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Posted: |
Sep 23, 2013 - 10:44 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....To Manderley's point, Ken Darby (in Holywood Holy Land) claimed that Newman found the M-G-M facilities disappointing when he arrived for HTWWW in 1962. He supposedly introduced something that Darby called the "Newman pole" (for microphone placement) that resulted in a huge improvement.....
For the record, Alfred Newman "arrived" at MGM in 1935, where he recorded BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936 and BORN TO DANCE in multi-track stereo.
It's my contention that he got a rudimentary education in multi-track stereo from the much-maligned Douglas Shearer, who was winning Oscar technical awards for himself and his MGM department engineers in the area of sound engineering advancements and development during that period.
Newman also "arrived" at MGM in 1940, where he recorded BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940 in multi-track stereo.
The Fox recordings are wonderful, there's no doubt.
Preservation is everything. It's my feeling that, from what we have remaining, the MGM stereo masters from the '50s are better preserved than the Fox, and the Fox stereo masters from the '40s are better preserved than the MGM.
The earliest Fox stereo masters that we can document by their survival are from the 1941 HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY.
I have never seen any literature indicating that anyone other than MGM (and Universal, which recorded the singular ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL in multi-track stereo, and Disney, which recorded FANTASIA, in "FantaSound" stereo), was recording in this manner in the thirties---and the MGM stereo masters, which are extensive, go back to at least 1933.
I would also note that Ed Nassour had many wonderful stories and much information which was valuable, but he was also a senior executive at 20th Century-Fox for many years, and thus, totally unbiased. 
There was always an ongoing and healthy competition between MGM and Fox, going back to the 1927-1930 period when William Fox's Fox Film Corporation, under his CEO, Winfield Sheehan, attempted to merge with Loew's Incorporated (MGM's holding company). Fox was wiped out in the crash, the merger attempts ended, Fox went into bankruptcy, and eventually his corporation was merged with Zanuck's 20th Century pictures to form 20th Century-Fox in 1935.
There's always this bickering over who had "the best" sound recording department in those days, Fox or MGM, and I'd suggest that it probably was neither. The most experienced was likely Bell Laboratories, who were doing the experimental work and test recordings and coming up with the inventions that made the studio sound departments possible.
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Posted: |
Sep 24, 2013 - 6:14 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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One thing MGM engineers stuffed up was the clipping on Ben-Hur, there are probably others. Shouldn't have happened in 1959. There are probably examples with Fox too, but usually early recordings when bandwidth was very limited.
In making your comments about BEN-HUR, I assume you've heard, firsthand, some of the
unvarnished original mag film full-coat recording session masters played back in one of MGM's dubbing theatres on the lot, as well as first-generation full-coat mag masters of the other studios product played through their own systems as comparisons, and that you are also taking into account the required "Academy Curve" sound specifications for all industry soundtracks and applying that information and limitation equally to your analysis of the various studios' sound departments of the day . Correct?
You've obviously been very lucky. You must have been a sound supervisor or engineer back then.
I'm afraid I only had the opportunity to hear original-recorded material played back during a few recording or dubbing sessions at Disney, Todd-AO, MGM, and Fox infrequently in the 50s-60s-70s period. It sounded perfectly fine to me then. I liked it! Of course the material I heard was recorded quite contemporarily at that time, and on mag recording stock which was then brand-new, which makes a difference when comparing it to what you hear from the same original elements 50+ years later.
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Re: It's quite good, but Fox Studio orchestra recordings sound better than MGM scoring stage. At least that is what I believe I hear according to those know. Ben-Hur is not terrible but I don't think it is good either. They just didn't know better. My favourite Rozsa is Providence now, but before that, Tribute To A Bad Man ... oh Ponderosa.
Regarding Miklós Rózsa, I saw "Providence" many years ago when it was first released and bought the soundtrack, but only downloaded about 12 minutes of it to my iTunes, which I just played, reinforcing my belief that it is probably my least favorite Rózsa score, although I want to pull out the CD and see if I missed anything.
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I'm not really an audiophile, but I was listening to Rózsa's VALLEY OF THE KINGS (FSM again) very loud and through headphones this morning. Recorded on the MGM stage two years prior to the great LUST FOR LIFE. And it sounded just as terrific to me as does LUST FOR LIFE.
VALLEY OF THE KINGS is I suppose a relatively minor effort from the composer, but I simply love it. Wonderful stuff. I think part of what attracts me to the music of Miklós Rózsa is that it's SO direct that every second seems to count. And he was always the same! I'm exaggerating there, but it rarely takes me more than two seconds to recognise a Rózsa score. Hearing VALLEY OF THE KINGS for the first time was like a reuinion with an old friend. You know him, but you don't know everything about him, and so there's a new little detail added each time to what is still unmistakably your old buddy.
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