Arthur Bliss: "Things To Come" - Suite Ballet for Children - TA 1726 -I / Melodrama : Pestilence - TA 1732 -I
Melodrama : Attack - TA 1731 -II / The World in Ruins - TA 1728 -II
16/44 FLAC 24/48 FLAC
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arthur Bliss
Decca K.810 / 811 Recorded: 3 March 1935. Thames Street Studios.
March - GA 7686 -I / Epilogue - GA 7687 -I 16/44 FLAC
Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson
Decca K.817 Transfer from 1935 Film Soundtrack: 18 Feb.1936
Slight treble-boost applied to the soundtrack disc - which remains congested/constricted in frequency-range. 2 label scans >>>
A very enjoyable atmospheric piece.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this.
Novak.
I'm rather nervous about uploading from 78s, & find it difficult to reduce the 'scratch' without making the recording sound 'less interesting' (though quite a lot of 'detail' remains in this re-mastering; but not too certain the frequency-balance is particularly 'correct' after various 'experiments' on the file...so this may not be 'my last word' on this particular Decca set. The 78 dubbings from the Film soundtrack were pretty poor quality to start with . Glad someone liked them!
ReplyDeleteYour website has been a joy to discover! It's been great listening to so many classic recordings - thank you!. I'm in the process if digitising my record collection, and have a nifty little program called Click Repair (which you may have tried, of course). I ran the Bliss March through this on it's default 78 setting and a good deal of crackle was removed, without seeming to suck the life out of the music. It's great for LPs - which is why I use it - and I can thoroughly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteBob
The 'March' (transferred from the Soundtrack) sounds so awful that you probably couldn't damage it, sonically, much further!
ReplyDeleteNo - I don't use ClickRepair.
With the exception of the old Lamond transfer I've only used Diamond Cut DC6 - @ a setting sufficient to 'equalize' the crackle to a small degree: otherwise it's just manually removing any 'spikes'.
The 78's are anyway played via a Leak 'Varislope Stereo' pre-amp (Valve c.1960) - and can slightly tweak the surface-noise content via filtering, etc - but HF detail can very easily be lost (and surface crackle isn't 'troublesome' via Electrostatic Loudspeakers: but will 'energise' the cone/dome material of normal speakers..) - then the file is additionally equalized via Audacity (not, though, for LP's) with treble/bass being 'cut' @ about <100Hz/10kHz).
I may do some 'experiments' re: 78 playback (Shure V15/IIIE always used) - but, TBH, I rarely play them.
I'm sure that folk who don't do transcriptions have no idea how much work goes into them. I'm listening to the Bliss Things to Come Suite from your Decca LP transfer at the moment: splendid stuff!!
ReplyDeleteIt also takes some time to get around to doing the files..mentioned those almost a year ago.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I broke the Griller Qt's Decca 78's of Bliss's St.Qt.no.1.
'Historical' has excellent performances of 'The Phoenix' (Philharmonia/Lambert) + Solomon's version of the Piano Concerto...and I'd recommend Lambert's Piano Concerto - on the main Music Parlour blog. Very fine recording.
