Reprise Frank Sinatra and 35mm Magnetic Film restoration question for Steve H..

Ah, I see. 35mm recording had the potential to sound wonderful and if used correctly, had a giant signal to noise ratio. The problem in storage doomed it though it was not obvious at the time. It was big, hard to edit, needed a giant clanging recorder and was very noisy in the studio. Also, the labels like Command only cut from the 35mm mag for the first cut, everything else being cut from two track reduction dubs with limiting. Pointless.

 

I'm talking about what I saw. Of course they had any amount of three channel dubbers as did all studios.. You sync them up for any amount of tracks you needed. Not relevant.

YOU BROUGHT A NEW KIND OF LOVE TO ME used three for the music and one for Frank. No more, no less. This was reduced to three and "delivered". At another session the mag was dumped to three track 1/2 inch tape and then to mono or stereo.

. Anything more used in recording an orchestra would have been hiss city and not needed.

The most channels I've ever seen in mag 35mm from that era for a live song recording was of THE MUSIC MAN at WB. On a song like WELLS FARGO WAGON you had 13 channels of hissy mag in 1961: The orchestra L/C/R, percussive L/C/R, the Barbershop Quartet L/C/R and the choir L/C/R plus the main character vocals in mono. Even in this complex recording on five dubbers the main orchestra was only three channels. In the "rerecording" mix for the movie of course these were all laid down on top of each other for the final three channel mix with the back channel a composite of the orchestra or whatever they wanted back there, mainly choir. For the WB soundtrack LP these were all rerecorded to four channels of 1/2" tape and a stereo and mono mix made at Radio Recorders for the LPs. Anything more would have been just not done in those days for anything other than six-channel Todd-AO style recording (80 Days had six orchestra channels for the six speakers behind the screen..).

For that use 35mm recording was practical and a way to get elements to stay in sync and all have a left, center and right channel for later movie or LP use. In THIS format, 35 was not a gimmick. To record a phonograph record this way on its own to me was a gimmick and a really pointless one.

 

....and 190 of those tracks must be used for variations on the "generic low frequency rumble" sounds that permeate every trailer!

(And a note to ArneW: It's always nice to see you in these here parts!)

Matt

 

According to Larry Walsh in a post at the Sinatra Family Forum, based on his experience remixing a track for NOTHING BUT THE BEST, THE CONCERT SINATRA was recorded on three 3-track 35mm machines running in sync: one 3-track 35mm machine was used for the strings, and another 3-track 35mm machine for the rest of the orchestra. A third 3-track 35mm machine contained a guide track (probably a rough mix of the six orchestral channels) and the FS vocal track. (Apparently the third track on that machine went unused.) This results in a total of 7 discrete tracks.

Matt

 

Matt, we know the 35mm reels for "Concert Sinatra" have survived because Nancy Sinatra has said so, but having read about all the disadvantages of 35mm tape, what kind of results could be achieved by going back to these tapes instead of the 3 track mixdown?

 

Night and day.

Matt

 

As far as I know, all Reprise LPs of this title down through the years (CONCERT) were cut from the SAME source tape..

 

But please note that this will not be a remix from the 35mm film. As I've mentioned time and time again, the 35mm mag has shrunk unevenly and each core runs off speed from others.. All the 35mm mag has been archived but cannot be used this go-round.

I hate mag. The stuff is so unstable. Thank God there is a pristine three track 1/2" tape at Reprise or else all of the elements would be lost for any usable remix.

I'm looking forward to see what Larry Walsh will come up with on THE CONCERT SINATRA. Those three tracks are dry as a bone. Painfully dry. Sinatra sounds a million miles away from the orchestra. I am sure Larry will use some nice authentic reverb to bring Frank and the orchestra together so they can be "as one" (as they say in India).

 

Apparently not at this time.

The three-track multi-channel tape sounds fine. In many ways even better than the ratty old stinky mag.

 

It all depends on where he got his "impression" from. The three-tracks sound fine, I played the entire unmixed multi-channel album master back in 1999 but as I've mentioned, played back raw, it has the typical dry Goldwyn "house sound". Everything is very far away from everything else. The last thing we want in a Sinatra recording. It was a gimmick IMO and a bad one. I guess it sold records but trust me, a little wet remix TLC and it will sound wonderful.. Can't wait to see what ol' Larry comes up with!

 

I haven't been camping out in Sinatraville as much as usual of late, so my details are a little sketchy, but I seem to recall some details of the mess-ups in the transfer process being outlined either here or at the Sinatra forum. Maybe somebody can point us in that direction anew...

Matt