Gould's CBC recordings

[Ingvar Loco Nordin <loco.nordin@mbox200.swipnet.se>]

I have all the Gould CBC recordings, and I enjoy them quite a bit. I listen
to all kinds of music from all ages and cultures, and when it comes to
Western art musics everything from historical reissues to electronic music
from today, so maybe I'm more tolerant towards surface noise and such, but
I do not think that the CBC broadcast recordings, sometimes taken from the
only surviving recording; the one that Gould himself kept at home, are so
bad. Instead I take great pleasure in the fact that these early examples,
against all odds, and sometimes only through Gould's own initiative,
survived the years to be issued for one and each of us on these discs!

Referring to the talk about noise reduction in connection with these discs
I'd like to point to one disastrous example and one wonderful one. The bad
one is the method that Italian Grammofono 2000 uses. They seem to apply so
much unconcious CEDAR that the original sound really suffers. Their issues
are really grand examples of what noise reduction can do to harm the
recordings.
The opposite is to be said of Sony's fantastic sereis Masterworks Heritage,
which serve as musical and artistic revelations. Never before have these
recordings from early 78's to vinyls sounded better. I read about the
methods they use, and it would take to long to describe them here, but what
about a record player affixed to a granite slab of several thousand pounds,
floating on air, and the usage of different kinds of needles for different
segments of the same recordings, and of course, in case the metal master
was lost, many different recordings of the same piece, to get the freshest
possible start, and so on and so on!
One issue here is of course money. Sony have taken measures that take a lot
of time and money, and I suppose they've used up more dollars in this
refining process than most others could afford. Their work is similar to
the painstaking process of removing years of dirt from old medeival murals
in churches and cathedrals, where, in the end, the original light, the
original colors, shine like they were just painted. And in Sony's case
these recordings have never been heard as bright as today, not even right
after ther recording was done.

There is another well-respected company that chooses not to apply any noise
reduction at all. That's British Pearl, issuing historical material.
Instead they take their time seraching out the best possible remaining
78's, and then they just transfer them onto CD, and that's that. When you
get used to historical material you soon learn how to cope with these
surface hissings and crackles, and they don't mean anything to you anymore.
That's the way I see it. I listen to many recordings from for example
Pearl, with heavy surface noises, but I seem to only hear the music that
comes through the haze. It's a matter of perception discrimination, and it
works. It just takes some training. In view of this I'd say that the minute
disturbances on the CBC recordings are of no importance whatsoever.
Instead, concentrate your mind om the young legend-to-be at the studio
during the broadcast, and picture him carrying home the one and only
shellack disc that was made during the broadcast, and which we now can
listen to on these CBC CDs!

Best,

Ingvar Loco Nordin
Swedish outback

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