank Laico on the left, Arnold Maxson in the white shirt. Not sure of his job. Both from Frank's personal collection.
Presumably he was the producer, but I'm not finding *anything* for anyone with that name. That name came from Frank, Dan?
Enjoying this thread, guys. Case you're not aware: there's a new LIFE book called "The Unseen Tony Bennett", which I thumbed thru at a B&N over the weekend. Believe I spotted at least a couple of pictures taken at 30th Street; decided to alert the thread. Not sure it'll add a tremendous amount of related content, but it's billed as containing previously unpublished shots - so may be worth a look.
Not producer, tape machine operator. I'm guessing his workspace was back behind that rack and that he was very familiar with it. And yes, I realize this isn't a Studio A thread and these pics don't further our story, but it was fun to find them so closely relating to that Dylan pic, and today was the first time I realized they were both taken the same day. They are not together in my collection.
Thanks for this tip, I'll keep an eye open for that book. Tony sure recorded a lot at 30th St, and I'm in the early stages of mining a fantastic section of his wonderful website which shows session dates, locations, material recorded, and players. I've kind of paused in my efforts to try to figure out how to enter the data in my spreadsheet, as many single sessions' work appeared on multiple albums as opposed to other people who did one album at a time. Their albums are both easier to identify and fit into the little square of my spreadsheet, while this multiple session thing messes up my limited spreadsheet abilities. I'm using OpenOffice, and if anyone is adept at that and wants to help me figure out nuances I'd be grateful. I'll share the results with you, but I am going to do that anyway.
Oh, I thought you were talking about the guy in the white shirt next to Frank. I can't recall where the tape machines were at Studio A, but they weren't near the patch bay at either 30th Street or Hollywood, so I question whether that would be a tape operator. Now...I question the source of this statement, considering some of the other things said in that thread, but Stephen Desper had this to say about the Hollywood studio: "COMMENT: Yes, I think it is Ralph (but my memory is very vague). You see the guy with his hand resting on the patch bay console? If I recall correctly, that was the "patcher." His union job was to plug the patches into the bay were needed or told by the first engineer. There was also an assistant engineer (second engineer) and a recording engineer, who ran the recorder and playbacks. Note the Ampex 300-4 four track in the "recording room." Money, money, money. It took all those people to run the control room. There was even an editing engineer who's job was to splice the tape. Poor Brian -- how longingly he is looking at that knob Ralph is touching." http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,1203.msg114621.html#msg114621 Did Frank ever mention an engineer dedicated to working the patch bay?
Of course I was, but when I replied I couldn't be bothered to read my post to know for sure! Sorry.... Looking him up, I misspelled his last name or Frank misremembered, apparently; it's Maxon. Googling "Arnold Maxon" producer gives http://www.last.fm/music/Screamin' Jay Hawkins/_/I Put a Spell on You and http://www.covermesongs.com/2012/06/five-good-covers-i-put-a-spell-on-you.html and http://www.bloglovin.com/viewer?pos...me_type=b&blog=2461450&frame=1&click=0&user=0 (kind of in the middle) but I wouldn't think the pictures are of a Screamin' Jay Hawkins session. Can't find anything about any other work he did besides "I Put A Spell On You". No, I don't recall him talking with me about the patch bay at all, but I haven't listened to all the tapes.
