Sinatra / Reprise Sound Quality and General Discussion: "...Great Songs from Great Britain" (1962)*

Regarding Paul's comments about the mono LP: I think the original UK mono LP sounds pretty good, too, at least on some pressings. (One copy that somebody transferred to digital for me is very tubby/bloated/bass-heavy, but only on side one. Side two is fine.)
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The unique thing about Great Songs from Great Britain, though, is that the actual "final takes" (not alternates) are included within the same, officially-released package (the London box) in clean stereo within the "bonus material" and in mucked-up stereo within the "real" album (and in the stand-alone LP and HD releases, for that matter).
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No, it's a tape-mastered release, and a very, very good one, at least on my copy. (In fact, I am so happy with the used copy I bought that, just yesterday, I purchased a sealed copy that I found online. Don't tell my wife!)

I wonder if for this album, perhaps, WEA Italiana received their tapes via WEA in London, and that's how they wound up with British mixes/edits. The font in the machine-stamped runout/matrix, including the appearance of a diamond-shaped symbol in the matrix, makes me think this disc was MAYBE cut at CBS in London, which was handling mastering for WEA/London post-1971. (EDIT: I guess I'm wondering, then, if the discs were cut in London, then manufactured in Italy from UK metal parts -- no tapes shipped. Re-EDIT: I'm not sure!)

Does anybody have the stereo Netherlands release from the 1960s? Or the 1970s Japanese boxed-set stereo LP release? Getting to hear samples from either of those may shed some light as to which tapes were circulating where and when.

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Regarding The Beatles at CTS:

Also at CTS to do clean-up work on the 3-track recordings for the The Beatles at Shea Stadium film. I'm not sure when the photo of a circa-1967 mustachioed Paul McCartney was taken, but it appears to be later than the Help!/Shea date(s).
5 January 1966: Recording: overdubs for The Beatles At Shea Stadium | The Beatles Bible

I suspect that McCartney photo was connected with the recording of The Family Way soundtrack for Decca much later in 1966.

 

From another Sinatra thread:

Regarding, I assume, the single-disc Japanese release:

Two comments:
1.) Interesting that Great Songs from Great Britain was apparently a stereo-only release in Japan; and
2.) That later date that MMM mentions may roughly correspond with the album's debut in France. Note the LPs advertised on the rear cover:

 

Thing #4
Anybody who has heard the well-known bootleg release of session material from this album may have realized upon hearing the "sessions" material in the London box that the content is essentially the same. There was some careful editing-out of a few random coughs and such on the London version, and the London tracks include "official release" takes that the bootleg disc excised from release, assumedly to avoid glaring copyright issues, but in side-by-side listening, it's clear that the London "sessions" tracks stem from a master-tape (or "closer to a master tape") version of what appears on the bootleg in a dub of a dub (of an off-speed dub?) form, with lots of hiss, noise, etc. (The London disc is of much higher/better quality.)

....which brings us to this:

•The bootleg material, as is often the case with unauthorized releases, must have been some sort of "inside job" by somebody with access to stored tapes, or by somebody who was a friend of a friend of somebody involved with the production who themselves received a tape copy for review, approval, score-marking, etc.
•I seriously doubt that anybody created new stereo mixes from raw 3-track tapes for the bootleg. Rather, these were almost certainly dubs of existing stereo tapes.
•Another nail in the coffin for the idea of the bootleg tapes being remixed from 3-track sources is the lack of technical problems that appear to be on 3-track tape sources. (See things #1 and #3, linked above.)
•The obvious scenario is that these bootlegged stereo tapes may have been dubs of the "live mix" stereo tapes created by Eric Tomlinson at CTS (as was apparently his modus operandi) during the sessions, and since the "incidental content" (tape pauses, starts, stops, etc.) is (essentially) the same on both (legit release and bootleg), it is very likely that the "session" material is also from the "live mix" stereo tapes, but in much better quality, and since the only other place where these recordings can be heard in such "clean" form is on the UK/Italy releases, it seems likely that these, too, are sourced similarly.

It seems very likely, then, that the "Sessions" material is made from much better (true first-generation???) "live mix" stereo source tapes, and that (multi-generation?) copies of these same tapes were used for the bootleg and that either a high-quality copy or an original was the source for the UK/Italian LP releases.

 

Thing #5
Aside from "Roses of Picardy" being pasted onto the end of side one on the 1985 Japanese release (in [folded-down?] mono, no less), the 1980s Japanese and German LPs are identical in mix, edits, and sound quality. If you have heard one, you have heard them both!

I also suspect (nothing more, but the actual sound of the releases makes me lean toward this) that these releases use remixes that pre-date their release by 20 years or more, as they do not sound like "modern" remixes, while I do think that something this bad sounding certainly may have come out of United, where anything could happen and usually did. I think it's possible that these may be 1965 remixes (which may account for the Ⓟ 1965 date that appears on some releases) with additional stereo reverb added (in the '80s?) to "smooth out" the sound somewhat. (It was mentioned earlier in the thread, I think, that there was talk of releasing this album in the USA in 1965 as part of the "Sinatra at 50" celebration/campaign.)

