THE ART OF RECORDING THE BIG BAND

by Robert Auld
(This paper is in two parts. The notes for each part are included on the same page as that part. Notes
are indicated by a number inparenthesis.)
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CONTENTS, Part 1
Introduction
What is the jazz big band?
A history of recording the big band: the 1920's
The 1930's: "swing" and electrical recording
An example from the period: Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, 1938
The 1940's: a decade of changes
The long road of the LP
Mullin kidnaps the Magnetophon
The LP arrives
The 1950's: the marketing of High Fidelity
The engineering consensus
Stereo: early efforts
The big band in stereo: a different approach
Three tracks on tape
The engineering style of the three-track era: a few examples
The temptations of complexity
Notes for Part 1
To Part 2
Introduction
The jazz big band was born in the 1920's, came of age in the 1930's, enjoyed its greatest popularity
in the 1940's, and went into populardecline in the 1950's. In the 1960's the big band enjoyed a
comeback of sorts, but was displaced from the front pages by The Beatles andother things. In the
1970's it looked like the big band would either expire, or be transformed out of recognition. And yet, it
persists; peoplestill play in big bands, still dance to them, still record them. It has proved a most
durable ensemble.
My interest in the big band dates from childhood. My father was a Benny Goodman fan, so I grew up
with his music in the house. Ibecame a musician myself, and so I got to play in big bands. I was
interested in audio recording, and I tried recording big bands. I was notvery satisfied with the results.
So, I paid attention to how others were doing it. I have been paying attention for about 25 years.
Some ofwhat I have learned is set down here.
Part 1 of this paper traces the history of big band recording, from the 1920's up to the mid-1960's.
Part 2 deals with the changes wrought bythe introduction of multi-track recording methods in the
mid-1960's, the problems those changes caused for big band recordings, and somesuggested
remedies. Finally, Part 2 closes with the analysis of several modern big band recordings.
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To Part 2
What is the jazz big band?
I know what I mean by "big band", but you may not. To avoid confusion, we need a common
definition. In my opinion a "standard" bigband consists of:
Rhythm section:

piano
acoustic bass
drums
guitar (usually hollow-body electric).
Reeds: five saxophones, usually configured as:

alto sax 1, alto sax 2

tenor sax 1, tenor sax 2
baritone sax
Brass:
from 3 to 5 trumpets
2 or 3 tenor trombones, 1 bass trombone.
The "standard" instrumentation is, approximately, the composition of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the
most popular of the swing-era bigbands. "Stock" big band arrangements usually follow this
instrumentation.
Common variations have included reductions (Benny Goodman initially used only 3 trumpets and 2
trombones for a five-piece brasssection), or various doubles and additions, such as:
Rhythm: vibraphone; various latin percussion including congas, bongos, etc.; even tympani on
occasion. Since the 1970's,bass guitar has often substituted for the upright bass.
Reeds: it is very common to have the saxes double on soprano sax, clarinet and flute. Bass clarinet,
oboe and bassoon havebeen used occasionally.
Brass: flugelhorn is a common double for the trumpets. Tuba is sometimes added to the trombones.
From 1 to 4 frenchhorns have been added. In multiples they are usually treated as a separate
section.
Big bands have also included string sections, vocal groups, accordions, rock guitars, synthesizers--in
short, just about anything you couldpossibly imagine. My emphasis will be on the ensemble as it is
classically understood, with glances at various additions, as needed.
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A HISTORY OF RECORDING THE BIG BAND
The 1920's
Acoustic recording could not reproduce the full frequency range of instrumental tone. Therefore, it
was common to alter the instrumentationof ensembles to suit. For example: tuba was usually used in
place of string bass, and drummers would discard their bass drums and useonly higher pitched
instruments like wood blocks and cymbals.
When electrical recording was introduced in 1925, these practices continued for awhile. Due to a lack
of good playback equipment, manyengineers did not realize at first that the new technique could
actually reproduce a much greater range of tone. Fortunately, this changedfairlyquickly.(1)From
about 1928 on, instrumental groups recorded with the same configuration as they used in live
performance.Ensembles were balanced by grouping the musicians at various distances from the
single recording microphone. A musician taking a solowould walk up to the mic and play into it, then
move away for ensemble passages.

