1944 sounded wonderful . . .

[vernier]

The sax, the clarity of the brush work, the room ambience, and the unbelievabe vocal sound. Something to take note of, for sure.

YouTube - Jammin' The Blues 1944 - Historic Black Jazz Jam Session
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[blim]

Originally Posted by vernier

The sax, the clarity of the brush work, the room ambience, and the unbelievabe vocal sound. Something to take note of, for sure. '

No, it doesn't sound, to use your word, "wonderful." You're not listening to it with an audio engineer's ears, you're listening to it through a romantic filter: Things must have been better back then because everything went through tubes and not some shiny Pro Tools console.

The frequency range of the recording is about half what a human is capable of hearing. It sounds cardboardy, thin, and muffled. Put the same band in the same room in a top-flight studio in 1974, and you'd have a natural, full, and open sound. Something wonderful, perhaps.

Or maybe I'm just seeing things through my own romantic filter?

[chimpleton]

Sounds pretty wonderful to me!!

[leebridges]

yah, everything that comes off of youtube sounds wonderful. i wonder what they use to make all of that music on youtube sound so great. it sounds even better when i listen through my laptop speakers.

[Knox]

Can you say "I am running my Mr Hip Old School thing into the ground"? You are trying WAY too hard! And this is coming from an old school guy who owns and uses a 2 inch machine and vintage gear daily and yes sadly a HD2 Accel system that I use only under duress.

Yes . . I do hear the sound and yes it's cool.

Originally Posted by vernier

The sax, the clarity of the brush work, the room ambience, and the unbelievabe vocal sound. Something to take note of, for sure.

YouTube - Jammin' The Blues 1944 - Historic Black Jazz Jam Session
'

[vernier]

No, it doesn't sound, to use your word, "wonderful." You're not listening to it with an audio engineer's ears, you're listening to it through a romantic filter:

Huh ..pretty funny. You don't hear it. To be expected I guess.

Anyway, mic on the singer, probably a ribbon ...very nice.
'

[basho]

Originally Posted by blim

No, it doesn't sound, to use your word, "wonderful." You're not listening to it with an audio engineer's ears, you're listening to it through a romantic filter: Things must have been better back then because everything went through tubes and not some shiny Pro Tools console.

The frequency range of the recording is about half what a human is capable of hearing. It sounds cardboardy, thin, and muffled. Put the same band in the same room in a top-flight studio in 1974, and you'd have a natural, full, and open sound. Something wonderful, perhaps.

Or maybe I'm just seeing things through my own romantic filter?

You know, if someone invented a plugin that could magically make anything you record sound EXACTLY like this, it would be the biggest, best-selling piece of audio software ever made.

Strange times we live in.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by vernier

The sax, the clarity of the brush work, the room ambience, and the unbelievabe vocal sound. Something to take note of, for sure.

YouTube - Jammin' The Blues 1944 - Historic Black Jazz Jam Session
'

That's about the hottest filmic representation of jazz I've seen. A really nice integration of what appears to be at least some live tracking with a lot of mostly very good instrument/lip-syncing. [And for all I know, it's all synced. But when the drummers switched off on the throne, it would be hard for me to believe it wasn't live.]

I was entranced.

Damn that was cool!


Much thanks.

_____________

PS... catching up with the other comments in the thread:

I think it sounds wonderful because it's great content, very well recorded for the era (and I listen to a lot of jazz and other music going back to the 20s), that by and large gets everything right.

Is the frequency range limited? Of course. Is there a noise floor? Duh. Is the dynamic range limited? Wull, yeah...

Does it sound great?

Hell, yes.

To me, content and good engineering is so much more critical to sounding great than what, at the end of the day, are secondary concerns.

I'm not saying we should hobble ourselves -- nor am I suggesting that using an older technology is necessarily hobbling oneself -- I'm just suggesting we should keep some perspective...


I don't know about anyone else -- but I'm in it for the music...


Call me old-fashioned.


And I've been digtial, end-to-end, for 16 years.

