Sonny Rollins' Way Out West--Strange Arrangement*

This is very informative--thnak you.

Having Sonny or 'Trane in the left or right is okay with me. My issue is with the huge, lifeless gap in the center, and, further, with the crowding of performers on one side (i.e. on the right with the drunner and bassist on Way Out West).

I sometimes prefer having the "main man" in the left or right. When primary performer is always in the middle, it can become a bit fatiguing and formulaic. Overall, I like the left, as I have noticed that many recordings, even rock of pop recordings, tend to be what I call, "right heavy." Very irritating after a while.

 

Sorry for the typos...some iPad-itis.

 

The sound is terrific. The sound stage is terrible. As one poster noted, it is a crazy left-right thing going on, and Shelly Manne sounds like he is trapped in the right speaker

 

Personally I hear the room, especially when Sonny moves around, and when Manne goes to the ride cymbal (and to the outside), but the kick, snare and toms do seem kind of stuffed into a a very narrow little box relative to the sense of scale of the bass and sax. Then again, if the set up was anything like it appears to be in this picture, apparently from the Contemporary Leaders date, well, maybe the drums were kind of stuffed into a little box! (I don't hear so much of a spread to the kit on Way Out West that those two mics over the drums in this pic might suggest, but of course this is a different date a year later so I dunno if the micing was the same) There's certainly a great tactile quality to the timbre of everything on the record, and the music is great (then again pretty much all of Sonny Rollin's records from the '50s and '60s are great).

 

Wow, that picture says a lot. Thanks posting it.

 

It's a great picture. It's crazy that they were making records like that and that the records sound as good as they do -- though the stereo representations, even on something like WOW, but also I'm thinking about the next year's stuff, something like Ornette Coleman's Something Else, do kind of exaggerate the left-right separation, as do so many of the early stereo records -- like you say, they're crazy close together in the actual space -- and on WOW, the snare, tom and kick and the ride do almost sound like they're coming from a single point in space but when you see the set up, they pretty much are! With WOW you can really hear when something's loud enough or sharp enough or ringing enough -- like rimshots or the ride cymbal -- the mic on the other stereo side picking up the amibent sound of it; and you can certainly hear Sonny moving off his mic and more reflected sound coming from whatever mic or mics were on the other side and sound bouncing around the room like on the end of "Come, Gone," but there's less ambient center fill than on something like say the '61 Bill Evans Vanguard recordings, which are also great and have a very similar left-right stereo soundstage. Now of course there's a lot more ambient noise on those Vanguard recordings, I mean, at certain points you can pick out what people in the audience are saying for example during Scott LaFaro's "Alice in Wonderland" solo, so, deliberately or not, there's something actually, filling that space on the recording in a way that it's not on WOW.

What I'm wondering, it sounds like I'm hearing a layer of added reverb on the sax mic on WOW, which isn't on the rhythm section -- I have a Contemporary S7530 pressing, but not, I think, an OJC.... I read, I think somewhere on this forum, that the session was recorded dry with the intent of adding reverb at cutting. I don't know what is true, isn't true, was done or wasn't done for this that or the other issue of the record. But it does sound on mine like the sax is wet and the rhythm section, at least he drums are pretty darn dry, which kind of further exaggerates the left-right space disparity and scale difference between sax and drums. Are there different masterings of this that are different with respect to reverb? I just played a YouTube file that seemed much more center-spacious -- can't really make meaningful comparisons on YouTube and can't even know for sure what I'm listening to, but it certainly makes me wonder.

 

Interesting thoughts here, chervokas. I wonder about some of these things, too. Overall, it is quite amazing, as the sound, generally speaking, is quite "alive," and so thoroughly engaging--never dull.

I notice similar things on Soular Energy, by the Ray Brown Trio (playing it now on my new speakers), but in the reverse direction, so to speak. This bunch is really crammed together, but in the center. To me, it is a more cohesive and "proper" sound stage, though somewhat crammed. Even so, I really enjoy this recording.

With regard to my new speakers, they do not seem to have more bass than my other pair, yet the drum kit on The Bridge is more apparent. This is a big plus for me, as I love percussion. In any case, the speakers need some break-in time.

All the best...

 

Thanks, that explains a lot. I think the dry, present and tight-imaged snare and toms, especially during the solos, right upfront in the one channel, and the echo on the tenor in the other channel and it's additional sense of space (plus Rollins clearly moving around away from and then nearer to the mike) add to a fair degree to the sense of the drums being right up front in that right speaker and the sax off somewhere else on the left side father away.

 

One thing you may want to do is play around with speaker positioning and toe-in. I think the drums on WOW certainly don't fail to be "apparent" -- they're very up front, the kit on the bridge is much more back in the soundstae. But they're not centered or rendered with the bit of left to right spread that the kit has on the bridge.

 

This album sounds great when the stereo is narrowed a little.

 

I overdubbed piano comping on this album. I placed my piano slightly to one side, the sax slightly to the other, and put the bass and drums in the center. The stereo image is much better, and I improved the group tremendously by joining. The fact that they do not let me solo is an added bonus.

 

I personally don't like to hear any kind of rhythm-based, groove-based music that places the bass in one speaker. I either seek out the mono version, if I can find it; hit the mono button, if it collapses well; or I narrow the image enough to bring some bass into the other speaker. Just a personal preference.

I really hate the stereo mixes of Mingus Ah-Um, Cal Tjader's Several Shades of Jade and a couple of Miles's 1960s albums for this reason.

 

What is ‘1/2 echo'?

 

Ray Brown’s humming is floating on the center clearly while Shelly Manne’s yell is very quiet on the right channel with his drum set. Possibly Ray was situated near the mic for Rollins.

 

Thank you.

 

I read a book written by Koyama the Boxman. He was at the Contemporary studio when Art Pepper recorded ‘On the Road’ in 1976.
According to Koyama's description, it seems the studio was preserved as was used to be in the 1950’s.

 

The SACD of Way Out West that Steve mastered is one of his very best works for sure.

 

You need the version where I overdubbed piano, turning it into a quartet session.

The piano is slightly left, bass and drums are in the center, and sax is slightly right.