3 Comments

1. 

   Monica McCabe on March 4, 2021 at 9:10 am

   I have memories of these studios, but sadly cannot even afford the odd half million….

   Reply
2. 

   Peter Reed on March 4, 2021 at 1:17 pm

   Another sign of the times

   Reply
3. 

   Andrew Keener on March 5, 2021 at 8:00 am

   Thanks, Colin, for sharing this super photo which I’ve never seen before. A real slice of recording history. I came on the recording scene too late, alas, to have produced sessions in this studio, but many of the records made there formed part of my musical awakening as a schoolboy in Barry. One favourite still is the Peter Pears/Edith Sitwell taping of Walton’s Facade with Anthony Collins conducting an ensemble from the English Opera Group. It’s a devil of a job in this work to balance the narrators with the instruments in a way which sounds natural, the danger being either that the voices are artificially ‘in your face’ or that words get lost. I’ve produced two recordings of the piece, and neither gets it right in the way that this early 1950s mono recording does. I doubt that anyone is still around to tell me what the microphone technique/positioning was? Or that the recording sheets still exist?

   Reply

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