[guitarwes]

Your romantic filter was guys like Barney Kessel, Philly Joe Jones, Lester Young, etc. They made anything sound good. It's incredible how great musicians can sound great through any equipment. This video was probably recorded with a simple stereo setup. The result is the actual sound of the players in the room. Balance wasn't done with faders, rather positioning and playing. Louie Armstrong was said to have to play down the hallway, because he was so much more powerful than the rest of the band, he would make the cutting needle skip!


*edit: I didn't watch the singer, so the vocals were probably overdubs! HAHA... and it says a black video... Barney Kessel is a white guy!!

[blim]

Originally Posted by theblue1

I don't know about anyone else -- but I'm in it for the music...

I guess that separates you from the rest of us, who are merely in it for the technical aspects. Puh-leeeeez.

I agree that the music is great. What I was commenting on -- no, rather, reacting to -- is a particular person's single-minded fetish for things old and tubey. It's like the guy can sing only one song, and, worse, the song has only one note to it.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by guitarwes

Your romantic filter was guys like Barney Kessel, Philly Joe Jones, Lester Young, etc. They made anything sound good. It's incredible how great musicians can sound great through any equipment. This video was probably recorded with a simple stereo setup. The result is the actual sound of the players in the room. Balance wasn't done with faders, rather positioning and playing. Louie Armstrong was said to have to play down the hallway, because he was so much more powerful than the rest of the band, he would make the cutting needle skip!


*edit: I didn't watch the singer, so the vocals were probably overdubs! HAHA... and it says a black video... Barney Kessel is a white guy!!

Much of it appears to me to be instrument/lip-synced. But lovingly so.

This is my new favorite video of all time.

Or however that works.

_________________


blim

I wasn't trying to single anyone out or suggest that any particular party was necessarily seeing things through a skewed perspective.

It's possible I was still editing my post while you were writing your own immediately above, but I think a nuanced reading of my (finished) post will reveal I am certainly not suggesting the film sounds great because it used any given technology -- in fact, I don't even know for sure that it was tracked to optical film, though I imagine that's the case.

[vernier]

Is the frequency range limited? Of course. Is there a noise floor? Duh. Is the dynamic range limited? Wull, yeah...

Does it sound great?

Hell, yes.

Yep, its especially quiet, my laptop is on 10 ...but the rimshots near the end are some of the best I've heard.
'

[basho]

Originally Posted by blim

I guess that separates you from the rest of us, who are merely in it for the technical aspects. Puh-leeeeez.

I agree that the music is great. What I was commenting on -- no, rather, reacting to -- is a particular person's single-minded fetish for things old and tubey. It's like the guy can sing only one song, and, worse, the song has only one note to it.

I didn't see anything in the original post about tubes.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by basho

I didn't see anything in the original post about tubes.

I think blim was picking up an old argument.

And, if it's the old argument I'm thinking of, I certainly found myself arguing against some of Vernier's statements in that long, overlapping, many-person dialog.

But with regards to Vernier's OP above -- I could not agree more that it sounds great (with all the technical/scientific precision such a phrase suggests ) and I'm delighted to be turned on to the clip's existence on YT. Delighted.

And I think it is well worth noting how great it sounds, certainly, but not solely, for the reasons I cited in my earliest post above.

[Recycled_Brains]

The fidelity is not what makes it "wonderful". It's what they're playing.

It wouldn't sound better in a studio with modern gear and acoustics, just different, and possibly less interesting.

I'd be ****ing psyched if I got sounds like this. The vocal sounds on old jazz recordings are fantastic.

-R.

[RoundBadge]

Sounds great to me.
As Blue said, its listed as a filmed jam session when they're lip syncing to playback.
not a mic in sight

[skythemusic]

She not talking about money or bitches or ho's and that drummer missed a fill coming in once, gonna have to fix that, other than that it only sucks a little so pretty good. There is a real narrow bandwidth on that horny thing that og is playin', what plug did they use to get that muted tone? It would probably sound phat on my sampler. Is this tdm only?

[henryrobinett]

That was wonderful. LESTER YOUNG! Damn. Jo Jones, Illinois Jacquet, Sid Catlett, and Red Callender on bass. Damn. Harry Sweets Edison. Why all the talk about the white guy??

To me it wasn't the SOUND in technical terms, but the music. Yes, ribbons a lot. But today, with today's ears, we'd raise the high end to make them almost sound like condensers anyway.