 

Thing #6
Check out the consistency of the "problem" details in this part of the chart:

I only bring this up because it reinforces the idea of all of these versions coming from the same 3-track source tape that clearly has some issues, and those issues have turned up on all three remixes, consistently, but do not appear (except the trombone issue on "We'll Meet Again") on any of the "original mix" versions.

 

Enough of the blah blah blah yada yada about the wealth of sound problems on this album. I finally have some clips posted!

I have intentionally chosen to use "We'll Gather Lilacs in the Spring" because the assorted source tapes are all more-or-less "clean" on this one, and the edits are the same on all editions. You can either listen to the clips on the webpage, or via the audio links below. (There are more clips on the site than I am posting here, if that matters, but I am covering the "key differences" here.)

These are sourced from "good tapes"
•Original UK -4M mono LP (thanks @Pieter Kozak) - Audio here

•Original UK -3L stereo LP - Audio here - Yes, this is sourced from the "good tapes," but it's not mastered very well, and is, additionally, very "right heavy," with the right channel being about 3.5 dB "hotter" than the left. (The LP is also in less-than-stellar condition, but that does not affect the right-heaviness of the mastering.)

•1976 Italian "Sinatra in London" stereo LP - Audio here

These (below) are sourced from "problematic tapes" - but to reiterate: On this particular song, many of the problems are not especially problematic. (I'll post one of the "doozy" songs later.)

•STEREO MIX #2 - from the 1980s German stereo LP - Audio here - Note: This is an "audio twin" to the 1985 Japanese LP. If you've heard one, you've heard the other (bonus track aside, of course).

•STEREO MIX #3 - from the 1993 CD, reused in the "suitcase" - audio here

•STEREO MIX #4 - from the LONDON boxed set, reused for HD and LP release - audio here

On this particular track, with the "defects" largely in-check, my favorite version is probably the 1993 CD, but I also like the mono UK LP and stereo Italian LP.

Please have a listen and chime in! I know I'm not the only one here with ears, opinions, and fingers.

(Thanks, too, to @Bob F, @rangerjohn, and @bferr1 for helping out with clips for this album.)

 

Time to check out "London by Night."

I've got some "rubber meets the road" clips posted at the bottom of the page: Sinatra Sings Great Songs from GREAT BRITAIN - 1962 , and differences between "clean" tape versions and not-so-clean tape versions are not subtle. Listen, and you'll hear what I'm talking about.

Clean-tape releases
•Original UK -2WMH mono LP (thanks @Pieter Kozak) - audio here

•1976 Italian "Sinatra in London" stereo LP - audio here

•2014 "Sessions" bonus CD from the LONDON box - audio here

Below, listen to the quality of the vocal recording, specifically, on the "problem tapes" releases:
STEREO MIX #2 from c. 1985 German stereo LP (identical to the 1985 Japanese LP) - audio here

STEREO MIX #3 from 1993 first-release CD (thanks @Bob F) - audio here

STEREO MIX #4 from 2014 "London" boxed set (regular album, not bonus material) - same sound on HD and LP - audio here

I'm not sure that the "clean tape" releases are absolutely 100% clean, but they are like Ivory Soap: 99-44/100% pure, while the others are more like this guy:

 

I will still be doing some fine tuning on page two of the website, which is all about the little nitty-gritty detail stuff, but the main page for GREAT SONGS FROM GREAT BRITAIN is now completed, here: Sinatra Sings Great Songs from GREAT BRITAIN - 1962 , with concluding comments and a "top choice" listed at the bottom of the page, just before material about ROSES OF PICARDY. Plenty to read and listen to there if you are game.

To my ears, there are really only two decent releases of this album. One is the mono UK LP, which I think is good (it's CLEAN, which is 9/10ths of the battle with this album), and the 1976 "Sinatra in London" LP from Italy that uses the original, clean, un-screwed-up, un-remixed, un-re-edited, uncompressed, un-defect-plagued, un-noise-reduced, un-digital-workstationed-to-death, un-"right-heavy," grit-free UK tapes (or high-quality dubs thereof), beautifully mastered in stereo.

In these Sinatra/Reprise "sound quality" threads, I think this is the first instance where, when all is said and done, I don't have to go all Ralph Kramden "homina homina homina" and talk in circles, but can, instead, just say, with a straight face, that there's one version that is the one to get, and it's this one:

Buy Frank Sinatra - Frank Sinatra In London (Vinyl) at Discogs Marketplace
Frank Sinatra in London in Music Records | eBay

 

From other threads:

Hey, the sealed copy of SINATRA IN LONDON that I bought on Ebay last week arrived today, and guess what? It's from THE RECORD PARLOR on Selma!

 

I can send her back your way, if you'd like. I did pick up the UMe vinyl when it was $13 on eBay.

 

Any thoughts on the music? (Imagine discussing that!)

Here's a thought I had: For all the talk of Sinatra being in poor voice (a thought that is countered in the liner notes of the LONDON set), the one spot where I kind of wince a bit is literally the very last thing that Frank sang at the sessions: the last phrase of WE'LL GATHER LILACS, when Frank reaches for that final high note. Maybe that vocal phrase could have been handled differently? Aside from that, I don't hear much in the way of strain in the final released versions. There's definitely some rough stuff in the outtakes, but that's where that kind of thing belongs.