I was thinking of ordering this http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_detail.cfm?Title_ID=31904 disc. It is a transfer from 35mm stock. So I was wondering first, how do they store sound on optical film? and what kind of quality would the sound be? cheers.
It's not an optical system. It's on 35mm movie film base, but it's a magnetic coating just like on reel to reel tape.
It was commonly used in the early 1960's, and you often see it on the London FFRR pressings. Sound quality is excellent, very quiet, with extended (although not dazzling) highs.
I haven't heard any of the Everest or Mercury 35mm sourced CD's, but apparently they do sound quite good. I did hear full mag track in person for presentations of THIS IS CINERAMA and HOW THE WEST WAS WON, which did sound very impressive.
Folks, The 35 MM system was magnetic film. Ran at 18 IPS with special low impedance heads. Had 1/4" tracks with a goodly amount of guard band. This system was pioneered by the late Bert Whyte and Harry Belock of Everest Records fame. After Everest left the recording field, the system was purchased by C. Robert Fine of Fine Recording Studios and used on Mercury Records sessions and Command Records sessions. A superb system which was the finest sounding available and had superb transient response, low distortion, and wide frequency range. Fell out of use due to expense as it was an expensive system to use.
The Command releases which were recorded on 35MM magnetic film vary quite a bit in sound quality. Some are good, but some suffer from overload at some point in the chain.
Hi, To my ears the sound of 35mm recordings is extremely variable. Some of the Mercuries sound terrible to my ears - harsh, glassy with a lot of sibilence that is far less frequent on the ones they made directly to 1/2 inch 3 track tape. Examples are the Dvorak Cello Concerto and the Lalo Cello Concerto. On the other hand, some of the Mercury 35mm recordings are the best I have ever heard - the Paray recording containing Escales, for example, is one of the best recordings in my collection. I find the Everest 35mm recordings to be much more consistent - I think the etchy and bright characteristics of the 35mm machines are better suited to the microphones that Everest employed (U49 for a lot of the time I believe which tended to have a much smoother and more mellow top end compared to the Telefunkens that Mercury used). I still don't think that 35mm captured the textures / timbres of acoustic instruments as well as ordinary tape did, but that is just my opinion as a classical violinist and audiophile. As for the Everests, you would certainly do well to buy the HDAD discs rather than the vinyl they are also putting out. I have probably bought around 8 Everest 35mm reissue discs from Classic Records and 5 of the 8 have been faulty to the point where I was compelled to exchange them. The new "hand made" ones are just as bad - if not worse in their own way. No problem with the HDAD discs of course. You can also use an application like DVD Explorer and pull off the 24-192 tracks into WAV format.
I'm a big fan of 35mm recordings. Like any format, there are both good and bad recordings out there, and that is not necessarily the fault of the format itself. I'll second what has been said about the Everest CDs, and I also would direct you to the Schumann concerto with Byron Janis as soloist on Mercury. If you want to hear something non-classical that shows off the particular sound qualities of 35mm film recording, check out this recording by Esquivel. You may also enjoy this blurb about Sinatra's use of mag film in the early 60s. [MOD: Dead link] Matt
Yes, that Schumann is absolutely fantastic and probably one of the top handful of recordings in my collection. Speaker's Corner reissued the LP just a few months ago. Absolutely fantastic, though sadly to my ears it sounds very much like the LP was done from a tape (copy? - I say that because the splices and dropouts are in exactly the same places!) rather than the 35mm film master as with the CD.
Adding a little extra bass from the tone controls really brings it out... The mid's and high's are good. Here is a link if anyone's interested. http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=10602
The Everest and Mercury recordings are superb. A few ways to experience this great sound: Mercury Living Presence SACDs or CDs Everest SACDs Classic Records reissues of the Everest recordings Early pressings of Everest LPs (look for the silver dowel on the side enclosures)
More importantly: How do the HDADs of the Everest recordings sound? Based on the variability of the sound quality of the 35MM LPs (mostly Command) which I own, I've held off on purchasing the HDADs. It's one thing to buy a Command LP at the used record store for a buck, but it's another thing to lay down more than $20 per HDAD... I suppose I should just "test the water" buy picking up one of the HDADs and listening myself. Which one might give me the most favorable impression?
