Judy Garland

[Paul L.]

Steve,
I see on your current projects page that you are making a CD of "Judy in Love" from the original 3-track tapes. I'm not familiar with this album, but I'm assuming it was stereo. Are you trying to replicate the original mix or did it need work? Is this done and in the can?

I bought a long time ago your "Judy at Carnegie Hall" release for my sister--she loves it.

[Steve Hoffman]

Judy Garland's "Alone" with Gordon Jenkins conducting from 1957 and "Judy In Love" with Nelson Riddle from 1958 are going to be released on a silver CD, with both albums on one disc plus a bonus track. A treat for Judy lovers, as "Judy In Love" is making its first CD release here.

The old stereo EQ'd cutting tape for "Judy In Love" is mainly echo. Since I know Judy lovers actually want to hear her sing like she is in the room, and not at the bottom of an old dry well, I'm taking the session reels and using them to master the album. Not a remix, but just closer to what they heard in the studio back then.

Scheduled for April release on S&P Records.

[Paul L.]

Steve,
When Capitol put out Judy at Carnegie Hall the year after yours, did they use your remaster? I haven't heard theirs. But according to the Amazon.com song titles, it looks like they put one song in a different position than you had it.

[Dave B]

Steve, I've noticed that many recordings of the late fifties and early sixties are reverb heavy. Any idea why this was done? For pop stuff I always assumed it was done to give some depth to mono car and transistor radios but it really makes no sense on something like the Garland records. I realize you weren't there but you have spoken to many engineers and producers over the years and I wonder if they ever offered any explaination.
!

[Steve Hoffman]

Originally posted by Dave B
Steve, I've noticed that many recordings of the late fifties and early sixties are reverb heavy. Any idea why this was done? For pop stuff I always assumed it was done to give some depth to mono car and transistor radios but it really makes no sense on something like the Garland records. I realize you weren't there but you have spoken to many engineers and producers over the years and I wonder if they ever offered any explaination.
!

Reverb was frowned upon during recordings made in the first half of the 20th century. By 1953 the Hi-Fi craze started happening. An engineer named Bill Putnam who worked out of Chicago started adding "echo" to everything to make it sound more "you are there". That was the start. Other studios like Columbia and RCA started building giant rooms or leased old ballrooms just to set their equipment up to make records with added wetness.

Some studios just built "echo chambers" like Bill Putnam did. A chamber is essentially a tiled little room with a loudspeaker at one end and a microphone at the other. You feed this signal into the "dry" sound of the studio to get a nice reverbed sound.

Echo was held in check (mainly) from 1953 until about 1957, when rock came in. All of a sudden, Capitol went from using a touch of echo (like on Sinatra's "Songs For Young Lovers") to a TON of echo on everything. The Judy albums were recorded in just this time.

The three-track doesn't have any echo on it at all. ;)

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Paul asked:

Steve,
When Capitol put out Judy at Carnegie Hall the year after yours, did they use your remaster? I haven't heard theirs. But according to the Amazon.com song titles, it looks like they put one song in a different position than you had it.

-------------------------------------------------------
Well, I furnished Capitol with my Gold CD work parts. What they did with them is anybody's guess. I've never heard the Capitol version. I guess they forgot to send me a copy...:p

[Dave B]

Thanks Steve. The other day I listened to the hidden Nat "King" Cole track on Love Is The Thing and then the sweetened version to compare them. It's a good way to get some idea of how echo can be used to punch the vocal up a bit in the mix. Used with some restrant the effect is quite effective used to excess or on the wrong type of recording it just muddies things up. Didn't Capitol have a room in the basement or somewhere that was heavily utilized specifically for echo?

[Steve Hoffman]

Capitol had (has) many chambers reaching far out under the street and towards the basement of the Pantages Theatre.

Best echo chambers in town, now that Gold Star is no more...

[feinstein]

Paul L. Asks:

When Capitol put out Judy at Carnegie Hall the year after yours, did they use your remaster?

I reply:

Apparently, they did not. For some wonderful reviews of the DCC version and the Capitol versions look here....

http://www.zianet.com/jjohnson/arsc7.htm


For an opposing viewpoint (from someone who likes Bob Norberg's remaster better than the DCC version), here's another link to an article. I make no editorial opinions, I only have the DCC version and have not heard Norberg's yet (I am not that big a Judy Garland fan).

http://www.zianet.com/jjohnson/arsc8.htm

[Paul L.]

Thanks, F. The articles make fascinating reading.

Capitol had to get rid of that darned "hiss"!

[Steve Hoffman]

Funny, eh? They promised me they would transfer my stuff straight, but they couldn't resist no-noising it. :eek:

[AudioGirl]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
Funny, eh? They promised me they would transfer my stuff straight, but they couldn't resist no-noising it. :eek:

Just goes to show you... Some people don't know a good thing when they see (hear) it!! :confused: :confused:

[Steve Hoffman]

I must say, I was quite surprised when I found out.

[feinstein]

What I fail to understand about these two conflicting reviews is that they were both written by the same guy, but one lauds the DCC version as being fabulous, while the other calls it "pallid". Perhaps the gold on the reviewer's CD got rubbed off just enough over the years to dull the sound????:confused:

[lukpac]

Note that he didn't like the DCC the first time either. Read the last paragraph or so. He says the original release is the real deal, more or less...

[feinstein]

lukpac wrote to correct me...

