Capitol Records/Studio

[HiFiFan]

Very excited. I’ll be attending an event this week at Capitol records, getting a tour of Capitol Studios with a demo of the control rooms, seeing Studio A and B, visiting the artists lounge and meeting a few multi Grammy award winning producers / mixers / engineers.

Hope if lives up to my expectations – I’ve never gone anyway behind the scenes on audio before.

[Ivor]

Very excited. I’ll be attending an event this week at Capitol records, getting a tour of Capitol Studios with a demo of the control rooms, seeing Studio A and B, visiting the artists lounge and meeting a few multi Grammy award winning producers / mixers / engineers.

Hope if lives up to my expectations – I’ve never gone anyway behind the scenes on audio before.

Brilliant! I'd love that sort of access! Full report expected with photos if permitted.

[HiFiFan]

Will do. I'll do my best on the photos.

[cybot]

How are possibly going to stand, never mind take photos??? What a once in a lifetime opportunity! Enjoy and try not to genuflect too much ;)

[Fran]

Wow!! Yes deffo looking forward to your report!

[HiFiFan]

I’m happy to say it was a very good evening.

Got to walk the halls and visit the artists lounge (not too impressive but there was free beer and food :-), Studio A and Studio B. Got a good history of the place with some interesting nuggets on their involvement with the academy awards, Emmys etc. and that they have a fiber link to the Dolby Theater and pipe the show music straight over from the Capitol studios. One of the Capitol engineers gave a good overview of the Neve (some neat signatures on the left hand side of the console – but I forgot to take a photo) and then answered lots of questions and gave some insight into the day to day stuff.
In Studio B we got to hear a Frank Sinatra song lined up so that they were able to seamlessly move between the original LP recording, the first CD version, a later ‘louder’ CD version, an iTunes version and the tape master. That was pretty cool. Also got to see Frank Sinatra’s mic and Nat King Cole’s piano.

Later there was a panel discussion with a few multi Grammy winning producers/mixers and a speaker designer. Panel: Niko Bolas(Neil Young, Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel), Rafa Sardina (Lady Gaga, Alejandro Sanz, Placido Domingo), Al Schmitt (Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Diann Krall), Bill Dudleston of Legacy Audio. That was good, interesting and fun.

I have some photos. I just need to figure out easiest way to upload. Last time I tried with photos was a pain, shrinking size, dropping resolution etc.

This evening I'm off to hear the new Wilson Audio Sasha DAW.

[Diapason]

That sounds utterly brilliant.

In Studio B we got to hear a Frank Sinatra song lined up so that they were able to seamlessly move between the original LP recording, the first CD version, a later ‘louder’ CD version, an iTunes version and the tape master. That was pretty cool.

I'd love to hear more about this!

[HiFiFan]

[/quote]

I'd love to hear more about this!
[/quote]

There was some banter around the original recording. I think one of the guys we meet Al Schmitt was involved though he wasn't in the Studio at that time with us (nice guy, very funny stories about his wife who is an audiophile and he isn't) and some on when CDs were first introduced, the later loudness wars etc. In the end there wasn't a lot too this in that the LP recording sounded very good, the original CD was OK but not great, the later one (which had bad dynamic range) sounded painful in parts, the iTunes version sounded terrible (the guy suspected it was just an import from the original CD) and the master tape was just beautiful.

[HiFiFan]

That is AL Schmitt the producer in the background, first photo is Frank Sinatras microphone and Nat King Cole's piano

[HiFiFan]

This is the Studio B recording area and the panel