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

The problem was, I was literally "looking at it the wrong way." I was looking at left/right stereo placement from the conductor's perspective, but the left/right layout was laid out from the BOOTH perspective, giving us this:


Ah.......now everything fits visually where it actually sounds in the stereo image, aside from some spreading around of the rhythm section.

 

(I updated the two diagrams above, as in one photo I had mistaken a violin bow for a flute.)

 

Under the booth window: Trombones on risers, flutes on the floor in front of them (all panned right); Looks like reeds, including a contrabass clarinet, closer to the center of the photo, panned left in stereo.

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Another shot (below) showing the booth-end of the room. Left to right: Sinatra's vocal booth, maybe with two guys tinkering with the celeste; Sinatra and tea; percussionist to the right of Frank's shoulder?; maybe a KM56 on a low-ish stand for the percussion?; bassist; guitar and M49; two laughing trombonists (typical); Robert Farnon; reed players (?) with mic visible.

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Below, I think that's the guitarist and M49 in the foreground, looking toward the other end (the "screen end) of the studio. Down on the screen end, I'm guessing that a KM54 over the strings. (It appears again in other photos that we'll see.)

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Below, "booth" end of the studio. Bassist at far left; Sinatra; trombones, flutes, reeds at right; violins in foreground.

 

Sinatra is seated at what I think is the music editor's table, located behind Farnon's podium. Note the harp cover visible in the background:

Here's a shot showing that same table at far left, with Robert Farnon's large music stand visible at right, looking toward the "screen end" of the studio:

The top of the harp appears to be visible just below the bottom of Farnon's music stand. High up in the air, the violin mic is visible. KM54 (directional)? KM53 (omni)? I'm guessing the former.

Continuing to look toward the screen end, we have this photo:

In the foreground, that looks like a KM56 in front of the reeds. Behind Sinatra, a U47 is visible on the celeste. As I mentioned, some elements of the rhythm section seemed to move around a bit from session to session. You may recall that in some photos, the celeste was next to or even, as I recall, "in" Sinatra's vocal booth. To Frank's left (our right) we can see the low strings, with at least one KM54 (53?). There may be a second mic on the cellos, or that mic/stand may just be being stored there. It's hard to tell.

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Below, another shot of the low strings. Again, I'm not sure that the mic visible in the rear is actually in use.

Once again, the U47 is visible on the celeste, at far right.

 

Rhythm section photos:
Below, in the background we can see timpani, orchestral bells, and vibraphone; In the forground, celeste and piano, side by side, both played by Bill Miller, with a turn of the stool to his right to reach the celeste keyboard:

That's very reminiscent of this photo from the small, downstairs studio at Capitol Melrose many years earlier, showing the piano/celeste setup, but I can't find it right now. Moving on....
Below: Another photo, another celeste position:

Celeste one more time, different session:

From session #3, with Nelson Riddle present:

Celeste is off to the side; piano appears to be butted up against the vocal booth; U67 bass mic visible at far right.

Two things I just cannot spot in any photos:
1. Drum set. Was there one? I certainly hear a ride cymbal in spots.
2. Trumpets

 

What's the saying around the Hoffman forum? "Every thread winds up being a Sinatra thread?" Something like that. Here are some other blokes recording at CTS Studios:

 

I've got the beginning of a comparison website now going: Sinatra Sings Great Songs from GREAT BRITAIN - 1962 . Please have a look!

(If you find any typos or errors that my 1:25 AM proof-reading has missed, please send a PM my way, and I'll fix it.)

 

There's stuff with these releases that I don't have the answers to, so I thought I'd pose the questions (and accompanying audio) here (as they come up), to see if anybody has any ideas. This is, or will be, on my site, but it's "in progress."

On "The Very Thought of You," there's something wrong on the line "the longing here for you," around 1:12. This is the first instance of what I'll call "the gritty voice" sound, and it's not gritty in a "he's a great blues singer" kind of way. It's a technical problem.

I've put together a clip of just this one line of the song, from 7 different versions:
•1962 mono UK LP (original mono mix) (minimal grit)
•1962 stereo UK LP (original stereo mix) (minimal grit)
•c. 1975 Italian LP (original stereo mix -- better mastered) (minimal grit)
•1985 Japanese LP (stereo remix - same as the German LP) (even more grit)
•1993 CD (stereo remix, at least for much of the song) (lots of grit)
•2014 "London" CD (same as LP & HD - at least mostly a remix) (lots of grit)
•2014 "London" CD -- same take, but from "session" material on disc 2 (different mix) (minimal grit)

Here's the clip: https://app.box.com/s/jkwj0k0wemc03d8ncwa9n3kmnrs67dl3

Any ideas as to what the TRUE GRIT story may be?

I realize this qualifies as minutiae, but I'm curious. It especially odd that the two versions released in 2014 within the same boxed set are so different from one another.

