Hi-Rez Highway: Re: Water Lily Russian Recordings and turning the other cheek.... by Chris from Lafayette New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

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Posted by Chris from Lafayette ( A ) on July 26, 2005 at 01:00:36

In Reply to: Water Lily Russian Recordings and turning the other cheek.... posted by music@waterlilyacoustics.com on July 25, 2005 at 07:06:06:

Looks as if Kavi posted this message twice. (I'm losing track of all his postings.) So I'll respond twice. His comments are in quotation marks.

“For someone who talks so much about recordings you seem to know very little about the art of recording. Had you knowen enough about this subject you would not have said what you did and I would not have to post this. You would have knowen that the discription in the Mercury CD booklet was solely about gain riding (passive EQ) and balance. Perhaps you had no idea what gain riding was untill now! No matter if it is a Mercury LP or CD, they were both made from the same master and thus subject to the same EQ/commpression, if applied at the time of recording. And what makes you think that there was no EQ applied at the time of the CD mastering?! Did Wilma consult with you?”

Here Kavi is so desperate to make his points that he conveniently overlooks readily available information on the internet, such as the interview with Robert Eberenz, where Eberenz states the following (regarding the Mercury recording process): “between the microphone and the tape machine itself, we had very little of any electronics. We had no equalization [I wonder if this is clear enough for Kavi?], no devices of any kind between the microphone and the tape machine. All we had was a fader, set level; a line amplifier, which was a Pultec MB2 classic amplifier known to every studio in the world.” Well, perhaps that leaves a little bit open to question, so let me refer to a conversation I had with Harold Lawrence. (He was over at my house to make some recordings in my living room – and guess what microphone technique he used? Crossed-pair figure-eights!) Anyway, in our discussion after the recording, HL (as I’ll refer to him from now on) said he was very proud of the fact that no equalization or compression was employed in the Mercury recordings. (No gain riding is of course a given.)

Off the subject, but possibly of general interest to readers: In response to my comment that Antal Dorati seemed like a less interesting conductor once he left Mercury and began his relationship with Decca/London (who had mostly abandoned their classic sound by the time they were recording Dorati, with spot microphones mushrooming up all over the place), HL said that Dorati later confided to him that he was aware of this phenomenon, as more a more of the recorded performance was taken out of his hands and put into the control room, and was distressed by it. Of course this is third-hand information (but only second-hand information to me!).

Back on to the subject: so, if the master is on the tape, and there was no equalization or compression applied, and no devices of any kind between the microphone and the tape machine, that sure doesn’t leave much room for equalization except for LP mastering. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I recall reading that Wilma did make new PCM masters for the series of CD’s that came out. And I know for sure that someone (not Wilma) made new DSD masters for the SACD’s which are now coming out.

On to Kavi’s next desperate point:

“Further, your outright dismissal of a well knowen fact: that the classic tube mikes, yes, the very same models with the far from flat responce usad by Mercury, Decca, RCA and.) EMI, are still used in the pop/rock studios and often as vocal mikes for the pop "divas", shows that you are the one who is being cavalier. Your statetment "divas do not use omni", again proves what I have said above: you know very little about this subject. These mikes in question are not fixed omnis, but variable pattern mikes!”

So now Kavi is claiming that divas do use omnis? As I said, I would be very surprised. (OK, maybe on a rare occasion.) The fact that many tube microphones used today have switchable pick-up patterns isn’t relevant at all. Mercury was using omnidirectionals (or omnidirectional pick-up patterns). And, truth to tell, I have not been able to verify that the Telefunken (actually Schoeps, Telefunken was apparently just the distributor) 201 (the microphone used in the vast majority of Mercury stereo recordings) even has a selectable pick-up pattern. The descriptions I’ve seen refer to it as omnidirectional only. I could be missing some information here, but no matter – it’s not relevant. Mercury used it as an omnidirectional. By the way, the fact that Schoeps microphones were used (even though they’re identified as Telefunkens in the booklet notes) was another piece of info first mentioned to me by HL – I was surprised.

“I had mentioned the Coles, just to show that there was a truly flat and transparent mike around at the time Mercury, RCA and Decca made the recordings that are worshiped the faithful. Of course, the Coles being a ribbon mike and thus a true figure-of-eight transducer, perfect for Blumlein and MS recordings, was of no use to the spaced omni gang. And no, I do not use Coles mikes. Had you read the CD booklet throughly you would have noted this fact. Who is being hasty in is comments?”

Yup – here, I say mea culpa! I plead guilty. Kavi pulled a fast one on me – I thought he was referring to the microphones he used on his latest recordings and I didn’t re-check the booklet. Of course, when Kavi got the position of the first and second violins on his own recording backwards, I suppose I could have admonished him to read his own booklet (thoroughly!), but I didn’t.

Here’s what it all comes down to: Kavi made an extravagant statement to the effect that the natural variations in microphone frequency response amount to a deliberate form of equalization in the case of Mercury, Decca, EMI, and RCA recordings. But these variations are the natural by-products of ANY recording, even (gasp!) Water Lily’s, and are not what most listeners commonly understand when they hear that a company has deliberately employed equalization. So perhaps Kavi should define his terms.

You know, I’m liking that quote from Virgil more and more now!

-Chris Salocks
(Take my opinions with a grain of salt – everything else being equal, I prefer DVD-Audio!)

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