SH Spotlight "For My Dad" Frank & Nancy Sinatra DCC Compact Classics CD - "Something Stupid" with studio chatter

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by batdude98, Jul 29, 2021.

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  1. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    The original stereo mix is preserved on a good safety, I have no idea why they don't use it. The four track is a bitch to mix. I tried it myself back in 2000 and can't even stand to listen to it..
     
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  2. Remy

    Remy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    This was a fairly awesome read and listen and why I’m always hitting this website throughout the day! Thanks!
     
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  3. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    It’s fun for me to talk about, probably not too interesting for most readers. All the old time engineers are gone now, at least we can talk about and listen to their great accomplishments.
     
  4. goodiesguy

    goodiesguy Confide In Me

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Meanwhile in New Zealand we were still direct to mono except for tape bouncing for overdubs. The U.S. was futuristic in comparison.
     
  5. brucej4

    brucej4 Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Coast, USA
    I, for one, have always appreciated your willingness to talk about this stuff, going back to the days of the MCA Vintage Music series. (I seem to recall a story at that time in the old ICE newsletter about discovering rats nesting in a tape box.)

    I would read almost anything about vintage studios, artists, and recording techniques, before all the information starts to slip away.

    There is a relative lack of transparency about tape sources with a lot of the reissue labels. You have always been up-front about it, which is a standard that most of the others don't even try to meet.
     
  6. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Thanks.

    Yes, I remember the rat family. Cute little buggers. :^(
     
  7. guitarman1969

    guitarman1969 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Fascinating stuff, Steve - the techniques and equipment set-ups seem very different to those used at Abbey Road. Were the two 3-track machines synced up?

    Also, have you read Sessions With Sinatra by Charles Granata? If so, what did you think of it?
     
  8. jimac51

    jimac51 A mythical beast.

    Location:
    Allentown,pa.
    Got my physical copy of the CD DCC single while working at Borders in '98. I was low man on the totem pole for grabbing promos;no one wanted it; a clue of many Borders workers(aka associates) only caring for a special area while ignorance remained for everything else sold,including coffee. I was always learning from customers,as I did in most retail jobs over the decades. The customer may not always be right,but it is important to interact ,if only to anticipate future sales. I've told a story about a mom asking for a particular Sinatra song for a sickly relative-I knew it immediately. Told the story for my short time on the Sinatrs Family Forum and got a nice response from Nancy. Made my day.
    BTW,evidently the SFF ends tomorrow. I missed the announcements here and at SFF. 2020 was horrid. And then came 2021. I'm wary of buying 2022 calendars.
     
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  9. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Haven't read Chuck's book. One day..

    Machines synced up? Heck no. Just both recording the same thing: Music left, Music right, vocal on the middle track..
     
  10. AJH

    AJH Senior Member

    Location:
    PA Northern Tier
    Did Lee Herschberg do all the mixing and editing for the original stereo mix of the Sinatra/Jobim album?
     
  11. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    He did and he did, with Sonny Burke.
     
  12. Royce

    Royce Senior Member

    Does anybody know if the mono hit mix of "Somethin' Stupid" is on CD anywhere?
     
  13. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    It is not.
     
  14. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Thinking about it, SOMETHING STUPID could be the last song ever to hit No. 1 that was recorded live with no overdubs and no editing.

    A few songs recorded from that time were recorded live without overdubs and charted ("Good, Bad & The Ugly," "Happy Heart," "Love Is Blue" etc.) but I think SS was the last live #1 vocal..

    The days of going in to the studio prepared and knocking out a hit song in under an hour, done and done, long past.
     
  15. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Here's a neat photo. United Recording, Frank Sinatra Jr., Big Frank and producer Sonny Burke.
    Sonny was a song writer (Black Coffee) and bandleader, arranger, A&R expert, a real pro in the studio. The Sinatra albums he produced included the Sinatra/Ellington LP, A Man Alone, Moonlight Sinatra, My Way, September Of My Years, Sinatra Swings, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim and others.