 

2 AM here; no time to get into the details, but I'm pretty sure I've found aural evidence that it's a patchbay problem in the booth going from the mixing board to the 3-track recorder....or the "live mix" 2-track recorder that was likely running.....or one but not both 3-track recorders (if two were in use) -- but (the key point being) not to all the machines. I'll try to get some details posted over the weekend.

 

Revisiting these comments, trying to "think out loud" a bit:

Sorry to dwell on minutiae, but in the posts quoted above, there are two possibly-related things going on:
1.) There is a "gritty sound" to the vocal recording in spots; and
2.) There is the question of what tape machines were running and what tapes were preserved over the years.

That second thing -- the question of which tapes exist/existed -- is in play for two reasons.
1.) Eric Tomlinson (the engineer on this album) became known for getting a fully-usable, "live" mix, so no remixing was necessary; and
2.) It is possible (even likely) that two 3-track machines were running alongside a stereo machine on which a "live mix" was perhaps being created.

How do these things dovetail into one another? I am hearing things that are cropping up on "releases A, B, and C" but not turning up on "releases D, E, and F," telling me that A/B/C were sourced from one tape, and D/E/F are sourced from a different tape. Confused yet?

Check out this set of five versions of "....and I'll keep all my dreams" from the song I'll Follow My Secret Heart, the third song recorded at the first session. The five versions you'll hear are:
1. UK mono LP
2. Italian stereo LP -- left channel only
3. German stereo LP -- left channel only
4. 1993 stereo CD -- left channel only
5. 2014 "London" CD - left channel only

Here's the clip: https://app.box.com/s/kg28kmv6qb9adcvgu9ut8m6p31nw7o63

Here's what to focus on: Listen carefully to the word ALL, as in "and I'll keep all my dreams." The UK mono is "clean" on that word; so is the Italian LP (which uses the original UK stereo mix). The German LP, though, which is a different mix, does a funny little thing. During the word "all," there's a little fffffffst static-y sound that happens, then vanishes with a little pop, just as the voice become clearer. That little ffffffst thing is even more pronounced on the 1993 stereo CD. It's still there on the 2014 (and 2015) release, but I think the "pop" part was reduced via some digital workstation cleanup. The fffffffst part is still there, though.

Here's the same series of clips, but in stereo this time: https://app.box.com/s/pvbciyqrd7f4gnhvd8gk2fylw9btfrn0

What does this tell us? It tells us that, at least for this one song, these releases were ultimately sourced from, let's say, "tape #1:"
•UK mono LP
•UK stereo LP
•Italian stereo LP
No pfpfpfst-pop defect on any of these.

These versions were sourced from what we can call "tape #2:"
•German stereo LP (different mix than UK/Italian LPs)
•Japan stereo LP (same mix as the German LP)
•1993 CD (new mix)
•2014/2015 LP/CD/HD (new mix?)
Pfpfpfst(-pop) defect on all of these.

My faux-educated guess, nothing more at this point? The first batch of LPs (UK mono/UK stereo/Italian stereo) were all cut from the (presumably) 1/4" "live mix" tapes, and the latter batch are all remixes made from the 3-track tape. The problem? Maybe a just-starting-to-go-bad patch cable between the mixing board and the center track of the 3-track tape machine, while the board's stereo output going to the 2-track machine was a-okay?

*IF* that is the case, is the UK mono mix a fold-down of the UK "live mix" stereo mix? The edits are the same throughout the album, and there's no pfpfpfst-pop problem here.

Another possibility: If two 3-track tape machines were running, there may have been a bad cable (or other problem) coming into one machine and not the other.

Any ideas?

 

Photo taken at CTS? Looks like it.

 

Now having the "Sessions" material from the London box, I can say that the above information is not entirely accurate, as "London by Night" in its original UK edit is actually composed of four segments, 1:57 (total) of it coming from "Take 6," and 1:21 (total) coming from what I'll call "Take 6b," as, at least on the "Sessions" bonus material (and "elsewhere"), Take 6 is initially an incomplete take, with Sinatra jumping in to stop the orchestra at the 2:30 mark, then giving instructions to pick up again to do an intercut, with the "6b" take starting at measure 55 and playing through to the end, effectively covering the last 1:47 of the song.

Here's the accurate rundown for the originally-issued UK (later also used on the Italian "Sinatra in London" LP) edit:
0:00-1:52 = take 6
1:52-2:08 = take 6b, covering "somewhere up there stands an angel to keep her watch while each Londoner"
2:08-2:13 = take 6, covering the sustained "dreams" (just that one word)
2:13-3:18 = take 6b

Now, this being Sinatra, nothing is ever simple! The German/Japanese mix/edit is different, of course! It has been billed (not just by me) as being "Take 6," implying a lack of an edit, but it, too, has an edit. Here's the German/Japanese edit rundown:
0:00-1:41 = take 6
1:41-3:18 = take 6b (the transition is right before "He's not alone...")
The "suitcase" and 2014/2015 editions follows this latter edit pattern.