Instead of "big bands" it would be more appropriate to talk about dance orchestras. The larger ones
were evolving into what would becomethe big bandof the 1930's.(2)
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The 1930's:"Swing" and Electrical Recording
The musical style that became known as "swing" evolved out of the dance music of the 1920's. It did
not really attain recognizable formuntil about 1930. Dance orchestras at the turn of the decade were
tending towards the "standard" big band configuration, but took a fewyears to settle into that form.
Electrical recording was still at an early stage of development. The great range of equipment that we
are accustomed to today did not existthen. Studios independent of record companies or radio
stations were rare. In any case, studio electronics were often built in-house, andelements that could
not be easily built (microphones, disk cutting lathes, etc.) were obtained from a few large suppliers
such as RCA orWestern Electric. Much of the equipment was developed with the needs of the film
and radio industries in mind, but was readily adapted tothe needs of record studios. (In fact,
recording sessions were sometimes done in radio studios, as most of the usual equipment was
alreadyat hand.)
Remote recordings were usually associated with radio broadcasts. Again, the same standard-type
equipment was used. Therefore, the signalchain for almost any late 1930's big band recording might
be as follows:
-One or two microphones, typically either condenser element, omni-directional pattern (Western
Electric made a number ofmodels) or ribbon element, bi-directional pattern (RCA type 44, for
example).
-Console, custom-built, or a modified broadcast board. Four microphone inputs would be about as
extravagant as thedesigners would get, in most cases. Mono output.
-Disk cutting lathes, either 78 rpm or transcription format. Commercial 78 format was about a 2.7 mil.
groove cut laterally,disk size up to 12 inches. Professional transcription disks, as developed by Bell
Labs in the mid-1930's, were vertical cut("hill and dale") with diameter up to 16 inches and could be
recorded at slower speeds for more playing time. The largesttranscription disks could hold almost 30
minutes of material and were commonly used for delayed broadcast of radioshows.
-Signal processing (equalization, dynamics, reverb) was initially available only in very primitive form.
For example:electrical disc cutting used pre-emphasis to reduce surface noise and allow greater
playing time. In some cases, theengineer would alter the crossover point and/or slope of the
recording emphasis of a given disk if he felt he would get abetter result that way. Therefore, playback
curves for electrical 78's tended to be nominal (which poses problems forrestoration of such
recordings).
-Dynamics were controlled by manual gain-riding, moving the microphone, instructing the musicians
to play louder orsofter. Compressors and limiters did not become widely available until after World
War II.
-Reverb was usually a matter of the room one was recording in. At least one film studio had springtype reverb unitscustom built in the mid-1930's, but outside of Hollywood or Bell Laboratories such
experimental equipment was hardlyeven thought of. Radio serials, with their need to portray many
different locales, inspired the first live echo chambers(often, converted bathrooms or stairwells).
Such enhancement was not usually available or even considered desirable forstraight music
recording until the 1940's.
Despite the limited equipment available, the better records of the period give a pretty clear picture of
how the swing-era big bands sounded.The best engineers of the time had an impressive feel for
what was important in the music and were able to capture the essentials. And thesimplicity of the
methods they used insured a certain honesty in the recordings. With no overdubbing, no splicing, and
very little in the wayof tonal enhancement, what the musicians played is what you get.

Back to contents
An example from the period:
Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, 1938
The most famous big band recording of the swing era was a live concert remote. In some ways this
recording is not typical of its time; itwas not an aircheck of a radio broadcast and no one was
intending to make a commercial recording. For whatever reason, someone at CBSsimply decided to
record the concert. Afterwards, according to Irving Kolodin (writer of the liner notes for the original
commercial LPissue), one set of transcription discs went to the Library of Congress, and a second
set turned up in Benny Goodman's closet twelve yearslater.
