GG: Goldbergs, 30th St., etc.

["John P. Hill" <jphill@frank.mtsu.edu>]

Hi, Scotty:

Thanks for the information on the Telefunken U47s, M49s, etc.
(wish I'd bought a few pairs at the time, but I was born two
years *after* you and GG immortalized the Goldbergs on tape).

I'm assuming that those analog machines were Ampex 350s and 351s,
using Scotch 206 tape (but maybe that came later?).  During the
ON THE RECORD video, it's pretty clear that the session is being
recorded in mono and stereo simultaneously.  Recording and mixing
in stereo must have been *wild* for those who'd been accustomed
to doing everything in mono for years before that.  The history
of stereo is interesting in that it's *theory* was very well
understood by Fletcher and Blumlein by the mid-30s, but its
manifestation in the 40/40 Westrex disk cutting system didn't
take off commercially until the mid-50s.

I also find it interesting that we're now at a very similar point in music
recording with 5.1 and surround mixing techniques.  Now, instead of
placing images between two channels (loudspeakers) and adding
reverberation, we'll be literally panning images and ambiances into
a 360-degree sound field.  Engineers and producers working with these new
formats talk about it with the same kind of awe and  *wonder* that the
second engineer in the ON THE RECORD video has (the same guy who gives
backrubs and does the tea service for all the control room personnel).
BTW, who *were* those engineers?

I'm also fascinated by the 30th St. studio facility.  I've never
been there and never had a chance to visit before it was torn
down (shortly after GGs 1981 Goldbergs).  So many *awesome* sessions
went down in this space (Miles, GG, you name it...), it's a tragedy
that this building was not declared an historic landmark.  Do you have
any specific recollections about it's sound or it's character that you
could share?

jh



On Fri, 7 Nov 1997 Dizscott@aol.com wrote:

> Greetings to jh and Mary Jo,  Thanks for the welcome.  It's nice to be on
> board and tell you "gone and forgotten", "ain't necessarily so".  dizscott
> actually is my wife Anne Gillespie who puts up with all of my foibles.  But
> jh, you certainly have made me dust off some cobwebs on my mind-40 years
> worth!  For GG's Goldberg, we used on Telefunken(direct) u47 (see Life
> Magazines October issue page 83, The Millenium).  Glenn is singularly the
> only musician pictured in the 1000 years; picture taken by Gordon Parks in
> 30th street.  For On The Record, I think we used two Telefundens U 49's in
> the mid position ( not omni but not sharp direct #1)  I'll mull that over.
>  Those were the glory days of Columbia Records.  Did you know that the Lp
> will be fifty years old in June 1998?  I was at the birth and death of that
> record which changed the course of recorded music in the world.  More on that
> if you'd like.  Ciao, Scotty
>