Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality and General Discussion: "Where Are You?" (1957 album)*

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by MLutthans, Jan 13, 2010.

  1. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    For Tina:
    Screen shot 2016-03-09 at 11.35.24 AM.jpg
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2016
  2. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Okay so I recently got the 2 track reel to reel version of Where Are You and I want to know what all the fuss is about. On the positive side I do like the wide dynamic range and the minimal use of echo. However, I hate the way Frank is panned off to the right! It reminds me of those dreadful band on one side/singer on the other mixes that would come out in the 60s. The orchestra seems to be in nice stereo but having Frank on the right is a bit weird sounding. Anyone else feel the same way?

    I also got a Stars In Stereo reel to reel copy and I must be one of the few lucky ones because I expected those horrible problems with Frank's track but instead it sounded quite lovely with no issues. Frank's voice is centered on this one, so I'm guessing it was a mix done later? Any ideas on this one?
     
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  3. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    Frank is not panned off to the right. You must have a defective copy. I have something like 4 or 5 copies and Frank is centered on them all.

    7 clips are about 2/3rds of the way down this page: Where Are You? - 1957 » (Tranferred on an Ampex AG-440.)
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2016
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  4. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    Maybe the deck you're playing it on doesn't have it's heads configured to match correct playback for that tape. It will place the channels out of sync time wise by a bit.
     
  5. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Jeez. I'd like to figure it out then. I just had the machine fixed up a few months ago and have played many tapes on it and have had centered vocals before. So you think out of sync channels could cause the vocal to go right?
     
  6. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    There's likely nothing wrong with your deck. These Capitol 2 tracks are different than most of what people are familiar with. My friend Tim Leggett (@Loud Listener ) figured out years ago when making a transfer of his copy of this tape that he needed to align the channels digitally. Then it all sounded better...

    Check out the samples Matt has up.
     
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  7. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    On my Jimmie Lunceford in HI FI tape the vocals are also off to the right. I always assumed it was supposed to be that way. Similar issue? I'll have to try the channel align thing and see if I can get it to work out....
     
  8. MMM

    MMM Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Lodi, New Jersey
    If you can sync the channels in your transfer, it should improve...
     
  9. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Well I got my tape transferred and finally had time to sit down and listen to Matt's clips. Sorry Matt, Frank's voice is slightly favoring the right side of the stereo image in your clips. However, it is not quite as noticeable as on my tape. I am messing around with the channel align thing and managed to successfully get the vocal center. I am still not quite convinced that Frank was centered in this original mix because when I align the channels to get Frank dead center, it sounds like it pulls some of the right channel info center with it, like the right channel is not as wide as it was before. I'm open to opinions on this and to be proven wrong - these are just my observations.
     
  10. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    Raw, they may in spots, yes, but:
    For my "listening copy," I made those microsecond adjustments that MMM suggests, and that pulled things back to center. This is the Haas Effect in practical use! (When we hear one thing slightly sooner than the other, the sooner thing SEEMS to be the dominant thing, all else equal.) This time-misadjustment is a trait that's on these Capitol 2-track tapes. Very odd.

    Here's the time-corrected clip: https://app.box.com/s/p39odgga3rkm47hbaacpf64xrpy7kes3
     
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  11. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Interesting. For anyone who wants to hear what I'm hearing:

    Dropbox - comparison.mp3 »

    The first clip is my fixed version. The second one is the raw tape how it sounds straight off my machine. I own an Otari MX 5050.
     
  12. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    What was the "Fix?"
     
  13. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I pushed the right channel ahead of the left by fractions of a second until the vocal hit the center. In my first few attempts I got a weird fake stereo kind of sound.
     
  14. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's tricky to get it precisely in place. IIRC, the high strings AND the bass are in the left channel, so there are stretches where the right channel becomes a little anemic, but I think much of that is just due to the positioning of those key instruments in the left channel.

    :shrug:
     
  15. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I'm perplexed as to what is right. But I can say that I think Frank's voice sounds more "correct" in terms of tone and timbre then it did off to the right. So perhaps center is where it should be. Thanks for the help and good conversation everyone!

    Ps: Matt your website is incredible. Any collector would be foolish to skip out on a visit there.
     
  16. SBC

    SBC Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I definitely agree on there being channel alignment issues on other 2 track Capitol stereo tapes as well. I was messing around with the 'Star Dust' excerpt on the 'Study in Stereo' tape and, boom, same issue. On this one it sounded like two Nat's sort of, slightly off in each channel. This time I pulled the right one back and it put the vocal right where it needed to be. Like I said, I do not have these issues on all tapes, just these few.
     
  17. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    I'd love to hear the actual master mixdown reels (as opposed to the "released product") to see if the problem occurred during mixdown or during duplication.
     
  18. mahanusafa02

    mahanusafa02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Tough call. Which came first--commercially released stereo mixes or 2-track consumer reels? Both technologies were in their infancy, correct? So both could have potentially contributed?
     
  19. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    Re: Mono/stereo edit differences

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is that the general thought on why the edits in "Autumn Leaves" are present on the mono version but not present (unfixed, essentially) on the stereo versions is that, with the delay of about four months between the mono release and the first stereo release, the edits were perhaps forgotten or, less likely, ignored, yet there is an edit in "Lonely Town" just before the phrase "up and down" (around 2:21) that appears in the mono release and all of the stereo mixes/releases, the latter suggesting that the splice was likely made to the 3-track tape to match the mono edit, yet aural evidence suggests that the 3-track master for "Autumn Leaves" did not get treated to splices to match the mono edits.

    Side note: I'm still a bit mystified as to why the stereo mixes of "Maybe You'll Be There" have an edit/insert in the stereo mixes, while the mono version appears to be the unedited take, essentially the opposite of the "Autumn Leaves" situation.

    We seem to have three editing scenarios played out on this album:
    1. ) A song where the stereo recording has edits not applied to the mono recording
    2.) A song where the mono recording has edits not applied to the stereo recording
    3.) A song where both versions are identically edited
     
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  20. Loud Listener

    Loud Listener Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colorado
    There is a "pop" in "Maybe You'll Be There" at about 50 seconds in that alerted me that the channels were misaligned. I just measured the sample difference between the two peaks and pushed the right channel forward by roughly that amount (differs by sample rate) of samples to align the pop.

    Just did a transfer using new interconnect cables this morning of this tape on the ATR-102. My copy had all kinds of cupping at the front of the tape and dropouts throughout. Putting leaders on, playing it on the ATR many times and storing it play wound tails out produced an absolutely perfect tape pack (ATRs are famous for this). This flattened the tape, which removed or reduced most of the tape imperfections.

    Just unbelievably amazing sound for a tape that is older than me from 1957. This will be up until May 14: 02 - Maybe You'll Be There Snippet.mp3 »
     
  21. jtaylor

    jtaylor Senior Member

    Location:
    RVA
    What's the earliest date you've thus far found?
     
  22. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    The Billboard ad appears in the January 6, 1958 issue: Billboard » . The review appears in the Feb. 8 issue: Billboard »

    I don't hear any pop on my copy, Tim. There is a splice in the 3-track master, an insert that runs from 2:04-2:13, but that's not the pop to which you refer, is it? (To my knowledge, this is the only case of a Capitol/Sinatra stereo mix having an edit that is missing from a mono mix.)
     
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  23. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

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  24. jtaylor

    jtaylor Senior Member

    Location:
    RVA
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  25. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff Thread Starter

    Meaning that the cigarette holder may be added in, i.e., the photo is doctored?
     

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