From the technical point of view, the 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert is typical of the remote airchecks of
the time. Two microphones wereused, one hanging over the stage for overall pickup, the second on
stage and also used for the P.A. system. These two sources wereprobably mixed on the site, and the
signal then sent to CBS studios (using the usual broadcast-remote transmission lines) where
thetranscription discs were cut. The setup differed from a radio remote in that there was no
announcer, and therefore no separate announcemicrophone.
Besides its historical and musical value, this recording teaches us about something else: the live
acoustical balance of Benny Goodman'sband as compared to the balance heard on their studio
recordings. The brass and drums really tend to dominate the mix. The relativelydistant placement of
the overhead microphone lets us hear this clearly and confirms the critical consensus about
Goodman's band: it reallywas louder and brassier than what had come before; a fact that caused
Goodman problems with some hotel ballroom managementsearly inhis career.(3)Also evident is
the wide dynamic range of the music, which often threatens to outrun the limits of the recording
equipment.
In the studio the engineers frequently placed the softer instruments much closer to the recording
microphone, the result being an apparentreduction in dynamic range. But in this live concert the true
capabilities of the classic big band were on display. It was (and is) a formidableensemble capable of
extremes of dynamics, which arrangers readily exploited. The recording methods of the 1930's could
only give anindication of what was there, and the tendency of studio big band recordings, even now,
is to reduce the rangebetween loud and soft.(4)
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The 1940's: A Decade of Changes
In the 1940's several developments radically changed the technical basis of the recording industry.
For consumers, the introduction of the33 and 1/3rd rpm microgroove LP in 1948 was the big
development. This would not have been possible without technical work that hadbegun much earlier.
The long road of the LP
RCA had tried to introduce a long-playing record in the mid-1930's. It failed for several reasons, chief
among them the unsatisfactoryconsumer playback equipment. The phonograph cartridges of the
time required very heavy tracking forces, which caused excessive wear onthe long-playing disks.
RCA also had difficulty manufacturing turntables that could handle the slower speed without
excessive wow andflutter. And the source material for the new disks was obtained with the same
recording techniques used for the production of 78's. Givenall this,the sound quality of RCA's
mid-1930's LP was not a step forward.(5)
The phono cartridge problem was first tackled at Harvard in the late 1930's. A team of engineers there
developed high quality diskrecording systems. The need to play back the resulting disks without
damaging them led to the development of new cartridge designs. Thiswork established thebasis for
the modern phono cartridge.(6)

The source material problem would eventually be addressed with the introduction of high quality
magnetic tape recording. While there wereattempts to develop tape recording in the U.S., the results
were not of high quality, and were usedmainly for spoken voice applications bybroadcasters.(7)But
in Germany, during the early 1940's, high quality machines became available, even including some
experimentalstereo machines.(8)Due to the on-going war, we had no knowledge of those
developments. So when the tape machines were discovered atGerman radio stations after the war, it
was something of a shock.
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Mullin kidnaps the Magnetophon
Among those shocked by what they heard was John Mullin, an American Army Signal Corps officer. It
was part of his duties toinvestigate German broadcasting installations. He heard the Magnetophons
(as they were called) at a station near Frankfurt, and was soimpressed with their sound quality that,
after arranging to turn the machines over to the signal corps, he scrounged a couple of machines
forhimself, took them apart, and had them shipped back to the U.S, along with some recording tape.
After he returned home from his tour of duty, he assembled the machines and arranged to
demonstrate them for several recording andbroadcast professionals. The first development was the
recording of Bing Crosby's radio show on the Magnetophons. This experiment wasso successful that
Crosby's producers decided to use tape as the initial recording medium, instead of transcription disks,
for all futureshows. (The shows were still distributed on disk as before, but tape editing and copying
were used for the preceding production steps.) Thesecond development was the production of what
was essentially a copy of the AEG Magnetophon design by an American company thatspecialized in
the production of precision electric motors. The company was Ampex, and the new machine was
theirfirst professionalrecording product.(9)
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The LP arrives
The remaining impediment to the introduction of the LP, the manufacture of a satisfactory consumer
playback machine, was solved byadvances in precision mass-manufacturing in the years since
RCA's first attempt. So, when Columbia introduced their own LP in 1948,they also produced an
inexpensive turntable that did a competent job of playing the new records.