Note that he didn't like the DCC the first time either. Read the last paragraph or so. He says the original release is the real deal, more or less...

I reply:

Yeah, thanks for pointing me to that last paragraph. Whatever it is, the guy who wrote this article seems to be very impressed with his own prose. I still prefer the DCC release to the old LP's. I haven't heard the Bob Norberg Capitol remastering. Guess I'll have to go out and buy a copy.

[José L-F]

The incriminated article does not criticize the Carnegie Hall DCC, but does critique it. Indeed it describes someone's opinion as regards a part of the work that relates to taste, not to technology or skills (which are very favorably reviewed, by the way).


Interestingly enough, the author explains at length why the article will not be liked given the so-called rampant Judyism that pervades everything related to Garland. It is either deemed good or bad by some masterminds and then you have to follow the party line, with no middle-of-road opinion, no rhetorical debate possible (that article however never implies that Steve is part of the conspiracy. :) )

It appears that this thread is well-behaved compared to others where opinion wars flare up, clans arise, and then the forum splits with a rival forum spinning off. Excellent! We can then discuss and maybe convince Lawrence Schulman that the Carnegie Hall DCC is indeed superior to the 1961 Capitol LP, or at least explain its qualities.

[feinstein]

Thanks for your well-thought-out post Jose L-F! I apologize to anyone who was offended by my crack "impressed with his own prose". I was just blown away by the "religion of Judy Garland" stuff in the article. I didn't think that the sound quality of "Carnegie Hall" merited an ethical and religious discussion (whether her voice was too "up front" or not seems to be a technical issue rather than a religious one). Apparently the Judy Garland fan base is quite passionate!

Anyway, I am going to pick up a copy of the Bob Norberg mastered Capitol disc from BMG record club (it's on sale currently for $7.49). I'll see how it flies, but I don't see how it could beat the DCC in terms of "being there".

[RetroSmith]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
Capitol had (has) many chambers reaching far out under the street and towards the basement of the Pantages Theatre.

Best echo chambers in town, now that Gold Star is no more...

>>>>>That brings back something I read in Billboard that
Capitol Records, sometime in the 1970s , stored session reels in these little rooms underneath the theatre.

They found these reels in the mid '80s while looking for something else, and no one knew they were there, because the folks who had stored them there were long gone from Capitol by then. Its a miracle that the tapes werent thrown away as trash.

My friend Tom Moulton tells me that in Long Island, there is a Parking Lot, and underneath that parking lot, buried in the cement as landfill, are a bunch of tapes from Bell Sound.

[Lawrence Schulman]

Steve writes on his homepage the following concerning his current restoration projects:

Judy Garland "Judy In Love"
First CD release, from the original three-track Capitol session tapes

Judy Garland "Alone" (includes special bonus track)
First CD release, from the original Capitol session tapes



It should be recalled that "Judy in Love" was released as a Capitol/EMI twofer in 2001. The other half of that CD was the album "Judy." These twofers are based on the LP masters and not the three-track session tapes. Insofar as "Alone", Capitol released that on CD - with the "added track" "Then You've Never Been Blue" - back in 1989. This release, now out-of-print, was based on the session tapes, I believe. It was mastered, however, using technology of the time.

LAWRENCE SCHULMAN


:confused:

[wvk3]

Steve,

I just bought the new CD and listened to it last night. Sounds great. Keep 'em coming.

[Steve Hoffman]

Thanks! :)

[John Oteri]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
Judy Garland's "Alone" with Gordon Jenkins conducting from 1957 and "Judy In Love" with Nelson Riddle from 1958 are going to be released on a silver CD, with both albums on one disc plus a bonus track. A treat for Judy lovers, as "Judy In Love" is making its first CD release here.

The old stereo EQ'd cutting tape for "Judy In Love" is mainly echo. Since I know Judy lovers actually want to hear her sing like she is in the room, and not at the bottom of an old dry well, I'm taking the session reels and using them to master the album. Not a remix, but just closer to what they heard in the studio back then.

Scheduled for April release on S&P Records.

Steve,

You did what you promised. A great sounding disc!

[Ken_McAlinden]

This is my first post at the forum after some lurking, so I thought I would make it a non-controversial one. This CD is wonderful. It offers great examples of how both a vintage stereo and a vintage mono LP release should sound on CD all in one neat, and not too expensive, package. It also solved my conundrum about what to get my mother for Mother's Day, which may not have been in the forefront of Steve's mind as he was working on it, but hey, I'm buying two copies, now. :)

Regards,

[Lawrence Schulman]

I must say, Steve, that you have done a wonderful job on the remastering. My sincere congratulations. My first reaction was that whereas the old Capitol stereo version sounded like it was recorded in in a large hall designed for an orchestra, your remastering sounds like chamber music: much more intimate, much les muddled. I am glad the folks listening to this, perhaps the best Garland album of all, will now be able to hear it in all its glory. The touch of reverb is fabulous too. All goes to show that measure is the key.

The original liner notes are fascinating too.

Again, congrats!

LAWRENCE SCHULMAN

[Steve Hoffman]

Lawrence,

I'm glad you like the new Judy. Your opinion means a lot to me. Thanks!

You noticed that touch of reverb? I didn't want to drown the music in it like the old LP, but without it, Judy sounded, well, too vulnerable to me. So, just a touch. That did it! ;)