Analogue Recording - Direct to the Cutting Lathe

[rob aylestone]

I'm not remotely an analogue guy but thought I'd share this Youtube I found, looking for something else.
The Syd Lawrence Big Band - who I highly rate, doing a direct stereo recording at Air Lyndhurst.

No chance for errors.

 

[spantini]

Fascinating. I love this stuff. Thanks for posting, Rob.

I was going to ask, but I believe I heard Jake say he also recorded this on 24-Track - I think that's what he said, I had trouble with his accent.

I got interested in the clarinet (?) player's mic placement. That was at mid point of the instrument facing downward, with the instrument pointing downward. Sounded great.

 

[jamesperrett]

Oddly enough I was reading about the Sheffield Labs direct to disc albums the other day. They were around in the 1970s and Doug Sax was the cutting engineer while pianist Lincoln Mayorga was the producer. I don't think the article is online at the moment though.

 

[Cosmic]

The Direct-to-Disc issues from Sheffield sounded (and sound) fabulous, along with those from Nautilus and a couple of other labels.
I still have mine, and for the most explosive dynamics you can put on an LP, nothing tops them.
The Thelma Houston album "I've Got the Music in Me" was a go-to for Hi-Fi demonstrations, as was the Harry James one.

The problem was getting any big(ger) rock/pop names to record an entire album this way. It didn't happen, if I remember right.
The commitment is daunting: an entire side at a time, flawlessly, with fadeouts/ins between tracks, so small wonder.

C.

 

[rob aylestone]

I'm guessing the 24 track was insurance. With the cost of the band - a day in the UK with MU rates is a two session, six hour day - any mistakes would be disastrous, so at worst they'd have something analogue to fall back to, I guess.

Clarinets (and saxophones) produce their sound from places that don't make sense - I did a video about recording saxes, the clarinet is very similar to the soprano sax in terms of size and mic placement.