The new medium had far lower noise and distortion than the old 78's. Sonic details that were
considered of little importance for 78production (such as acoustical ambience) assumed new
importance in recordings made for LP issue. The immediate effect was a generalupgrading of the
quality of the recording chain, with more attention paid to studio acoustics, reverb devices, etc.
Microphone placement practices for big band sessions changed only incrementally in the early LP
era: there would be an overall pickupmic, spot mics on the piano and the bass, amic or two for
soloists; a total of 4 to 5 microphones was typical.(10)
(Record company executives were not, at first, certain if the public would take to High Fidelity. It took
psychoacoustic experiments byHarry F. Olson, VPof RCA labs, to convince them. See note(11).)
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The 1950's: The Marketing of High Fidelity
In 1955 the Hollywood film industry began to promote a new film about the life of a musician who had
become an American icon: BennyGoodman. As a tie-in, Goodman's record label, Capitol Records

featured "Mr. Benny Goodman, in brilliant new high fidelity recordings,made especially for this album
of the selections featured in the motion picture of his life, The Benny Goodman Story..." In his liner
notesfor the album, George T. Simon, after noting the authenticity of Goodman's recreation of his old
repertoire, declared: "Only one thing isreally different: the sound. And how remarkably different too!"
In short, the technical sound quality of the recording was considered animportant selling point.
This was not new, but the degree of importance was. In the 1930's and 40's, the conditions of
playback enjoyed by consumers were usuallyso poor that even if a given company's records were
exceptional in the engineering, few were likely to notice. By the mid-1950's, thesituation had changed
sufficiently that the promotion of "Hi-Fi Spectaculars" was a common element of marketing
recordings.
"The Benny Goodman Story" gives us the opportunity to compare the studio practices of the
mid-1950's with those of the mid-1930's,using identical repertoire, played bymany of the same
musicians.(12)The first impression of such a comparison will tend to vindicateGeorge T. Simon. The
newer recording has a smoothness and clarity that is startling when compared to the old 78's. There
is some evidenceof a more complex microphone set-up: the saxophones sound separated from the
brass, an impression confirmed by the engineer raising orlowering their relative volume a bit here
and there. The bass and piano have a clarity usually associated with close microphones. And
yet,what I find most impressive is the similarity of the sound to the older recordings: the balance
between brass and reeds is as before, thedrums tend to be in the background, Goodman's clarinet is
solidly in the foreground.
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The engineering consensus
Some of this similarity may have been enforced by Goodman; by the time he was in his early 20's he
was already an experienced studiomusician who was known for having a keen ear, and at no time in
his career was he reticent about insisting on what he wanted. If he didn'tlike what he heard on
playback, we can be certain he would let the engineers know about it. But I don't think he had to
intervene all thatmuch. In this and other recordings of that period, there is a basic engineering
consensus on how a big band should sound on record. Thatconsensus was based partly on how a
big band sounded in live, unamplified performance, and partly on the characteristics and limitationsof
playback equipment of the time. The goal was to create a plausible musical illusion for someone
listening to a monophonic LP in theirliving room. As compared to a monophonic 78, the differences
were mainly ones of detail, to accommodate the different limits of therespective disks.
This basic consensus would hold up pretty well until the late 1960's when there would be a great
unraveling, for reasons that I shall detaillater on. But now, it is time to consider where the engineering
action really was in the 1950's. The consumer was not aware of it yet, butdeveloping behind the
scenes was--Stereo.
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Stereo: early efforts
Like the LP, stereo recording was the product of technical work going back to the 1930's. Bell
Laboratories created an experimental stereodisc recordingsystem around 1931.(13)According to
John Pfeiffer, the producer later in charge of stereo recording development at RCA,the Bell Labs
system used two grooves adjacent to each other on the same disc, and two playback styli. It was not
a practical system forconsumer products, so no immediate use was made of it. Still, the Bell
engineers did considerably extend the engineering community'sknowledge of what methods worked
in stereo reproduction. The film industry in particular would later make good use of that knowledge.
