I got Getz/Gilberto SACD yesterday. I'm not surprised the soundstage is much wider and more presence since it is what it should be. But how could the soundstage positioning is totally different. Track1. The girl from Ipanema, on CD female voice is on the left, but on SACD female voice is on the right end. Both CD and SACD are played on sony XE670, CD I used is P2 10048 744581T from verse. SACD is from universal.
First of all, I HAVE NOT HEARD THE SACD. The Getz/Gilberto two-track master tape was "reduced" (mixed) at A&R Recording Studios in New York with vacuum tube equipment late in 1963. It was not used for the SACD. A new mix of the three-track was used. The correct placement (on the master tape) is for Astrud to be on the left and the drums on the right. When Ami Hadani cut the ORIGINAL stereo LP master at Radio Recorders in 1963, the channels got reversed somehow and that's how engineers have been mostly doing it ever since for some reason. The East Coast Rudy Van Gelder copy master cut follows Ami's lead. The Verve reissue CD in the deluxe book also is a three-track remix (the one that came out a few years ago). It's too darn bright for me. This album REALLY needs vacuum tube tape machine playback for it to have the correct "shimmer". Try an original Verve LP pressing if you can. Some are great (and some suck; this was a very popular album and cut many times). I am a BIG fan of this album and love the ORIGINAL mix that I guess isn't being used any more. The three-track sounds too sterile to me and there is too much top end and midbass. The old album mix sounds perfect to me, but it has a little saxophone overload distortion on it so I guess they bypassed it. Oh well, at least they are trying to get the best sound as they can (to their ears). By the way, the MONO version was mixed live on the spot on a tape running at 30 ips. It sounds really amazing as well. DCC almost did a stereo/mono gold CD of Getz/Gilberto but MoFi got the rights at the last minute. We had to "settle" for Getz/Byrd "Jazz Samba".
Yep, the MFSL is that way. I'm playing it now. Channels "reversed". I'll be getting a copy of the SACD soon. I was able to audition it, and I liked it a lot, but I never heard it on my system yet. I have to agree, you can hear this warmth of the bass, piano and drums that is buttery, very tube like.
It sounds like someone added about 4 db at 14k on the MoFi for some weird reason. I guess for extra "extension" as Audiophiles call it. If one record does NOT need this, it's this one. One of my all-time favorites.
Hi Steve, Wasn't that Getz/Byrd Samba one of original Bossa Nova albums that began a wave of Brazilian Samba music in the U.S. I beleive that Album was recorded in a Hall of some kind. Telarc and some other Studios are big on using Halls for recording. How does that differ acoustically from lets say a recording company like Contemporary that chose the mailroom for a recording session.
Contemporary wanted to record in house. They added the ambiance later in mastering. The Getz/Byrd album was recorded in a Church in Washington DC: Pierce Hall/All Souls Unitarian Church to be exact. The recording engineer was Edward Green. He worked at a little studio in Washington called Edgewood Studios located at 1139 Vermont Ave (phone number Di 7-0407). Recorded on 2/13/62 using a portable Ampex 351-2. Great album, natural echo. Yes, this was the breakthrough album in Brazilian jazz music. Coming on the heels of the FIRST US Bossa Nova song: "Fly Me To The Moon" by Joe Harnell on Kapp. That was the first for America, then came this great album and the rest is history!
Heh. Yeah, I just remember that studio's phone number from 1962. No, I worked a lot on Getz's "Jazz Samba". I pulled out my old DCC file on it for the names and addresses of everything.
Yes, the original Verve LP is a killer! I love Astrid's voice. She sounds like a Brazilian Moe Tucker, just unrefined and innocent sounding.
And I guess her vocal contributions were really an afterthought, right as the session was happening. Neat how something simple like adding her voice could shoot the record to number one like that....
I like that: "A Brazilian Moe Tucker." Well, okay, Astrud could carry a tune a little better, but...a nice idea. I've got one of her albums where she worked with Gil Evans, LOOK TO THE RAINBOW[Verve V6-8643]. Pretty face, pretty voice; cool stuff. In fact, that might be a keyword for Bossa Nova: cool. Well, until William Shatner tried "How Insensitive" and, well... ED
That's when "cool" became "cold" I'll check out the Evans LP. Actually, I could swear I saw this not long ago locally. Maybe, oh maybe it's still there...