This was clearly a promotional movie for Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP). And what a wonderful one it was. LESTER YOUNG. Man that was exciting. This was pre Be-bop. Swing era, on the cusp of Bop. Bird and Diz and those guys were doing it, but they were the red headed step children at that point. Things were about to get shakin' up in a big way.

Very interesting seeing this. Thanks.

[Scott Shane]

Love the music, love the sound. Also really dig the film techniques and lighting. And the dancing is just a swingin' baby! Love it!

[living sounds]

Sounds amazing. I mean, listen to those vocals! The important emotional aspects are all in the recording. Try to get this kind of clear, effortless dryness, it's not easily achieved. Fools who think todays budget-driven equipment would automatically sound better...
My parents weren't even born at the time this recording was made, but I still marvel at both the performance and the technological achievement.

[theblue1]

Again, a big thanks to Vernier for posting this.

I put it on my favorites and plugged it into my 'special' personal playlist before two minutes had gone by.


Special, special stuff.

Like most good movies it goes beyond literal realism to capture the poetic reality...

[vernier]

Actually I just stumbled on it -and didn't know who the players were. Henry spotted them though.
'

[dannygold]

Originally Posted by basho

You know, if someone invented a plugin that could magically make anything you record sound EXACTLY like this, it would be the biggest, best-selling piece of audio software ever made.

Strange times we live in.

I think they did. It's called a lo pass filter. OH SNAP!!!

OK, I'm semi kidding.

[3rd&4thT]

Sorry, this is NOT what it sounded like in 1944. Optical tracks of this vintage were not capable of producing these results.

If you click below and to the right of the picture where it says "watch in high quality" the manipulation of the source material is easier to hear through the greater bandwidth.

This clip has been restored within an inch of its life. It's been de-noised, de-clicked, de-hummed, high-passed, expanded, de-essed in the max overload distortion range and excited an octave above that, clipped peaks redrawn, you name it.

Listen to the vocal and the sax solo that follows - the presence disappears completely between syllables. Doesn't that tell you something?

Don't be naive. Nobody heard this track sound this good in 1944, not in the control room, not in the screening room, not in any movie theater known to mankind.

Yes, the original recording is a pro job. No it doesn't sound like this restoration at all. Try playing it with a low-pass at 3K, mix in some pink noise at -24db, add a juicy hum at 120Hz, throw in occasional random bass impulse noises from static, destabilize the playback speed to allow for broken sprocket holes in the print, play the results through a kazoo and you'll get closer.

3rd&4thT

[vernier]

I think everyone is familiar with digital restoration ..its old hat. And I've been listening to 78's for years. I collect them, and like the sound.
'

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by vernier

I think everyone is familiar with digital restoration ..its old hat. And I've been listening to 78's for years. I collect them, and like the sound.
'

I like the sound too, but this ain't it. It is obviously the product of a great deal of restoration, and should be evaluated as such.

Of course we all know about digital restoration. This is not news; it's keeping the doors open on a lot of labels. My own sound collection includes speech going back to the 1870's and music going back to the 1890's, and I know what to expect. I've seen and heard original 35mm prints from the 1940s projected, and optical recordings were capable of some things and incapable of others.

You just happen to be praising a product of digital restoration, that's all. It's just as well to recognize it, rather than pretend that the equipment and recording medium of 60 years ago could produce these results as posted to Youtube. They couldn't and they didn't.

It's like praising the beauty of a woman who's had nine bouts of plastic surgery. Yes, she may be beautiful, but she didn't get there by herself.

In your first post, you describe an "unbelievable vocal sound." I salute you for describing it perfectly: it's unbelievable.

3rd&4thT

[vernier]

You just happen to be praising a product of digital restoration, that's all.

Sorry ...if there aren't frequencies above (your claimed 3 kHz), then there isn't anything to tweak.

Anyway, it was 10 and 15 kHz in the forties, which is more than ample.

And btw, this thread isn't in need of science jargon numbers stuff ...which is like eating a fillet at Ruth's Chris and having someone at the table explaining the slaughtering process.

I'm just not interested, and know more than I need to about it anyway.

Now, back to the theme ...another, recorded in 1944.

YouTube - OKLAHOMA HILLS by Jack Guthrie

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