After World War II, the introduction of tape recording made the recording of stereo masters a practical
possibility. The first major recordcompany to pursue this in a big way was RCA, largely due to the

efforts ofJohn Pfeiffer.(14)The initial RCA stereo program wasconfined to classical orchestra
recordings. Given the large amount of money spent on any orchestra session, adding a second
engineeringteam to record the session with the new stereo equipment was a reasonable expense.
And it simply makes sense to focus your best technicalefforts on the flagship product. For RCA, the
jazz big band was a part of popular music, and could not command the kind of attention
andexpenditure that went to the Red Seal classical program. The cultural shift that would change all
that was many years in the future.
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The Big Band in Stereo: a different approach
The methods Pfeiffer and his team used in their early stereo recordings were striking in their
simplicity: two or three microphones weremixed directly to two-track tape machines. Even at that
time, typical big band sessions were using more microphones. This had to do withthe needs of the
music; big band jazz is highly rhythmic and benefits from the clarity of a relatively close pickup. The
closer you move inyour main microphones the more likely it becomes that balance problems will
occur, and a common remedy is to add spot mics whereneeded. So, by the mid-1950's big band or
"pop" pickups had evolved into a conservative multi-mic style. The idea was to mic eachinstrumental
section separately, with the trombones and trumpets often considered a single section, and with the
rhythm section instrumentsusually getting spot mics, both for clarity, and to balance the piano and
bass with the rest of the band.
In 1957, when it became clear that the stereo LP would soon be introduced (the necessary disk
cutters and playback cartridges were knownto be under development), adapting the standard big
band setup to the needs of stereo proved to be simple. The sax section (which alreadyhad its own
mic or two), was placed on one side of the stereo picture, the brass were placed on the other side
and the rhythm sectionoccupied the middle. For many studios, this meant virtually no change from
their monophonic setup practices. This helped ensure monocompatibility, which was very important,
as the vast majority of consumers would still have mono playback systems.
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Three tracks on tape
Most stereo recordings of the late 1950's to early 1960's were mastered on three-track tape
machines. Ampex introduced their first 1/2 inch,three-track recorder in 1954, and it soon became the
standard of the industry. Why three tracks? The initial reason may have been thatnobody yet knew
how many channels the eventual consumer format would have. According to Bell Labs, three
channels were superior totwo, especially for establishing a firm center image in the sound picture.
They considered two channels a compromise that would work inless critical applications--home
playback, for example. The sales potential of the stereo LP, which could only accommodate two
channels,settled the matter. Still, the three-channel recorder continued to be the session recorder of
choice until the mid-1960's. That third track wasso useful for stereo production that returning to only
two tracks was not considered.
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The engineering style of the three-track era:
some examples.
In 1960, Capitol Records recorded "Sinatra's Swingin' Session" in their Hollywood studios. Sinatra
was accompanied by a big bandaugmented with a string section, all under the direction of Nelson
Riddle. The record jacket cover featured a photo taken at the session(reproduced for the CD issue,
Capitol CDP 7 46573) that, apart from some staged details, shows us the studio setup.
Sinatra's position in the photo is obviously for the photographer; I doubt that the engineers would

have had him stand in front of the brasssection! But for the rest, the conservative section-by- section
pickup is evident: the brass to the right in two rows, picked up by a single mic,the saxes to the left,
grouped around a single RCA 44, the rhythm section instruments roughly in the middle with single
mics for eachinstrument, and the strings some distance to the left with perhaps two mics on them.
What we hear on the record corresponds to the visual picture almost exactly. There is some audible
leakage between mics, but the matchingof the stereo picture to the actual placement of the
musicians prevents any strange effects. Finally, the presence of some "spread" in thestereo
placement of the rhythm instruments convinces me that the "middle" recorder track was reserved for
Sinatra--a wise choice, given thedemands he might make.
