Posted by John Swensen on January 17, 2000 at 20:34:29:
In Reply to: Does Size Matter, Some Observations posted by Swami on January 17, 2000 at 19:17:18:
Swami,
I think you need to hold the recording style constant if you want to compare the clarity of different tubas. The single-mike recordings of Robert Fine for Mercury inspired Mercury's later trademark "The Living Presence", and the minimal miking (typically three mikes for an entire orchestra) of Fine for Mercury, and Lewis Layton and Kenneth Wilkinson for RCA define clarity of recording. On a vinyl record (original RCA or Chesky re-issue, for example) played on a high-end system, carefully set up, it is easy to pick out the specific and different locations of Jacobs and Kleinhammer, sitting next to each other (I was amazed to hear this with the Reiner Lt. Kije on my brother's system, after having listened to that same recording on a CD in my car many times before.)
It might be interesting to compare the monaural Mercury recording of the CSO playing Pictures at an Exhibition to a modern, multi-miked recording of the same work. To stay within labels (and orchestras), compare Reiner's recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (Lewis Layton, 3 mikes, RCA) to Solti's recording (??, many mikes, London)
of the same work. Arnold Jacobs played the same tuba on both of these recordings, although Bud Herseth probably switched trumpets between recordings.