Check out her Website also. www.astrudgilberto.com There are some interesting interviews. She talks about early days with Stan Getz and her take on the Bossa Nova era. It's also interesting how she doesn't like the media. Aaron
I picked up a NM mono pressing at a thrift store for a whopping 25 cents a few months ago and it's by far my favorite version. I have a couple of first pressings in stereo, a 70's Verve/Polydor reissue, a "virgin vinyl" Japanese-pressed reissue from the 80's, and the deluxe cardboard-sleeve CD from a few years back. The original stereo is a close second to the mono, and both are far better than any of the reissues. (The mono 45 edits on the CD are a very nice bonus, though.)
We picked up the desert island release of Getz/Gilberto last year. Having no previous release for comparison, I thought it sounded pretty good having never heard the master tapes or the LP. All in all the music is so pleasant that even to the casual listener you have to love it. Very relaxing. My Wife's favorite.
Gary, I didn't mean to thread crap, bitching about little sound quality variations. That's just what we do here. I've never heard a bad sounding version of Getz/Gilberto, whether on LP or CD.
Thanks for the link, Aaron. Been a fan of hers since I don't know when; never even thought to check if she had a site(who doesn't, though, by now?). Still looks lovely; will have to check out the interviews over the weekend. ED
Steve, One of the great things about this forum is the learning experience. I enjoy hearing the technical side from an engineers perspective. After all I'm an Engineer too, just a different kind. Artistically we always look to find perfection in design. I have no doubt that you were disappointed when the Getz/Gilberto project slipped out of reach. Heck, I would have been too. Actually I am disappointed not to have a DCC of this title. But, opportunities do rise again! It was terrifically conceived album albeit on the fly. Sometimes spontaneous ideas are the ones that turn out the best.
I have the SACD, but not the "Desert Island Discs" CD yet. The CD is high on my wantlist because for one thing, the SACD is not a hybrid. Secondly, I am very intrigued by the reversed imaging on the SACD and CD. From what has been said here, it seems like Verve got the soundstaging right on the CD. Regardless, the SACD sounds exceptional to my ears. I have to say that I have no other version for comparison, though.
Steve said: No apologies necessary! We all appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge and experiences!
Don't forget the Speakers Corner LP reissue that Kevin Gray did. It's the only one I have, but it's amazing. The imaging follows what Steve posted above is on the master. I remember reading somewhere once that the 3-tracks were used for this issue. BTW - Didn't Phil Ramone win a "Best Engineered Recording" Grammy award for his work on this album?
AFAIK, the Desert Island version is no different in sound staging from the Verve Master Edition (the one in the cardboard digipak referred to above) in which Astrud is on the right, and Joao is on the left. The original mid-eighties CD has this perspective too, as does the 4-CD Stan Getz set called The Girl From Ipanema, The Bossa Nova Years. Astrud appears in the left channel on only one CD I know of: Bachelor Pad Pleasures on the Chronicle label; there may be others. There are very minor differences, IMO, in the sound of the new SACD compared to the Verve Master Edition, none of which appear to be directly attributable to DSD versus PCM. I find the sound of the SACD to be slightly more analytical and considerably brighter. Sound stage width is slightly wider than the CD, but overall, I prefer the CD. Thanks to Steve Hoffman for the bit of perspective on the original recording. I did not know these things since my original album was mono, and I never got to hear a stereo LP version (which also has Astrud on the right) when I bought a Japanese import in the late Seventies.
I have recently got the SACD, and while I do not have any frame of reference here, I really like the sound - lots of presence and depth, and no annoying brightness or sibilance. I like the fact that Universal is using a different kind of jewel case for these - could be a sign of their commitment to the format. Or perhaps they have those cases left over from their early DVD Video releases; I think Universal was one of the few companies to use jewel case- type packaging for DVDs.
sgb, Raxel mentioned in the initial post that the CD he listened to has opposite positioning relative to the SACD. I thought he was using the Desert Island Discs CD. Perhaps he wasn't.
