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Article: Calibrating My Ears at the San Francisco Symphony


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I have about 600 mch albums.  I would second Fitzcaraldo's list but would add Pentatone.  Mine are almost all classical.  Channel Classics is excellent and very reliable in quality.  They do almost all their recording in DSD64 and have both SACDs and downloads (from NativeDSD which they own, but distributes many DSD mch and stereo label downloads).  I did a deal with them a couple of years ago and bought the entire Channel Classics mch catalogue from them, buying both the mch and stereo versions of the albums in a package.  There were about 200 albums at that time. 

 

Most of my other mch albums I bought the SACD and ripped the mch file using a Sony PS3, discussed in other threads.  You can also use an Oppo 105 or 103 (IIRC) to rip the SACD.  I have a DAC while I use mostly for the mch files.

 

The Budapest Festival Orchestra albums with Ivan Fischer are a pretty uniformly good choice on Channel Classics.  The Julia Fischer albums on Pentatone are also uniformly excellent (she has moved to Decca and now her releases are CD only).  Rachel Podger's violin SACD's are also very fine.  If you like opera, Rene Jacob's Marriage of Figaro on HarMun is wonderful as a SACD. 

 

Larry

Analog-VPIClas3,3DArm,LyraSkala+MiyajimaZeromono,Herron VTPH2APhono,2AmpexATR-102+MerrillTridentMaster TapePreamp

Dig Rip-Pyramix,IzotopeRX3Adv,MykerinosCard,PacificMicrosonicsModel2; Dig Play-Lampi Horizon, mch NADAC, Roon-HQPlayer,Oppo105

Electronics-DoshiPre,CJ MET1mchPre,Cary2A3monoamps; Speakers-AvantgardeDuosLR,3SolosC,LR,RR

Other-2x512EngineerMarutaniSymmetrical Power+Cables Music-1.8KR2Rtapes,1.5KCD's,500SACDs,50+TBripped files

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2 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Completely agree, Larry.  I should have included PentaTone.  They are an excellent label, one of the very best for Mch.

 

I like your other choices, as well, especially that Jacobs Marriage of Figaro on Harmonia Mundi.

 

One label I do not care for, unfortunately, is LSO Live, due to fairly consistently mediocre sonics.  A superb orchestra, and partly I am sure it is due to the Barbican's acoustics.  But, I don't think their engineering is top notch either.  

One of my friends, John Dunkerley, long time Decca recording engineer, whom I interviewed extensively for my Decca book, told me that in general he didn't like the sonics of the Live series of the LSO and some other orchestras.  He said the engineers had much less control over the placement of mics and musicians. Because of the limited number of performances (in the LSO's case, usually one) there are few opportunities for multiple takes to cover mistakes made in the performances or loud audience noises that can't be filtered out.  For example, they much preferred recording venues which were almost always not the normal performance venues for the orchestras.  For example, in London, the famed Kingsway Hall (where both Decca and EMI had permanent studios) and Walthamstow Hall were the preferred venues over Royal Festival Hall and Barbican.  Sofiensaal in Vienna over the famed Musikverein, Masonic Hall in Chicago over Orchestra Hall.  Even in the famed Boston Symphony Hall (where my friend Mike Mailes recorded the Boston Pops) and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Decca set up the recordings putting the orchestra on the floor facing the stage.

 

The Live series were a matter of economics, since in the old days, all the musicians were paid extra for all recording sessions and the related rehearsals.  There were also strict rules about how much of a recording session could be used in the final recording. One well know statistic was that during the heyday of Karajan's Berlin Phil recordings, the BPO members more than doubled their not inconsiderable salary through the extra payments they earned for their recordings.

 

Today the musicians contracts normally specify that there will be recordings made at some of their concerts and that there will not be any extra payment made.  However, very careful records are kept for every musician who is present at a recorded concert and they each get a royalty based on the number of copies of the recording that are sold (or streamed).  So if the recording is a big hit, they get more, and if it is a bust, they get less. But the recording company, which is now a part of the symphony, in the Live series, doesn't take very much risk in making a recording - other than the setup and engineering costs.

