This is awesome stuff:
Fine Recording Inc: Pioneers in High-Fidelity Studio Recording: UPDATED – 4 | Preservation Sound

Am I wrong in thinking that Bob Fine's was the first remote recording truck?

Bob Fines truck contained over10,000 valves
They shipped it to the UK to record the London Orchestras
Bob Auger, Britain's first freelance Recording Engineer recorded many great sessions with Bob Fine and Wilma.
Valves were always going down,Wilma could spot em...

awesome!
thanks for the link

I am glad those days are over. All that noise and distortion and spitty valves.
Music recording is a hi-tech business.

Great recordings though
Especially the 35MM 3 track sep mags
I used to be in a record room with 2x Westrex 3 track Mag
Noisy as hell from sprocket 'tic', no erase head, False Start or break down of performance ,reload.
Bob Fine was in the truck with the Mag and 2 Ampex recorders
Bob Auger was in the hall on cans or speakers ,if possible
True pioneers.
It was cutting edge then David.

Yeah, acknowledged and respected.

But still glad its all over. Those recordings were good for their day, but they don't compare with today's top recordings.

The performances do
The technology is almost immaterial
Roger

Oh very much so, yes, no question.

I don't agree with this. The old recordings have a nice "bloom" but its fuzzy, mushy, distorted and noisy. Listen to Solti Ring, there are glottal stops in various parts (mics), terrible tape editing, a bit of a mess really.

But compared to the clarity, dynamics and air in this:
Wagner: Götterdämmerung / Dalayman · Rattle · Berliner Philharmoniker - YouTube

Give me 2013 any day.

Culshaws Ring Cycle on Decca was very popular in its day
More popular than the 39,681 people who have viewed that UTube clip
(And Birgit is distorting in it)
I like modern day solid state kit and the ability to tinker at home with more precision than the Decca Boys ever had
But I really admire those 50s pioneers in studio and location,we live on Giants Shoulders imho.
Roger

It's only a sampler.

YouTube artifacts. I have heard the full res of this recording. Its superb, no distortion. The recording team is first rate at the BPHO.

I think this sums it up really well. Good to see a thread where we are not getting the usual "silly" quotes about how the recordings in those days were so much better than they are now.

Of course the performances contained some legendary artists, most who are unfortunatley long gone. I love the different approach from a performance aspect and it is truly remarkable that they got results as good as they did, a lot of that is down to (I suspect) a lot of hard work from the likes of Bob fine, et al.

With the remastering that they have done, you can now hear as close to what they originally had with the recording, unfortunately it also show's up the odd bits of distortion, poor edits and the slightly "peaky" nature of some of the old valve microphones they used.

All that being said, if the performance is there, I don't mind the slight lack of fidelity compared with the best today.

I liked seeing that the engineers wore ties as they worked the consoles and tape machines!

18 years ago when I was recording the Coldstream Guards band, they were required to wear Jackets and ties for rehearsals, that, however, was stopped about 6 years ago.

I think that the practicalities of laying out cables and multicores across dusty and dirty floors makes it more sensible to wear more casual clothing, though suits look better in photographs.

Some of the old recordings were great but there were a lot of dreadful ones.

Here's a footnote article from TapeOp magazine on the same subject matter, with some welcome additional mic choice detail:

https://tapeop.com/tutorials/90/wilm...c-robert-fine/

I grew up in Bayside Queens, and just by chance built my second studio about 1000 feet from where Bob's studio was.

Small world.

Studer - fun link, thanks.

Depends on the definition. Certainly Hollywood was full of remote recording trucks....associated with location film work. The RCA Photophone audio cart of the day was a small desk on wheels with a 4 channel mixer. The late 1940's Photophone recording line was still set up to run on mains power or batteries with a change of jumpers. Many larger radio stations had remote trucks with disc recorders and connections for phone lines. Bob was certainly among the early independents focusing on music, but he did much advertising work as well.