# Overloading on classic opera/vocal recordings?



## ganchan2019 (Oct 14, 2021)

I've noticed that while many of the greatest opera recordings stretching way back to the 78 era sound perfectly clear (apart from inevitable sonic limitations, surface noise etc), many others suffer from peaking and overloading on big climaxes (more so than non-vocal recordings, which to me implies faulty mic/singer positioning or monitoring). It seems to happen especially often on the old RCA recordings from the late 50s through the 70s, many of which I assume were supervised by Richard Mohr. But it also plagues such otherwise good-sounding productions as Karajan's 1959 Aida on Decca.

Were there special challenges involved in miking, monitoring, and recording complete operas during the later analog era? The problem seems to have largely disappeared with the advent of the digital era.....

I'm not optimistic that I can EQ out any peaking that's baked into the original masters, especially when it sits in the middle of the frequency response where vocal lie. So I'm willing to live with these artifacts as minor barriers to enjoyment of great performances. I'm just curious about the phenomenon in general.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

It has to do with the limited dynamic range of magnetic tape, which was the primary medium used in recording studios. If the volume was set too low, some of the music was covered by tape hiss. Too loud, and you get the sort of distortion that you're talking about. This was ameliorated somewhat by Dolby in the mid-60's. And too much "gain-riding" in the recording booth meant that the recording would sound dynamically unrealistic.

Some engineers somehow managed to avoid the problem, though - there's not much distortion or hiss on the Solti/Culshaw/Decca Ring, and the Decca recordings of Britten's Peter Grimes and War Requiem sounds as good as anything that's been recorded since.


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## ganchan2019 (Oct 14, 2021)

wkasimer said:


> It has to do with the limited dynamic range of magnetic tape, which was the primary medium used in recording studios. If the volume was set too low, some of the music was covered by tape hiss. Too loud, and you get the sort of distortion that you're talking about. This was ameliorated somewhat by Dolby in the mid-60's. And too much "gain-riding" in the recording booth meant that the recording would sound dynamically unrealistic.
> 
> Some engineers somehow managed to avoid the problem, though - there's not much distortion or hiss on the Solti/Culshaw/Decca Ring, and the Decca recordings of Britten's Peter Grimes and War Requiem sounds as good as anything that's been recorded since.


Deccas is pretty good as a general rule, despite my complaints about the Aida -- although their Bonynge Tales of Hoffmann has some pretty rough moments of peaking throughout. It's RCA that seems to been the prime culprit. The 1952 and 1968 Trovatores, the Moffo Madama Butterfly, the 1959 Macbeth with Warren and Rysanek, I could go on and on.... Maybe they simply favored different recording equipment and techniques?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

ganchan2019 said:


> Deccas is pretty good as a general rule, despite my complaints about the Aida -- although their Bonynge Tales of Hoffmann has some pretty rough moments of peaking throughout. It's RCA that seems to been the prime culprit. The 1952 and 1968 Trovatores, the Moffo Madama Butterfly, the 1959 Macbeth with Warren and Rysanek, I could go on and on.... Maybe they simply favored different recording equipment and techniques?


Or different engineers. The RCA recordings are erratic. The Leinsdorf Lohengrin features fantastic sound, and the first Price Forza from 1964 is fine. But the Leinsdorf Aida and Mehta Trovatore, both post-Dolby, are virtually unlistenable.

DG, Philips, and EMI seem to suffer less from peak distortion, except for the random disaster, like the DG/Böhm Rosenkavalier, which was brutal on LP, and hasn't gotten any better on a couple of CD reissues.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I listened to the Barenboim/Chicago Bruckner Te Deum from ca. 1980 (DG) a few days ago and I think it has a slight amount of distortion in the two loudest passages or so, but it's still o.k. Maybe this was a problem of an early digital recording, not analogue tape overload?


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## ganchan2019 (Oct 14, 2021)

wkasimer said:


> Or different engineers. The RCA recordings are erratic. The Leinsdorf Lohengrin features fantastic sound, and the first Price Forza from 1964 is fine. But the Leinsdorf Aida and Mehta Trovatore, both post-Dolby, are virtually unlistenable.
> 
> DG, Philips, and EMI seem to suffer less from peak distortion, except for the random disaster, like the DG/Böhm Rosenkavalier, which was brutal on LP, and hasn't gotten any better on a couple of CD reissues.


I was surprised to hear it in EMI's 1960s Forza del Destino w/Arroyo and Bergonzi, especially in the final act where the male voices repeatedly overload and distort.


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## mr bob (12 mo ago)

The problem of "overloading" exists in the digital era too. I guess one aspect in analog era are analog mixer consoles as well. Usually they sound good even if overloaded, but if you do that too much, you get distortion. Vocal recording is likely to overload if one to apply gain more than enough, because many times it's a continuous, strong sound in the mid range. It doesn't mask distortion as good as some other sounds. Just my observation.


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