    Hearing Sonny's calm voice on the talkback mic during Sinatra sessions was always a treat for me, he was understated but totally in control. And an expert in getting what he wanted out of the orchestra (and singer). But if Frank had a suggestion, it was always approved by Sonny. He wuz no dope!

    I met Sonny in 1977 when I was just starting out and he was just ending his career. He was about to be fired from MCA Records and he knew it, I guess. He would sit in his little office in the Black Tower and try and look busy but really they gave him nothing to do, his kind of music was outsville.

    I was delivering memos from accounting to the Tower and I saw Sonny sitting in there, walked in and said this to him:

    "Aren't you Sonny Burke? You wrote with Peggy Lee all the songs from LADY IN THE TRAMP. I watched you on Disney when I was a kid."

    He almost had tears in his eyes of gratitude and shook my hand. He died a few years later at 66 of cancer..

    tumblr_pbyy51kZbe1v383cso1_1280.jpg
     
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  16. mahanusafa02

    mahanusafa02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Were you ever able to figure out what Reprise LP contained this alternate stereo mix when you heard it as a kid? Maybe a -1A World We Knew or something like that?
     
  17. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    s-l1600 - 2021-08-17T152959.492.jpg
     
  18. mahanusafa02

    mahanusafa02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Sorry, which particular pressing is that? Would you be able to post a sample of “Something Stupid”?
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2021
  19. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    No idea, I found the pic on the internet. No version I've tried since the 1960's has the mystery mix of STUPID, only the usual stereo mix.
     
  20. Nobby

    Nobby Senior Member

    Location:
    France
    Very quick question.

    Having read through this thread and being a sucker for a bit of "studio chat", I downloaded the track from Qobuz.

    On the "For My Dad" version the guitars are on the right, but on all other versions that I have they are on the left.

    Can someone confirm which is correct so I can adjust accordingly?


    Many thanks.
     
  21. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Whatever is on the EP CD I did, that’s the correct orientation.
     
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  22. Nobby

    Nobby Senior Member

    Location:
    France
    Much appreciated Steve.

    Thank you.
     
  23. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Sorry it took so long to answer!
     
  24. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    I was asked via PM but I'll answer here. In the old days of live recording, the mono machines and the multi-track machines ran at the same time. All the signal processing was right on the tape, done live on the mono (compression, EQ, slap, chamber) and on the multi, usually done for the orchestra. The singer, maybe, or maybe not, depending on the engineer. With me?

    So, on an album like Sinatra/Basie from 1962, the thing is mixed totally on the three track, processing on the vocal as well as the music. You can turn the three channels up evenly and it sounded mixed, for ease of reduction to two channel cutting tape. Now, by 1963, this varied. Sometimes the vocal was not processed but the music was, and this meant careful attention had to be paid to the stereo reduction mix.

    On SOMETHING STUPID, as you can hear, the two music channels were processed completely. Frank and Nancy were on separate channels and had some slap echo and chamber but NO compression so when you turn the four channels up it sounds wildly unbalanced, dreadful actually. Nancy can overpower Frank easily unless her channel is regulated very carefully.

    Same for the Jobim album. The two music channels are "fixed" with compression, EQ, slap and chamber but Frank only has the chamber. And Jobim's channel has nothing, no EQ, slap, echo or compression. Why Lee did it that way I have no idea. Maybe they didn't have enough outboard gear? Dunno. But it makes doing a stereo mix of that stuff very difficult with Jobim bouncing louder and softer depending on his playing. Very hard to do, I never did nail it.

    I wonder if mono originals exist for this stuff? By 1967, could be. Never thought to ask.. The Jobim mono feed would have been useless because of the "ching ching" stuff and the mono LP was remixed from the four track by Lee for mono release.

    Hope this helps. Maybe @MLutthans can add something..
     
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