History of CBS Records 30th Street Studio NYC (many pictures)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by DMortensen, Oct 21, 2014.

  1. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
    Hey guys, real interested to learn what the earliest instance of a Telefunken/Neumann U-47 showing up in a photo at 30th St is. This one for example looks pretty early. I noticed that via Wikipedia Anna Russell had two LPs released for Columbia in 1953, but according to Discogs those were both recorded at Town Hall (in 1952 and 1953). Help? :)

    EDIT: Apparently she also released Anna Russell's Guide to Concert Audiences on Columbia in 1953 as well, not sure where that one was recorded, could have very well been 30th St.
     
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  2. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Sorry for the delay

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Any idea what’s in that open box/container?
     
  4. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
    Fantastic photo
     
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  5. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Milk. The words are more readable in the unresized image.
     
  6. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
    Follow-up: Based on the catalog number, it looks like Anna Russell's Guide to Concert Audiences (ML 4928) was released in 1954-55. But the word on the web is the publishing date is 1953 so probably recorded in '53.

    SCRATCH THAT. Listening to the album, it's a live album as well. So apparently the three album she released under her name for Columbia were live. So that original photo must have been for another project she was involved with at 30th St.?

     
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  7. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
    More research. According to this website (Photos | The Official Masterworks Broadway Site ), this Gershwin Oh Kay! cast recording was made during a December 1955 session, as Dan said in the quoted post many pages back.

    @DMortensen: Any chance you can confirm that this session was indeed in December '55 with your session book research database?

    These photos from that site makes it clear that a U-47 was present for this recording:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  8. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    The first I found photos from was July 1953, but I now see there was a gap of over two years before that, so it's not clear exactly when they first showed up:

    Photos | The Official Masterworks Broadway Site

    History of CBS Records 30th Street Studio NYC (many pictures)

    More discussion and info on that page.
     
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  9. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Does anyone know what speakers they used for monitoring?
     
  10. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
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  11. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Brilliant, thanks. I recognize some of those JBL driver model numbers, some of them still used today in audiophile systems and I have to imagine sound quite good from some people I trust.
     
  12. DMortensen

    DMortensen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle, WA USA
    Since it's dated May 1959, and since it looks to me exactly like a frame in the "On The Record" movie, I'd say it was from those sessions, which IIRC was for a Partita of some sort. No time to look it up, sorry.

    Glad to see Rich posting here. He's going to be doing a talk on Rudy Van Gelder at the upcoming AES Convention in NYC in 11 or 12 days, along with Michael Cuscuna and the Sicklers who now own Van Gelder's last studio, along with all its assets. I'm hugely looking forward to hearing and seeing it.
     
  13. DMortensen

    DMortensen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle, WA USA
    I did look up the microphone section of the 30th St talk I gave last year, and the picture I used to introduce the U47 was an undated Benny Goodman shot from a Plaut session of BG as a soloist in a classical (maybe, maybe not) session. The U47 was visible in the background over something out of picture.

    There was also an Altec M11, which I had previously introduced, more front and center and maybe mic'ing Goodman, although I can't quite tell.

    The U47 became available in 1949, but certainly CBS was not first to jump on bandwagons, so in 2019 there's no telling exactly when they started using it. As near as I can tell.
     
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  14. DMortensen

    DMortensen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle, WA USA
    I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they changed control room monitors at least five or six times during the life of the studio. Counting on my fingers, I get to eight, but that's tentative.
     
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  15. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Definitely appears to be around that time, but not the On The Record sessions. Different clothes for starters.

    I've never attempted to catalog the differences over the years, but that seems likely. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least:

    - original (?) speakers in the old control room mounted via hinges
    - second set (?) of speakers in the old control room when those were removed
    - JBL C34s in the new control room
    - newer monitors around the time of Company
    - newer monitors from Gould's last session at 30th Street
     
  16. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC
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  17. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    No mention of which exact date this photo was taken, @lukpac posted some dates that Glenn Gould was in the studio in 1959 a few pages back.
     
  18. DMortensen

    DMortensen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle, WA USA
    That's a nice try but the one(s) I have pictures of, in both Liederkranz and 30th St., only look vaguely like that. You'll have to look back in the thread to see those pics, though, sorry. I'm quite busy right now...

    People have told me they thought the smaller mixer(s) were also Columbia-built, same as all the other mixers known to be in 30th St and other Columbia studios.
     
