Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality (and general discussion): Singles, Soundtracks, Etc.

Sadly, @mahanusafa02 , I think that literally the only release of "Tell Her You Love Her" without audible compression is the Norberg Singles CD, so this is a "pick your poison" situation. (There's an oddball Capitol promo LP that includes this track, but I forget now what it is. Maybe something from the Silver Platter series of radio promo LPs? Circa 1963? I still wouldn't hold my breath, as it's likely from the wrong tapes.)

[EDIT: I found the reference in an old PM from @Bob F --

<<LP: Great New Releases from the Sound Capitol of the World - August 1963 (PRO2415)
LP: Silver Platter Service Sides 63 & 64 - August 1963 (PRO3063)>>
Since those promos were tied in with the release of the Tell Her You Love Her LP, which used wet tapes, I would expect nothing different from the promos.]

Is your 78 shellac or vinyl? (I've got some late-run Capitol 78s on vinyl.)

 

Related:

 

Way off from our timeline, but cool nonetheless (and please forgive the poor quality cell phone photo):

Sinatra and a bunch of kids, May 8, 1959. (High Hopes session)

 

John, try to refrain from passing out, but I've actually started work on the November 25, 1957 session!

I've got seven MONO clips for "I Believe" posted here: http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/1957_-_SinglesEtc34.html

Stereo clips and blather to follow, but for now, just the mono clips are uploaded.

Interesting quirk: There is audible tape damage near the beginning of some of the mono reissues:
•1984 Japanese This is Sinatra, Volume 2 LP
•1985 UK This is Sinatra, Volume 2 LP ("Dell")
•1994 UK This is Frank Sinatra, 1953-1957 CD

....while other 1980s/1990s mono reissues do not exhibit tape damage.

I'm always a little bummed that it's so hard to convey compression in these short, level-balanced clips. In a nutshell, the mono releases with audible compression are the original LPs and the 1998 UK boxed set CD. The others are pretty "open" dynamically, although tone varies from version to version.

 

Continuing on with the STEREO versions of "I Believe" --

http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/1957_-_SinglesEtc34.html

I only posted the stereo version that appears in the 1996 The Complete Capitol Singles Collection CD set (thanks for the clip, @rangerjohn ). The other two releases use the same digital stereo mix (by Bob Norberg), but add compression (the 2004 release is even more compressed than the 2008 release), so to hear it at it's best, there's the 1996 release, and the others are worse than that.

Also, there's a thought that is largely true that stereo recordings from this time period are 3-mic affairs at Capitol, and while that's largely the case, we have found some interesting exceptions, such as Nat Cole's fantastic Just One of Those Things album, and "I Believe" seems to be a non-3-mic affair (piano clearly miked on Norberg's stereo mix). That said: I should note that I would not 100% rule out the possibility that the stereo and mono mixes are digitally sync'd and manipulated in the 1996 stereo mix. There is precedence for this in the Dean Martin "The Capitol Years" 2-CD set, and the stereo mix does have a strangely confused/congested quality to it, and LOTS of bass, so....anything is possible on this one. I'll be curious to see what comes of other stereo mixes from other songs tackled at this session, to see if they share qualities that come through on this 1996 mix, which is, sadly, the only stereo mix ever released of this track, so we have no 100% clean stereo reference.

My take on this one:

 

I can do it, but I'm not sure that shipping it overseas to me is the best option, so hopefully somebody much closer can accommodate you. (That said, I would have low expectations, sonically, but one never knows for sure, no?)

Also: Does anybody out there own DW-982, This is Sinatra, Volume 2, in its 12-song Duophonic form? If so, can you listen to hear if the last two songs are true stereo, as they are on (at least some releases of) the 1982 10-song version?

 

Re: the 1962 12-song (not 16 song, not 10 song) mono version of This is Sinatra, Volume 2

Did this version have reverb added? Or was it a "straight reissue" with 4 songs chopped off and not sonic alterations?

 

Bump for the above post, plus: Anybody have any thoughts about the stereo mix of I Believe? (See link four posts up-thread.) It sounds heavily doctored to me, and I suspect nothing at all like the other stereo mixes for this session.

 

I have a Duophonic release of This Is Sinatra, Vol. 2

I will check it out today. I've actually never played it and think it's in decent condition. I bought it years before owning a TT or knowing anything about Duophonic. Anything.

 

Continuing on with the November 25, 1957 session:

Everybody Loves Somebody

I have mono and stereo clips now posted: http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/1957_-_SinglesEtc34.html

As has been mentioned elsewhere, this one has a classic problem with the 3-mic technique: On the stereo version, the sax solo pretty-well vanishes (as you will hear in the last 15 seconds of the stereo clip vis-a-vis the mono clips).

 

^^^^My thoughts on the above:
There has not been a flood or releases for "Everybody Loves Somebody."

