[net.audio] re. AES Workshop

5121cdd@houxm.UUCP (C.DORY) (10/22/84)

I knew as soon as I hit the "return" key after the "inews" command
on my last posting that someone would take offense to the way it
appears I slighted the Cleveland Symphony.  My statement, however,
was not meant that way at all.  By "smaller", I was speaking in terms of
commercial output and recording contracts.  Take a look in a recent
Schwann catalog and you'll understand what I mean -- Chicago, Boston,
Philadelphia, and New York each have many more commercial products
on the market than does Cleveland.  The major labels such as RCA,
London, DG, et.al. have long-standing contracts with these orchestras.
Cleveland while definitely top-five in terms of musicality, it is well
behind the other four in terms of commercial output.  Enough said.
(However, I am still partial to Chicago (for its brass) and Philadelphia
for its strings -- sorry Greg.)

In my experience recording musicians, I really have found three camps:
       
         (1)  Those who want note-perfect performances -- these are
              the types that even after hours and hours of editing
              seem to get MORE critical as time goes by.

         (2)  Those who want good, cohesive performances and are willing
              to "get it right the first time" with a minimum of edits
              and overdubs.

         (3)  And, those who simply don't care -- all they're worried
              about is when the next break is and making sure they
              get paid overtime scale for that extra ten minutes.

Luckily, the majority of my contacts and clientele have been in camp #2.
I recently mastered for a record the New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra and
the Westminster Choir College Oratorio Choir performing a previously
unrecorded Hummel Mass.  There were two sessions with extensive preparation
for each.  The conductor of the chamber orchestra and I went through the
score so I would be familiar with the work -- I even went to rehearsals
and recorded a performance of the piece before the sessions.  After the
first session, the conductor and I listened to all the takes making value
judgements as to which takes were good, which weren't and what we needed
to do for the second session.  After the second session, a week later,
we assembled the final tape ready for disk mastering -- there was only
one edit needed in a 40 min. (approx) piece.

The musicians, however, are not the problem in commercial recordings.
Rather it is the producer(s) and front-office types (generally the
ones that know nothing about music) that are the real trouble.  The
producer as well as the director lay their reputations out for everyone
to judge on each recording.  The front-office accountants count the
beans, and, naturally have their concept on how things should be run
(albeit somewhat askew of reality).

Remember, the great majority of these large companies has historically made
recordings to sound good on the "average" person's system (whatever the
!?$# that is).  The corporate philosophy is to make money.  We can be
thankful of companies like Telarc who have showed that it is possible
to make money (look at how much Telarc's catalog has expanded in the
last five years) as well as put out a good product.

Craig Dory
AT&T Bell Laboratories