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  19. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
  20. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
    FWIW, this article points to the first U-47s being manufactured in June 1948.

    This issue of Audio Magazine is the earliest I could find any trace of the U-47 being in the US, October 1951. The photo for the cover was courtesy of Reeves Audio in NYC. Strangely, I don't believe there is a story in the magazine on the mic, but there is a photo of Bob Fine using a Telefunken in that issue.

    Rudy Van Gelder claims he got his first U-47 from a member of the armed forces who came back from overseas after Van Gelder saw the mic at Reeves, and I'm guessing that would have been in 1952. The same article linked to above explains that American Elite became the exclusive distributor of Telefunken mics in the US before Gotham Audio took over that role later. The article explains that Gotham didn't acquire a U-47 until 1953. Further, Rein Narma worked for Gotham and is on record explaining that he modified dozens of U-47s to fit with American consoles in (or around) 1953. Van Gelder's U-47 was modified by Narma.

    As for Columbia and Capitol, it seems reasonable that they got their first U-47s in 1953, with photos from both studios serving as evidence. The first occurrence of a U-47 ad in Audio Magazine (aside from that October 1951 cover) is in 1953.
     
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  21. GLouie

    GLouie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Wow, new posts!
    Looking forward to hearing Rich et al talking about RVG at the AES convention (Javits, Oct 17, 1:15pm, room 1E08) - you do need an all-access badge to get into this, the free passes won't work for these presentations.

    Milk - back then, small containers used to come in waxed cardboard cartons like that. There was a hole in the top corner, and a formed flap was stapled to the top to seal it. You can see them using the milk in their coffee in the "On the Record" film.
     
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  22. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
  23. 2xUeL

    2xUeL Forum Philosopher

    Location:
    Albany, NY
  24. DMortensen

    DMortensen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle, WA USA
    NOW I have some time to look this up, and here is a picture that I posted much earlier in the thread of what seems to be the first mixer in 30th St., and which was also used (or another version of it) in Liederkranz Hall:

    [​IMG]

    No built in stand, no patch panels on either side, somewhat different configuration than the Western Electric one but still similar. These two pictures together do show what appears to be a standard mixer configuration of the era, and I appreciate seeing other versions.

    Again, I've been told by more than one source that the one in 30th St was likely a Columbia product designed and probably built in-house. But I have no proof.
     
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  25. DMortensen

    DMortensen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle, WA USA
    I also appreciate seeing Rich's posting of that Audio Recording magazine from 1951. There is an ad a couple pages past the cover for the RCA BA-6A Limiting Amplifier, which I think we now call a compressor, which was widely used in 30th St and which my friend Dominick, who is knowledgeable about such things, says was one of the sources of the Columbia Sound, as it was used on pretty much every output to give a more in your face kind of sound.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    The controls on it, from what I can see, are (L-R)

    Input

    Meter

    "Bal-L HRTO" or something

    Output

    All but the third one have numerical scales; the third one seems to allow you to choose from 5 different modes: A, B, and three others that I can't read in that ad.

    On earlier compressors and presumably this one, you set the threshold for compression/limiting by adjusting how much input gain was hitting the compression/limiting device. More input meant more action from the compressor/limiter, less input meant less. When you increased or decreased the input, you also increased or decreased the overall output, which may not have been desirable, so there was an adjustable output control to compensate for that input change. (Nowadays the threshold control is usually set up to not affect the output gain, so you don't have to worry about trying to manually balance two things.)

    The meter scale seems to have both a numerical and word scale. Not sure what that's about.

    I have no idea what that third one is doing, although I would guess that maybe it's a ratio selector? (The difference between a compressor and a limiter is mostly one of scale of the input change to the output change: 1.5 db of input change producing 1 db of output change is a mild compressor; 60 db of input change producing 1 db of output change is in the limiting range; in between 1.5 and 60 is something in between, with the border maybe being around 10 or 12 but will vary with the application.

    Anybody have thoughts?

    Edit before posting:

    Well, danm, we live in a pretty wonderful world!

    Here are the user manuals for the RCA BA-6 series of limiting amplifiers:

    VINTAGE AUDIO TECHNICAL SUPPORT

    I love two things:

    1) It is "only" 37 pounds!*

    2) There is a "Signal to Thump" ratio.

    Enjoy!

    *If my Behringer/Midas 16 channel mixers had these as the available compressors, they would each weigh "only" 1184 pounds, not counting all the other features.
     
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