I am rather surprised, and certainly disappointed, about your repeated and very beastly attacks on experienced 78 transfer enthusiasts on the newsgroup r.m.c.r., considering the terrible results of almost all of YOURS here on this blog. Your highly opinionated and narrow points of view and taste would be more convincing if YOU had done competent transfers from 78s yourself--but you have not (as proved by these Bliss disks and by the Sargent disks of Coleridge-Taylor.) You demand "high resolution" 78 transfers, but the 'resolution' you have provided consists merely of resolving severe disk cracks, shattered grooves, and uncountable numbers of impulse transients (not to mention high order distortion products rendered by old worn needles and soundboxes, and super-bandwidth frequencies that are not related to the original recording capability.) If you wish to be taken seriously as a critic of technique, then you should demonstrate it yourself. Use records that are NOT TRASHED. Properly adjust the correct and optimal turnover and rolloff, and select styli that can reduce existing groove shatter. Intelligently employ impulse reduction techniques. Perform competent edits on obviously shattered and damaged waveforms (as, for instance, I myself have done in removing 90% of the horrid snaps and blasts in the loud bass passages in the first disk of the Bliss set--do YOU know how to do it?) Then clean up the lead intro/outros and edit the files into nicely organized musical continuity. But, no: you have done NONE of the things that have distinguished the efforts of r.m.c.r. contributors you have ridiculed. Therefore I am reluctantly concluding that you are merely an ideologue without practical experience--certainly your own taste for damaged disks, uncorrected noises, and distorted blasting in all their ugliness does not necessarily correlate with anybody else's preferences (and, to set your suspicions at rest, I am a very old collector of 78s -- thousands of them! -- dating back nearly to the end of the Hitler war. I am not merely a youth who has been brainwashed by digital transfers and CD quality sound.)
ReplyDeleteThat diatribe sounds like it's coming from the pen of 'Don Tait'.
ReplyDeleteFYI: that's what a '78' can sound like without being 'processed to death'.
The only cartridge that has been used is a Shure V15/III with an original 78E stylus that still has no more than 12 hours on it: with 3 more NOS VN-78E in reserve.
I do not use 'juke-box' cartridges, like 'Mr Pristine' does: a cheap Shure M44, with dodgy 'kitchen-table' built cantilevers/with 'proper-sized' high-mass styli: the VN78E is slightly undersized for many discs.
NEITHER do I bother playing such obsolete technology material for myself: I think they are near-junk.
FYI 2: when editing LP transfers of 78 material I invariably spend a HUGE amount of time removing defects - from what were judged 'acceptable'/'the finest' transfers then available.
Haha! Anonymous: "terrible results of almost all of YOURS here on this blog"
ReplyDeleteSurely that discredits anything the writer wanted to say thereafter. Oh well. Thanks for these "terrible" transfers, TE.
My 'practical experience' of playing 78's was from about 4 years old..on a Gramophone - about the best method for such Victoriana..
DeleteThose 2x Bliss sound quite respectable now: though not sure how I achieved it...but the equipment I use can hardly be 'bettered' (and probably have the last remaining Shure VN78E stylus stocks..) - it's just that the discs are (new) JUNK: sadly Home RTR Tape wasn't practical for mass-production: so then got stuck with LP's for decades more...
Also - 'limiting' the 'frequency-range' [viz: his "super-bandwidth frequencies that are not related to the original recording capability"} is unsatisfactory as any groove-background then becomes focused in the lower frequencies - and, eg, you lose the treble 'sparkle' on piano-notes...so end-up with a poor music-cassette type sound - as can be heard 'elsewhere'....and would refer you to the defunct/excellent 334578 blog transfers..
Aside from having access to vinyl copies of matrices - or exceptionally quiet 'non UK' shellac - then these objects are a curse to 'make right'..
Which is not to say that I wouldn't 'like' to make the transfers more 'acceptable: but why bother???
This is delightful! thanks so much for posting this wonderful soundtrack. The 78 sound adds to the texture of this piece.
ReplyDeleteIs there any chance you could renew this link? I have your original upload but didn't realise you had done some more work on it last year. Thanks. Roger
ReplyDeleteBest to re-transfer them - tho' am dubious about the soundtrack disc as it really is awful.
DeleteI'll do something in a few days time
That was fast work - many thanks. Through all the hiss the excitement of one of the finest film scores continues to shine through. Roger
ReplyDeleteNO HISS = NO EXCITEMENT
DeleteThe sound quality of the 2496 Bliss recordings is quite nice.
ReplyDeleteHaving heard both, 'properly' I'm not sure that the 24/96 is an actual improvement as the 'CD' file disguises a few wrinkles - but you can always (?) turn the treble-knob to the left!
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