Listening to this record, it is clear that important elements of the engineering consensus survived the
introduction of stereo. The balancesbetween the brass, saxes and rhythm instruments are similar to
Benny Goodman's 1955 sessions. And in one respect nothing had changed:the consumer product
was still the LP, with its familiar limitations.
Two years earlier, Miles Davis and Gil Evans recorded "Porgy and Bess" in Columbia's 30th street
studio in New York City. The recentColumbia/Legacy reissue (CK 65141) has a photo showing part of
the setup for one of the sessions. Miles Davis is in the foreground, thetrombones can be seen just
beyond to his left, and the french horns are beyond the trombones, facing them at a 45 degree angle
(whichcauses their backwards-facing horn bells to fire well away from the other brass). A single mic
behind the horns picks them up, another micpicks up the trombones (and perhaps the trumpets, out
of sight behind them) and Miles, of course, has his own mic.
The sound picture of the recording does not precisely match what we see in the photo, as the horns
are heard to the left of the mix, as ifbehind the reed section. I suspect there was sufficient isolation in
this setup to move the apparent image of the horns as desired. In mostimportant respects, though,
we see the same techniques as were used in the Sinatra recording: section by section pickup, with
close micsonly for soloists or weaker instruments.
Additional evidence of the recording techniques of the time can be found in Harry Olson's
"MusicPhysics and Engineering".(15)Inchapter eight he diagrams typical setups for several kinds of
recording sessions. His fig. 8.32, "arrangement of the instruments andmicrophones for recording a
dance band or popular music orchestra" shows a big band arranged much as they would be in
liveperformance, picked up with 6 mics (including one for a vocal soloist) mixed to 3 channels. Olson
comments about this arrangement, "Eachmicrophone covers one instrument or a group of
instruments with very intimate coupling between the microphone and the sound source. Inthe case of
popular music a high order of definition is desirable. Because of the fast tempo of the music, the ratio
of direct to reflectedsoundmust be kept large or the reproduced music will be blurred."(16)
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The temptations of complexity
The mid-1950's to early 1960's have been called the golden age of stereo recording. The examples
examined here support such a statementas, in each case, we can see the use of techniques that
serve the characteristics of the music. It may seem self-evident that this is what soundengineering
should be about, but other agendas are possible, especially if the engineer must please others who
have a differentunderstanding of the enterprise. A hint of this can be found in the same section of
Harry Olson's book that I quoted above. He diagrams asetup forrecording a symphony orchestra
with no less than 15 microphones (fig. 8.29).(17)This is an astonishing development whencompared
to the two-mic setup that John Pfeiffer was using for orchestra sessions just a decade earlier. The
consensus at RCA was thatPfeiffer was getting spectacular results. Why, then, the change?
An important clue is provided by Olson in his text accompanying the diagram. He states, "The use of

multiple microphones makes itpossible to obtain any desired balance of the various sections of the
orchestra." Apparently, obtaining a reasonable pickup of the balancenormally provided by the
orchestra and conductor was not enough; the engineer must be able to drastically change that
balance on demand.Now, if the discussion were about film soundtrack recording, the need for such a
capability would be obvious. Film sound serves the needsof the story and the picture, and so needs
to be constantly flexible. But here we have the same idea being applied to straight
orchestralrecordings of the standard classical repertoire. What was going on?
Continued in Part 2
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NOTES FOR PART 1
1. A good example of this change from altered to full instrumentation can be heard on the CD "Louis
Armstrong, Volume IV: LouisArmstrong and Earl Hines", Columbia CK 45142. On the first eight
tunes, recorded from 1927 to mid 1928, the drummers (Tubby Hall orZutty Singleton) can be heard
playing only cymbals or wood blocks, when they play at all. Then, on track 9, "No (Papa No),
recorded inDecember of 1928, Singleton is heard playing his full drum kit for the first time.
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2. For examples of late 1920's dance music played by large dance orchestras, I suggest the listener
turn to recordings of Jean Goldkette andHis Orchestra or of Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. A
good selection of both groups can be found on the CD, "Bix Beiderbecke--BixLives!", RCA/Bluebird
6845-2-RB.
