Classical music edits pre-tape era

[rhizomeman]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone here has worked with some relatively well-known classical musicians that involved a fair amount of editing - or how exactly the recording and editing process went. I am doing research for a paper and am collecting info on specifically "classical" music editing practices today.

BTW I realize that many classical artists don't like talking about this stuff so it can remain anonymous...

Thanks!

[Bob Ross]

The artist probably isn't "well-known" enough to qualify, but you can PM me about my experiences recording the complete Bach suites for 'cello.

[Omicron_9]

Check out these threads while you're at it...

Classical editing - man oh man

Editing the life out of classical music

Entertaining reads.

-0.9

[fifthcircle]

No editor with any sense of ethics will resond to these questions.

In short, though, just about all the commercial releases out there have hundreds if not thousands of edits. Some are edits where you are editing in material from other takes. Some edits are to clean up things like attacks that aren't clean and such...

In the end, though, it is a pretty involved process usually.

--Ben

[rhizomeman]

Ben, thanks for the info. Yes, I realize it is a sensitive issue for both player and engineer - thus the "anonymous" qualifier. That is actually exactly what my paper is about - the illusion of a "live" classical recording that never actually existed. This is a common practice, as you state, but one rarely acknowledged or at least discussed openly by anyone involved in the recording process. It is never discussed in musicology circles, which is where I am coming from.

[timlloyd]

Sounds like in interesting paper! Do drop a line in here again when you're finished, I'd like to read it!

[Steffmo]

I've worked with both classical stuff and various genre live performances. Mid level, some known names, but not the top level.

I'll talk about any thing I've had to done just not what records or videos it was for.

But I've slices section together out of different sessions, different artists, different records. I've replace live material with studio recording. I've had people study their performance til they could double it exactly except for the offending parts so they could record into live tracks and mask the bleed.

I sort of don't get the secrecy, its pretty well known this stuff goes on.

[jonathan jetter]

ditto to Steffmo.

i've worked with several established classical musicians. some projects have had many edits, some have had none.

i am happy to talk about my work and/or techniques. but i will not discuss specific artists or records, out of respect to my clients.

feel free to PM with any questions.

[rumleymusic]

Editing was really a tape era perk. Splicing and editing was, for the most part, non existent in the wax cylinder and vinyl era. There were not a wealth of classical recordings back then anyway. Better suited to jazz, where mistakes are not really mistakes, just something to build upon as a musical variant. Not to mention the playing is louder. Softer classical instruments were barely readable to the phonographs before the advent of dedicated tube microphones. And by then, tape had entered the scene.

[Matti]

Well, the film industry could and did edit optical sound

Matti

[rhizomeman]

Thanks for the responses. In my research I cannot find any mention of specific pre-tape, post-recording manipulations. I realize it might be rare, but if anyone knows of anything like that I would love to hear about it.

Matti - optical sound - you're right! Thanks, didn't think about that.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

I am sure there were attempts at doing it by recording on two different disks and then playing the disks back on turntables through the console and switching at the appropriate edit place and recording on a new disk. This of course could only be done AFTER the invention of electrical transcriptions. I doubt if it was ever really successful but it was a way of editing using only what you had to work with. With the introduction of wire recorders crude editing could be done by tying a square knot in the wire and using fishing line for leader. It was not until tape came into general use that "perfect" splicing became possible.

[Kees de Visser]

Not sure if it qualifies, but it was possible to some extent to edit piano rolls by hand.
Some more info here: www.pianola.com

The notes played were registered by a series of marking pens on a master roll, which was subsequently perforated by hand and any mistakes rectified.

[Bob Olhsson]

I know for sure that every 1940s RCA Victor studio was equipped to use two turntables for editing and overdubbing and there's a good possibility this was SOP during the '30s too.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Kees de Visser

Not sure if it qualifies, but it was possible to some extent to edit piano rolls by hand.
Some more info here: www.pianola.com

Yes, this is all true.

I was at the Musical Museum in the UK recently and heard the story about how they recorded and edited piano rolls.

And the story of the son of a long-dead pianist listening to a piano roll recorded by her was in tears, saying it was like his mother was in the room playing.

[Petrus]

Steel tape could be spliced by spot welding, it also made a nice fade-out/fade-in transition as the material lost its magnetism by the heat. As far as I know it was used only for speech and such for radio, as it was not quite "master quality"...

[rhizomeman]

Thomas, Bob, any idea if recordings exist with this type of editing technique? That is really fascinating stuff!

Petrus, are you being serious - wow - crazy. Any recordings you are aware of that use this technique?

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by rhizomeman

... any idea if recordings exist with this type of editing technique?...

Before Les Paul started promoting his studio magic, editing and overdubbing were considered something that one never wanted to admit to doing. I'm sure there are a great many. The earliest mention of an overdubbed recording was an acoustical Caruso record!

[Fuzzy Logic]

les paul did indeed change the game.

[panatrope]

For some interesting history on recording and editing (mainly speech) from a BBC perspective, see this site - Old BBC Radio Broadcasting Equipment and Memories - Home Page -

See particularly sections on the Blattnerphone (magnetic steel tape), the Philips-Miller optical system, and disc editing (using the Watts desk and groove-locating mechanism). For the last there is an documented episode where a disc recording of Proclamation of Accession of King George VI (1935) was edited to correct a stutter where the herald transposed two words in his proclamation*.

In the disc-based Vitaphone years (1926-1930) at Warner Bros, there was a complex disc-editing suite to allow post-synchronisation and editing of master discs. Belts, cams, punched film to program it - and a marked deterioration in sound quality of the dub.


*Pawley: "BBC Engineering 1922-1972", pp. 187-8, BBC Publications 1972, ISBN 0 563 12127 0