Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality and General Discussion: Come Fly with Me (recorded 1957)*

Take a look at ON THE TOWN, if you haven't. It puts Frank back in a sailor suit with Gene Kelly, and I think is the better movie.

 

In an odd bit of fate with this thread, I came across a mint copy of the Walsh CD this weekend, after only listening to this album via the newer Norberg CD for years. The Walsh sounds great to me.

 

My Scranton-pressed gray label is D10/N13. Both sides are stamped. Looking through other posts, the stampers were pretty well mixed up between Hollywood and Scranton.

 

Wondering if the early mono pressings of this were cut at the same groove width as the stereo pressings?
I have a 3 mil stylus that works great on micro-groove-era pressings, or should I just play this my regular 7 mil stylus?

 

3 mil styli are for 78 RPM discs only, will damage microgroove LP discs. Mono even. 1 mil is the accepted tip radius for pre 1968 mono LP use. .7 mil is fine for most mono and stereo discs ever made provided it is vertically compliant.

 

Some people get good results using a 1 mil stylus with true mono cut microgroove records. I've never tried one myself. However, I'd imagine this would only be good with records that don't have noticeable wear in the area of the groove the 1 mil hits. Also, I have my doubts about the tracing ability of these vs. hyper ellipticals, Microridges/lines, etc. Even going from the original Microridge in my Shure V15 VxMR to a Jico SAS generally got me past even more old wear from previous owners in these vintage Capitols.

 

Thanks, I misremembered... it is a 1 mil stylus I meant to consider. This title is later than the microgroove era for mono, correct?

 

We're still in the microgroove era for records!

Maybe you're thinking of standard groove (for 78's)?

 

Wonderful work, Matt. You're starting to wear me down regarding the mono version. Did I miss it, or is there an analysis on the webpage of the mono acetate that you mentioned previously? Those mini LPs are adorable!

Speaking of missing things: I almost missed your post today due to the wonky and ponderous new search function on this site......

 

Oh, that's great, Matt. Thanks. Somehow I got caught up in the old versions of the pages and only saw the new page containing your mono/stereo vocal tone comparisons.

This comparison os the mono pressings is very thorough, and, yes, the acetate, alas, doesn't sound any different than the other samples. A Pity.

But the Dell does indeed seem to give the MFSL a run for the money among the stereo versions. Just based on this clip I may prefer it to the Walsh remix.

Thanks again for the hard work.

(Oh, and I LOVE the larger image of the Clooney-Crosby album!)

 

They seemed to have gotten cheap on the stereo jukebox version of this album. I have some of these for Frank's last three Capitol albums, and they all have one song per side and sound pretty nice from what I remember. Then there's the THIS IS SINATRA Duophonic one I have, with three (!) songs per side. That one sounds as bad as you'd imagine.

 

Walsh for the win, stereo wise. Still prefer the mono.

 

All my copies of the last three Sinatra/Capitol albums on 7" stereo 33 1/3 singles have an "X" prefix, instead of SU. Maybe there were two series of these? My THIS IS SINATRA is a DU prefix...

That copy of COME FLY you got from Steve L should have come out with the stereo release of the album, given the label.

 

In some ways I prefer the stereo recording (via the Larry Walsh remix) - in other ways I prefer the mono. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. I do agree the mono is "off" on this album - it's sort of overproduced sonically to my ear, which is pretty surprising. Of any time for vintage Capitol recordings back then, I think 1957-58 was kinda hit and miss. I can't think of anything that outright sounds bad, but compared to the pretty much consistently great results they got for many years before and after, it was a relative low point of sorts sonically. It seems like the desire to use more echo on their recordings was dealt with on some sessions (and with different engineers/producers/etc.) better than with others on the "live" monos during this period.

I tend to play some sort of stereo version of this album moreso than a mono, but if the mood strikes I enjoy the mono (even with its faults) as well. I don't like the vintage stereo mix...

 

Yes - the one with a "9 o' clock" black/rainbow label. No way they were producing them like that in 1966, except maybe (I'd guess) to use up leftover labels. My copy of one of the songs from POINT OF NO RETURN even has the newer label design, though IIRC with the special "COMPACT 33" label. I think my THIS IS SINATRA is like that as well.