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3. In his liner notes for "The Benny Goodman Story",(12)George T. Simon recounts how, in 1935,
Goodman and his band replaced GuyLombardo at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, and were
promptly fired for playing too loudly.
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4. "Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall" is available on two CD's, Columbia G2K 40244. The CD
transfer is somewhat rolled off at thefrequency extremes and benefits from a bit of boost in the bass
and treble. For an example of the band's dynamic range, listen to "BigJohn's Special", track 11 on
disc 2.
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5. Edward Tatnall Canby wrote on his experiences with RCA's first long playing disks in Audio
magazine, June 1994.
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6. For a first-person account of this work see "The Phonograph's Forgotten Heroes" by John Alvin
Pierce in Audio magazine, March1991.
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7. Joel Tall, the CBS engineer who invented the tape splicing block, told of working with tape

recorders made by the Brush company in hisarticle, "Tall Tales", in Audio magazine, October 1978.
The recorder, the Brush BK-401, recorded on fragile paper-backed tape. The stockmodel had a
signal-to-noise ratio of about 35 dB and lots of distortion. By removing the power transformer from the
machine and attachingit by a remote cable, Tall was able to get the S/N ratio to about 55 dB. He tried
applying negative feedback to lower the distortion, withoutmuch success. (I suspect this machine
didnot use high frequency tape biasing.) Even so, it proved useful to CBS for editing work duringthe
mid-1940's, and was even used to feed the radio network directly on occasion.
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8. In Audio magazine, August 1993, Bert Whyte described how Helmut Kruger, a German radio
technician, made stereo recordings oforchestra concerts in Berlin with a modified AEG
Magnetophon, starting in 1943. Out of the hundreds of tapes he made, about fivesurvived the war.
Excerpts from these tapes were transferred to CD by Harmonia Mundi Acoustica in a limited edition,
distributed tomembers of the Audio Engineering Society on the occasion of their 94th convention,
held in Berlin.
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9. The full story of Mullin and his Magnetophons can be found in "History of Magnetic Recording: Part
1" by Robert Angus, Audiomagazine, August 1984.
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10. Examples of such practices can be heard in Benny Goodman's recordings of that period for
Capitol Records, available on "BennyGoodman: undercurrent blues", Capitol/Jazz 7243 8 32086 2 3.
This CD contains most of the studio sessions of Goodman's "be-bop" bandfrom 1947 through 1949.
I also recommend "Glenn Miller-The Lost Recordings", RCA Victor 09026-68320-2 (issued 1996).
This two-CD set containstranscriptions for broadcast made by the American Band of the Allied
Expeditionary Force (Miller's war-time service big band) in late1944. The recordings were made in
London in HMV's Abbey Road Studio No. 1 (still in use today for large-scale symphonic recordings).A
conservative multi-mike approach was used with single microphones on brass, reeds, strings (a 20
piece string section!) and rhythm,along with an announcer/vocal mike. There is somewhat heavyhanded use of the CEDAR noise reduction system, but it is still evident thatthese are among the best
big-band recordings Glenn Miller made, both technically and musically.
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11. At first, record company executives were not certain that "high fidelity" would be desired by their
customers. Tests carried out bybroadcast engineers in the mid-1940's seemed to indicate that most
listeners preferred playback of speech and musical materials throughsystems with restricted
bandwidth as compared to systems with full bandwidth reproduction. If this were indeed true, there
would be littlepoint in mass-marketing high fidelity recordings and playback systems.
Harry F. Olson of RCA laboratories suspected that the studies indicating listener preference for low-fi
were themselves flawed. He believedthat as the playback system bandwidth was increased, the
distortions inherent in the source material became more apparent and moreirritating to the listeners.
As the inventor of the ribbon element microphone and the designer of the professional ribbon
elementmicrophones that RCA subsequently marketed, Olson was uniquely placed to pursue such a
question.