EDIT:
Here's a graph:

Green = Take 6; Blue = Take "6b"

 

The original UK and 1976 Italian releases of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square use take 3 until the start of the very last note in the trombone solo, around 2:48, at which time there is a splice from what is slated as "edit from same place, 52, take 2," which is used until the end of the tune.

...but now here we go again, and I think this is undocumented: The German/Japanese LP releases use take three until a little later in the song. The splice does not take place until just before the phrase, "It was such a romantic affair," around 2:57.

 

Following up on the above post: The 1993/1995 and 2014/2015 releases follow the Japan/Germany edit.

 

Trying to type up all of the odd things going on in the assorted releases of this album -- and there have been very few releases, remember, but gobs and gobs of odd things within those few releases -- has delved so far into "inside baseball" stuff that even *I* was starting to nod off, but it will all add up to something in the end, I assure you. That said, simplification was in order, so I have created a chart!

(It required either a chart, or a big three-ring binder. I went with "chart.")
Here you go, with songs listed in order recorded:



Summarized from these binders:

 

So.....what can we gather from the chart? A few things, starting with:

Thing #1
The three releases associated with the left column (original UK mono and stereo LPs, circa 1976 Italian stereo LP, which is the final release to use the UK tapes) are their own breed of cat vis-a-vis all the other releases, and, I would suggest, they are superior, both from a technical and listening standpoint on the whole. As far as technical problems go, note the near absence of red text in the column for these LPs. Even where there is red text in that column, the issues are either 1.) fleeting (bad edit, brief drop in volume); or 2.) in the sole case of the distorted trombone mic, common to all releases. As far as listening goes, the Italian stereo LP, which is by a significant margin superior to my UK stereo LP, is a very good sounding disk, nearly free of the type of technical gremlins that permeate most releases of this album.

The sound on these same three releases also brings up questions regarding available tape sources, as they (UK and Italian LPs) clearly are not sourced from the same tapes as the other releases, causing one of these things to be true:

Scenario 1: Two 3-track machines were running at the session, and the UK/Italian mix was created with tapes from Machine A while all other mixes were made from Machine B, which had an intermittent defect in the signal path (bad cable, bad slot in a patch bay, etc.) that went unnoticed during the session, while Machine A (UK/Italian mix) had clean connections. (I would not discount the idea that two sets of 3-track tapes were made, with one set staying with Pye in the UK and one set coming home to Los Angeles in somebody's suitcase for storage, safety, future use, etc. When I was working on sessions for Delos Records years ago, one set of tapes stayed in Seattle [in case there was a plane crash or something -- and I'm not kidding], and one set went to Los Angeles for editing/mastering.)

Scenario 2: At least one 3-track machine and at least one 2-track machine ("live mix") were running at the session, and the UK/Italian mix was created from the "clean" 2-track live mix, while other mixes were created from a 3-track tape that had an intermittent defect in the signal path.

It's one or the other, or a combination of the two, but the bottom line is: The UK/Italian releases are "clean" in spots -- many spots -- where other versions have technical defects that are consistent from version to version, but do not appear on the UK/Italian mix.

Thing #2
*IF* the UK stereo mix is sourced from the 2-track "live mix" tape (scenario 2 above), then the UK mono mix is a fold-down, as the defects/quirks/edits/dropouts are identical on both the UK mono and UK stereo editions.

The other possibility is that the mono and stereo UK mixes are both made from the edited "Machine A" 3-track tape (the "clean" tape in scenario 1 above), as the edits are the same. There is one fly in the ointment, though, that being:

The reason it's "less bothersome" in mono is not because it was mixed differently, but because in stereo, the drop in vocal volume causes the center of the image to get sucked out, "catching your ear." In mono, there is no left/right/center difference, so it does not "catch your ear" as strongly, but the difference is still there. It's such an odd, certainly-unintended change in volume, that I think the only way this could have happened via a (non-fold-down) mixdown from a 3-track source is if both mixes were being done during the same pass, i.e., a 3-track tape is threaded up, fed through a mixer, with the mixer's output being routed to stereo and mono recorders simultaneously. Is there a chance that would have been done, maybe by simply dropping the vocal track by a small amount on the output that fed the mono machine?

There's a lot more weirdness to be derived from that chart. This is just a conversation starter. Any ideas?

 

Just noticed that there is a date machine-stamped, very faintly, into the runout area on both sides of my copy: 10 3 76. I assume that means March 10, 1976, since it's a European pressing? I think it's safe to say that this LP came out in 1976.

 

I was implying the latter, but also hinting that I don't think that's very likely to be the case, and wondering if there's a known precedent for such a thing.

 

Mono or stereo?

 

Thing #3
This part of the chart baffles me:

Why is it that, within the "sessions" bonus material in the London box, we get fully clean, good sounding, un-cut versions of the "takes" listed in the far right column -- the same takes that are used on the actual "final versions" of the songs as presented within the "album" content of the same box set (and on the Great Songs LP and HD download) -- yet the versions of the same tracks "in the album" sound like poop (relatively speaking), full of technical defects? That's a real head-scratcher to me.