Sadly, many (almost all?) of the Command 35mm masters are gone, according to Tom Fine, son of C. Robert Fine. Only a single MCA 2-fer set (of Beethoven symphonies) used film masters as a source; all others are from 1/4" tape, but some still sound excellent. I think the Copland set recorded in Pittsburgh is about as wide and spacious a classical recording as I have ever heard, worth getting for the "hugeness" alone.
Check out Ferde Grofe's recording of his Grand Canyon Suite. No one ever got the mules clopping as well as the composer's version. I listened to Stokowski's recording of Shostakovich's Symphony #5 the other night. It has beautiful string tone. Just my opinion, but some of the harshness on some of the Mercurys might be due to their own microphone technique. They got awful close sometimes. Their conductors were sometimes contributors: ie Dorati, Starker. But, any audiophile deserves to treat themselves to some of their best work. Dennis Drake did some of the early CD remasters.
Hi, My personal opinion of course, but in my experience the ones recorded in the US might be a better way to start sampling them. I notice that the ones recorded in the UK tend to be a bit more present, in-your-face, forward and brighter sounding with string tones that can tend to be a tad steely. I tend to think the hall acoustics are (at least) partly to blame for this, since so far as I am aware, Bert and Ruth Whyte engineered all of the sessions with exactly the same gear and techniques wherever they were. But that said, I just received a copy of the Sibelius violin Concerto on vinyl (Classic Records) yesterday and the string tone is actually pretty good and sweet sounding given it was a UK recording. Perhaps the "safest" one to start with is the Stokowski Wagner arrangements (SDBR 3070). It's of course a US recording and to my ears the acoustics lend themselves to a silkier and smoother top end and more the sort of violin sound I am used to at live concerts. I think if you don't like that one then you definitely won't like any of the others. I think how these Everests sound is very equipment dependant. If you have equipment that already leans towards being forward, forensic and bright, the Everests might not come off very well. On the other hand, if your equipment is warm, cuddly and forgiving, they might really shine. Bear in mind too that in my opinion the LP versions (assuming a good pressing, which is a dangerous thing to assume sadly) sound better than the digital versions as far as instrumental textures and timbres go. But as far as dynamics go, the HDAD versions have it all over the vinyl. I have also noticed, however, that on rare ocassions the lower resolution (24-96) versions contained in the HDAD package goes into digital clipping! Listen to 24-96 version of The Rite of Spring as an example. A terrible sin, and my guess is it has something to do with the way the original 24-192 was downsampled. Still, that's no excuse and it would have taken them only 15 minutes to check the files for anything going into clipping and interpolate the clips rather than doing absolutely nothing at all.
I can't even listen to a 35mm mag recording anymore. The vinegar smell kicks in to my brain and ruins it for me every time.
I agree. I have absolutely horrible MLP recordings and (mostly) brilliant ones. This is regardless of the medium used (tape or film). I guess every engineer has their "off" days, but possibly back in the late 50s / early 60s weather variations caused more havoc with the equipment than it does these days. I know as an ex-violinist what temperature and humidity changes can do to violin sound (let alone equipment and it's influence on ideal mic positioning), and I think some of the variances are definitely weather related. If you take those Starker / London Symphony sessions where he recorded I think 4 concertos over a few days, the sound varies quite a lot in quality - the Schumann sounds absolutely wonderful but I find the Lalo and Dvorak almost unlistenable - very glassy, harsh and sibilant.
haha. Of course us poor audiophiles who hear everything second or third hand have no such problems. I would have thought the sheer noise of the film machines would drive you nuts long before the vinegar did.
You know, they meant well in the old days by storing the mag in metal cans but that doomed them to Vinegar Syndrome. No one knew it at the time. The stuff that actually has survived without beginning to break down was stored in cheapo paper cartons or (best yet), no carton, just thrown on a shelf. Wacky but true. Still, too much effort for not much more fidelity (IMO). The Everest "backup" 3 channel 1/2" tape sounds just as good to me as the 35mm mag, sometimes even better with less hiss, distortion, STINK, etc. 35MM: Just a gimmick that didn't last too long.. I doubt not ONE of your LP's that say "35MM RECORDING" on the front was mastered from anything but a quarter inch 15 ips reduction dub. As far as I can tell every Everest and Command LP was cut from 15 ips.