Olson's acoustic fidelity test

In 1947 he devised an ingenious all-acoustical experiment to test his thesis. He used a small room
about the size of a typical domestic livingroom as his test site. A variable acoustic barrier was built
across the room. This barrier contained vanes that could be opened or closed. Inthe open position,
there was no restriction on transmission of sound to the other side of the room. In the closed position,
a 5,000 cycle low-pass filter was approximated. (This was roughly the response of "good" consumer
equipment of the time.) An acoustically transparentcurtain was placed in front of the barrier, so that
listeners could not see what transpired behind it. A six piece dance band playing at amoderate level
(about 70 dB average) was on the other side. The vanes were opened or closed at about 30 second
intervals. The listenerssaw an indicator light change from "A" to "B" in synchronization with the vane
changes and were asked which condition they preferred.The tests were repeated, using spoken
voice as the sound source, all other conditions the same. The results were conclusive: the
greatmajority of listeners preferred wide-range response under the conditions of the test.
The acoustic/electric test
Olson followed up this acoustical test with a second experiment. The same listening room was used,
but this time, the musicians performedin an anechoic chamber where they were picked up in stereo
by high quality microphones, with the signal delivered to the listening room byamplifiers and
speakers developed by RCA's laboratory. This was the "A" condition. In the "B" condition, roll-off
filters in the treble andbass were inserted in the reproduction chain to simulate the response of
consumer equipment. Again, the results were conclusive: the greatmajority of listeners preferred
wide-range response.
From today's vantage point, the outcome of Olson's experiments might seem intuitively obvious. But
in the late 1940's, the answers to thequestions he asked were not so obvious, given the small portion
of the population that had ever heard high quality sound reproduction.Olson's experiments were
important because RCA was, at that time, an enormously influential company. If RCA's executives
had notsupported the development of high fidelity recording and playback, the industry as a whole
would not have moved as confidently in thatdirection.
(Olson's account of his tests, and a great deal more, can be found in his book, "Music, Physics and
Engineering", second edition, DoverBooks, NYC, 1967 (paperback), ISBN-486-21769-8. I
recommend this book to all students of the art of recording.)
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12. "The Benny Goodman Story" is available on CD, Capitol Jazz CDP 7243 8 33569 2 8, issued
1995. For comparison I recommendGoodman's recordings from 1936 through 1938 for RCA. These
are available in several collections as of this writing. My source is adouble-CD set on French RCA,
"Jazz Tribune No.47, The Indispensable Benny Goodman, Vol.3/4 (1936-1937)", RCA 66470-2
07863. Itwas available, last I looked, at HMV records in NYC.
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13. I have seen contradictory accounts of this early stereo recording system. According to John
Pfeiffer's notes for "The Age of LivingStereo" (see note 14) the system had two separate grooves to
carry left and right information. However, in the June 1982 issue of Audio,Edward Tatnall Canby
refers to the Bell Labs stereo system as "45/45 stereo discs", that is, the same as the later stereo LP
in which a singlegroove carries separate information on each groove wall. According to John Alvin
Pierce in his article on the late 1930's work at Harvard(Audio magazine, March 1991), the Bell
engineers produced a vertical cut (hill-and-dale) system for their transcription disk because
theybelieved it produced better fidelity. As this is not consistent with a 45/45 cutting system, which
produces a lateral cut from the mono portionof the signal, I would be inclined to believe Pfeiffer's
account.

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14. The best overview of Pfeiffer's work in early stereo is a two CD set, "The Age of Living Stereo: A
Tribute to John Pfeiffer", RCA09026-68524-2, issued 1996. Included are excerpts from the most
important of his early experimental recordings from 1953 on, most ofwhich have never been released
in stereo before. (They sound magnificent, by the way.) Pfeiffer himself wrote a history of RCA's
program,along with notes on the individual recordings included in the set. He died shortly afterwards,
so the album was made into a memorial to himand his work. I highly recommend this set to anyone
interested in the history of stereo recording.
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15. Harry F. Olson, "Music, Physics and Engineering", 2nd. Edition, Dover, New York (paperback),
ISBN 486-21769-8, issued 1967.
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16. Ibid., pg. 310-311.
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17. Ibid., pg. 308.
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