 

You may notice that  major orchestras are no longer under contract to the formerly big recording companies, and recording companies have merged and consolidated.  Operas. too, are rarely recorded in studios, but taken from live performances and shot in video. The glamorous or handsome singer is more often featured than the super singer.  Studio recordings (without video) also offered great singers opportunities to record roles that they would or could not sing on stage.  But that is for another thread.

 

Larry 

Analog-VPIClas3,3DArm,LyraSkala+MiyajimaZeromono,Herron VTPH2APhono,2AmpexATR-102+MerrillTridentMaster TapePreamp

Dig Rip-Pyramix,IzotopeRX3Adv,MykerinosCard,PacificMicrosonicsModel2; Dig Play-Lampi Horizon, mch NADAC, Roon-HQPlayer,Oppo105

Electronics-DoshiPre,CJ MET1mchPre,Cary2A3monoamps; Speakers-AvantgardeDuosLR,3SolosC,LR,RR

Other-2x512EngineerMarutaniSymmetrical Power+Cables Music-1.8KR2Rtapes,1.5KCD's,500SACDs,50+TBripped files

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Some very interesting comments.  My take on various topics.

 

First, Royal Albert Hall hosting the Proms in the summer gives a broad audience some really serious classical music (not Pops concerts like many orchestras elsewhere do).  We heard Bruckner's 6th Symphony there a few years ago - I think the 15th or 20th time it has been performed at the Proms!  There are plenty of cheap seats. The hall has improved its sonics, but is really too cavernous. We saw Joan Baez there two months ago and have seen Swan Lake performed by Russian Ice Skaters.  Almost always those concerts are miked to the detriment of the performers.

 

Davies Hall in SF has actually reduced its seating capacity, installing a central aisle so one can get to your seat in the orchestra (stalls) more easily.  They also added moveable clouds above the stage which really helps the musicians hear each other.  However, I agree that it is too big - but not too big from a financial perspective. With MTT the SFS has been quite successful financially, much better off than many other major symphonies.

 

Interesting comment from ednaz about sitting in the orchestra for so many years.  I spent two years sitting in the back of the viola section of my daughter's youth orchestra (they needed more violas and one other parent and I volunteered to be the last stand.  The first year the oboes were behind us, the second year, it was the trumpets. What a difference!  You can often see the back rows of major orchestras sitting in front of the brass, either have transparent shields behind them or taking out their ear plugs at crucial times during concerts.

 

Microphone placements for recordings, including the best engineered recordings (like Wilkie with the Decca tree, Bob Fine and Mercury, etc) are always much much closer than the average audience member (actually than almost any audience member.)  Some of the imagining occurs with spot mics which are set at specific locations to highlight certain instrument groups.  In some not so good recordings, the recordings are made with a large number of channels, so that the producer/engineer/conductor/soloist can highlight what they want and even move instruments around the stage in post production.   One of the strengths of the Decca team in the golden age was that all the various mics were fed into a custom mixer and mixed to a two track tape in real time, normally not changing any balances.  So there was no after session messing with the recording mix.  Editing was done by the recording engineers, not by underlings after the fact.

 

Any top classical musician can play their instruments really loud and really soft.  In our annual home concert with SFS musicians, we can hear the dynamic range close up.  So in a symphony orchestra concert, even in a big hall, the dynamic range is so much larger than just about any musical recording.

 

Any other experiences or comments are welcome.

 

Larry

 

Analog-VPIClas3,3DArm,LyraSkala+MiyajimaZeromono,Herron VTPH2APhono,2AmpexATR-102+MerrillTridentMaster TapePreamp

Dig Rip-Pyramix,IzotopeRX3Adv,MykerinosCard,PacificMicrosonicsModel2; Dig Play-Lampi Horizon, mch NADAC, Roon-HQPlayer,Oppo105

Electronics-DoshiPre,CJ MET1mchPre,Cary2A3monoamps; Speakers-AvantgardeDuosLR,3SolosC,LR,RR

Other-2x512EngineerMarutaniSymmetrical Power+Cables Music-1.8KR2Rtapes,1.5KCD's,500SACDs,50+TBripped files

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