•A few have been Duophonic, and are not worth anybody's time, in terms of sonics.
•The mono releases all range from pretty good to really good, to my ear.
•My D9 1958 LP is nice, but there's a little audible limiting. Nothing awful.
•Same with the 1998 UK boxed set CD.
•All of the reissues from the 1980s that are listed, plus the 1994 CD, ditched the limiter altogether, and the tone is very good on all of them, IMO, with just a very slight preference toward the tone on the oddball 1987 Australian compilation CD, Standards All the Way. These 1980s releases all strike me as being excellent.
•If you really want to "lean toward warm" on this one, the 1980s Japanese LP that is sampled is definitely on the warm side, but pleasantly so (maybe 5% too far over on the Warmometer for me); the other 1980s releases all lean toward a more neutral tonality (which I prefer, personally).
•The stereo mix is an interesting alternative to the monos, but it's definitely a flawed recording (mix aside).

There's an odd "fluff on the needle"-type sound during the last word that Frank sings, "you.............," and it's on both the mono and stereo recordings.

 

I've cleaned this LP yesterday, and it looks to be in NM (both jacket and vinyl). I will give it a spin tonight just for you @MLutthans

 

Thanks! The only tracks I'm curious about are "If You are But a Dream" and "Put Your Dreams Away," so no need to spend 35 minutes (or whatever) in Duophonictown.

 

Listening now to assorted versions of "It's the Same Old Dream," I think I'm starting to see some patterns with the This is Sinatra, Volume Two tracks.

•The "Dell" CD in the 1998 UK box is cut from the running master (or, probably more likely, UK dub thereof) for the This is Sinatra, Volume Two LP. My D9/D5 LP has both sound and waveforms that closely mirror those on the UK 1998 CD. (Remember: @Steve Hoffman has indicated that the "master" for This is Sinatra, Volume Two, unlike it's volume one predecessor, was NOT a simple assemblage of original session tapes, but was a purposely-prepared set of mono master reels, i.e., dubs, with some tweaking.)
A typical example, 1958 D5 LP left, 1998 UK "Dell" CD right:

•The 1994 UK This is Frank Sinatra, 1953-1957 CD uses the same US-sourced digital transfers as the 1985 UK This is Sinatra, Volume Two "Dell" LP, without the 1958 "prep" artifacts that are on the "Dell" CD from 1998. (For at least some of the tracks, the 1985 digital transfers seem to have been made from session masters, not the LP running master.)
A typical example, 1985 Dell LP left; 1994 MFP CD, right:

•The mid-80s Japanese This is Sinatra, Volume Two LP sounds like it, too, avoids that 1958 prepped production master sound, but may be cut from a set of tapes that are down a generation, with a definite tendency toward warmer (overly-warm?) tonality vis-a-vis the 1985 LP/1994 CD UK releases, and a little less sparkle on top. That mastering style seems to work well on some tracks; less so on others.

There's one track (going back a bit) from This is Sinatra, Volume Two that really intrigues me: Hey! Jealous Lover. It strikes me that every attempt at mastering this track used some degree or other of "wrong" tapes until Ron Furmanek and Larry Walsh used the correct tapes finally in 1989 for Collectors Series.

 

Samples now posted for "It's the Same Old Dream," in both mono and stereo: http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/1957_-_SinglesEtc34.html

Three songs in, and we finally have a nicely recorded, nicely presented stereo recording from this session, albeit with yet another technical glitch near the end.

You may recall this tidbit from a few posts back, referring to the recording of "Everybody Loves Somebody:"

On "It's the Same Old Dream," the same thing crops up again, this time on the next to last word, "old." On the clips I posted, the clip ends at the end of the word "old," so the defect is audible on all clips, and it's especially obvious on the stereo remix as presented on The Capitol Years.

Oddly, the Frank Sinatra Sings the Select Sammy Cahn CD from 1996, mastered by Bob Norberg, takes that Furmanek/Walsh remix from 1990 and remasters it more-or-less "straight," but with the problematic spot now tastefully filtered of its bass, removing much of the distortion. It works pretty well! [EDIT: As it turns out, there's more to this story. See additional, corrective comments here.]

The mono never struck me as being especially soupy on this one until I actually compared it today to the stereo mix, and now that I've heard the song "dry," it's pretty tough to profess a lot of love form the mono mix, despite the little bugaboos in the stereo mix.

Here's what I posted on the site, along with clips:

Thoughts?

 

Spinning this now.

It actually doesn't sound terrible.

Maybe not the warm mono or that lovely stereo separation I'm used to, but it ain't awful.

 

"I Believe" didn't sound like true stereo.

"Put Your Dreams Away" isn't either

 

@DLant -

Is that a photo of your actual copy? If so, that looks like it's #DN-16268, with only 10 songs. I was asking about #DW-982, with 12 songs.

That said, on my pressing of #DN-16268, the last two songs on side two are true stereo; the others are Duophonic. What's the matrix/deadwax info on your side two?

 

Looking at the fourth and final song from the November 25, 1957 session, TIME AFTER TIME, I have a question:

We seem to have two stereo mixes on this song: the one that appears in the Sinatra 80th: All the Best CD set from 1995, and the one that originated in the 1996 The Complete Capitol Singles Collection. [EDIT: Frank Sinatra Sings the Select Sammy Cahn actually predates The Complete Capitol Singles Collection.] (That 1996 mix re-appears many times, sometimes with heavy compression added.)

Did the mix in Sinatra 80th actually originate with that set? I ask because most (all?) of the tracks from that set that we've hit thus far have been lifted from other, earlier masterings/releases, so I'm a little surprised to find what appears to be a from-scratch stereo mix there.

Anybody know?