Re: [ARSCLIST] discography of "direct-to-disk revival"?

[Peter Hirsch <punto@xxxxxxxx>]

I seem to recall a Cleveland Symphonic Winds LP with Louis Lane (I 
think) that included the Royal Fireworks on Telarc that was either D to 
D or one of the early digitally recorded efforts. Wait a minute; never 
mind -- I just went and dug out a CD release of this and it has 
Frederick Fennell conducting and it says "During the recording of the 
digital masters and the subsequent transfer to disc, the signal was not 
passed through any processing device at any step during production." The 
recording date is April 1978 and I am sure that I heard the LP version 
not too long after that and it made enough of an impression on me that, 
almost thirty years later, I recalled it's exceptional presence. 
Probably the first time I heard digital in any form and it was a pretty 
ear-opening contrast to what I was used to. Of course, having the 
Cleveland Orchestra's woodwinds and brass (not too many years 
post-Szell) playing the gig under the great Windmeister may have been 
part of why it was so effective.

Anyone out there have the vinyl and care to share your impression of the 
sound?

Peter Hirsch

Tom Fine wrote:
> There was Sheffield, Century, M&K Realtime (they did a couple of D2D 
> before they were digital pioneers). I can't name any other specialty 
> labels right off the bat. Didn't some of the majors experiment with 
> this, maybe just for classical and jazz?
>
> Hmm, I wonder how one could compile a list and maybe cook up an ARSC 
> Journal article. With 25-30 years of distance, the D2D fad was an 
> interesting last hurrah for LPs. Some of the claims were pretty 
> outrageous -- along the lines of "tape technology hasn't progressed 
> but disc-cutting has vastly improved." Uh, not true. By the late 70's, 
> the Ampex ATR-100 and then-current Studers had eliminated 
> scrape-flutter as an issue and one COULD choose to record at 30IPS 
> half-inch 2-track with no NR and get results that would rival even the 
> best 44.1/16-bit digital systems. But the D2D records, the best of 
> them, show just how hifi grooved disk recording could get.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 9:47 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] discography of "direct-to-disk revival"?
>
>
> > Tom Fine wrote:
> > > Hi All:
> > >
> > > Was there ever published a discography or listing of all of the 
> > > direct-to-disk revival LPs? That was a short-lived fad but there 
> > > were some great-sounding records made. I have just a handful but I 
> > > imagine there were maybe a couple hundred made.
> > >
> > > I would argue that some of those recordings were as good as vinyl 
> > > could get. It was an interesting time in the recording business 
> > > because some of the great old-school engineers were still around in 
> > > top form and there were still jazz and classical artists who could 
> > > nail it live in the studio in one take, and the studios were past 
> > > the early and mid 70's "dead coffin" acoustics. Plus that generation 
> > > of mixing consoles sounded good again in most cases.
> > >
> > > Interesting -- in a couple of cases I later bought the CD, which was 
> > > obviously made from a tape run at the time. You can really tell how 
> > > Dolby A NR on the tape quashes the sound, even when a good CD 
> > > mastering job was done.
> > >
> > > -- Tom Fine
> >
> > I've a dozen or so of the Sheffield D2D LPs and a couple of the 
> > corresponding CDs. Some of the CDs are from digital master tapes, 
> > though mine were from the analogue masters. The sonic difference is 
> > easily recognized; my supposition is that it derives from phase shift 
> > of overtones.
> >
> > I've some D2D efforts from other publishers, a few of which are 
> > similar in quality to the Sheffield but most simply exploit the 
> > 'gimmick'
> >
> > I know of no discography.
> >
> > Mike
> > --
> > mrichter@xxxxxxx
> > http://www.mrichter.com/