From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I'm wondering about what's a good playback curve (turnover and rolloff
settings) for:
1. the Columbia reissue Bix and Tram disks, albums were put out in the
late 1940s.
If these are just re-pressings from the original Okeh metal
parts, then they need the original Okeh early-electric playback
characteristics, right?
Usually you can tell if they are original master pressings by looking at
the lead-out grooving and the matrix numbers. Columbia often grafted a
new style lead out on top of the original lead out, creating a very
complicated looking mess. Some of these Columbia reissue sets were
original masters in their earlier pressings and then got dubbed masters
when the original metals wore out.
But if they are disk-to-disk transfers, I'm
thinking they'd be the 1940's Columbia curve, no?
No, because it would also be affected by the curve Columbia would have
used to play the original discs. Of course you could just ask George
Avakian and see if he remembers what the engineers did. Anybody got his
email address? He used to come to the NJ Jazz Bash that is coming up
next month.
By the way, the current ARSC Journal has Gary Gallo's definitive article
on the Columbia LP curve and its relationship to the NAB curve for ETs.