When RCA was founded, it was not smooth sailing. It first encountered the stock market crash on Wall Street in New York in 1929. At this time, the United States fell into an unprecedented economic crisis, and Edison's phonograph company collapsed. RCA Records was dying, too, and almost died. Fortunately, the radios made by RCA are popular all the way, with a market share as high as 25%, which can support the development of the recording plan. During this period, RCA recorded cello masters casals and Pi Diya Gaiski; Pianists Rubinstein and Rakhmaninov; Wonderful performances by violin master Kaifitz and others. As a conductor, the joining of Boston Symphony Orchestra and toscanini under the leadership of stokowski and Kushevsky once made RCA's red trademark synonymous with classical music.
After 1934, electrical recording became popular, and the recording frequency increased from 100Hz-5KHz in the mechanical age to 30Hz-8KHz, which was a qualitative leap. RCA is just in time, and its scale and output are increasing rapidly. This gratifying situation reached its peak at 194 1. With the involvement of the United States in World War II, the output of shellac raw materials for records decreased by more than 70%, and the phonograph factory and the recording industry were requisitioned by the military, and the recording industry entered the second bleak stage. However, RCA, which has already gained a foothold, has gained a foothold in the bitter wind and rain of the war and struggled to operate with the vitality accumulated before. After the war, Columbia developed 33 aircraft. 3-to-LP records have brought vitality to the recording industry. RCA then joined the LP camp and performed quite well. Their "new pronunciation" tabletting technology received rave reviews at that time. Since 1950s, RCA has been actively engaged in the research and experiment of stereo recording, in order to counter the competition of Mercury's "living" records.
1953, members of Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Montu made an experimental recording of De Libo's ballet "Ghibelline" in Manhattan Center, new york, and the selection effect was surprisingly good. In June 5438+10, RCA engineers showed their two-channel and three-channel experimental tapes at the sound war in new york, which was described by peter reid, editor-in-chief of the American phonograph guide magazine as "the most shocking living stereo design today ..." Inspired by this, RCA chose the word "living stereo" as the subtitle of his later series of records.
1February, 954, RCA first used mono and dual-channel recorders in Boston Concert Hall, and included Berlioz's The Scourge of Faust, which was conducted by Xu Meng. Then, they recorded Richard Strauss's Heroic Life and Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Zarathustra under the guidance of Lai Na in the Chicago Concert Hall. With the advent of 1958 LP series "Living Sound", this record became the first record in this series. Up to now, LP records of "Living Stereo" series have been released to about 1964, totaling about 600 kinds. After the "Living Stereo" series became popular all over the world, RCA re-launched the "Soria" and "Dynagroove" series with a stronger concept of fever in the 1960s, and the effect was even worse, which almost pushed stereo recording to the extreme. However, after the 1970s, with the increasing popularity of global music culture and vegetarianism, the market share of classical records was greatly reduced, and the quality of RCA classical records was no longer the same as that of that year, and the "golden record era" came to an end. But looking back today, we still find that the glory RCA brought to the recording industry in the fifties and sixties was actually brilliant. They left a lot of precious recordings in those years, both artistic value and quality are priceless, so today's lovers are tirelessly looking for them.
To sum up, RCA's ordinary records are divided into red, gold and silver stamp series according to different standards: the red stamp represents the highest specification and first-class recording level of performing artists; Gold seal; Represents an immortal record with historical documents; Silver stamps represent cheap records or republished records.
The reason why RCA achieved brilliant results in the early stage of stereo has its special background. For example, when the classical music market is booming, record companies are willing to invest heavily in production. It can't be ignored that the war caused a large number of top European musicians, especially artists of Jewish descent, to immigrate to the United States, and the musicians that RCA recruited in the past, such as Rubinstein, Kafitz, Holovitz, Lai Na, Meng Qi, Federer, Van Klenberg and others, were at the peak of their art, so their records were precious and unforgettable.
On the other hand, the early sound was still a new technology, so that the sound recording engineer could not be lazy with advanced equipment, and could only make it by his own artistic accomplishment and technical foundation. RCA's sound engineers often use only two or three microphones for live recording, and can record the timbre of the command post without any processing in the middle. This kind of "doing nothing" production attitude is hard to see in today's new generation of sound engineers. Moreover, the equipment they used at that time were all electron tube products, and the timbre was quite warm and natural. In addition, RCA's recording venues are particularly beautiful, such as Boston Symphony Hall, Chicago Orchestra Hall, Carnegie Hall in new york and so on. , has excellent architectural acoustic characteristics, reverberation time and reflection time are very suitable, and the music recorded here naturally has a first-class sense of balance and space.
According to the records, the equipment used in RCA's early stereo recording included RT-2 1 quarter-inch dual-channel recorder patented by RCA. Each track uses a mono mixing controller to control Neumann U-47 cardioid microphone and M-49/50 non-directional microphone respectively, and the monitoring speakers are two speakers developed by RCA itself (the bass unit is 15 inch). Since 1956, RCA has been replaced by a three-channel recorder, using the 1/2-inch recording stand of Ampex 300. Of course, all power amplifiers and electronic equipment are electronic tube products. RCA's stereo recording is mainly based on the microphone placement method researched by Bell Laboratories (which began to study stereo recording in 1930s, and conductor stokowski was also the experimental object), and two or three microphones are used according to the needs of different music. At that time, RCA sound engineers thought that two microphones could simulate the three-dimensional sense of space heard by human ears, and the third microphone was used to capture the details of scenes and musical instruments. On the other hand, the number of microphones used in classical recording is increasing, sometimes as many as dozens. After mixing, the sense of existence is greatly reduced. This is a big secret that RCA's old recordings have no "canned taste" and sound lively and charming.
Compared with RCA's "living existence", Mrecury's "living existence" is said to be in front of the audience. The timbre of woodwind is bright, and the strength and impact of brass and percussion instruments are strong; The performance of transparency and sound stage is excellent; Only the strings are outstanding in texture, lacking a little warmth and softness. The latter's record sound is said to be based on the middle of the seats in the concert hall, with a good sense of depth; The texture of the instrument is not as direct and violent as the previous one, but the timbre of the strings is extremely sweet and shiny; The timbre of woodwind instruments is also very rich and pleasant; Brass and percussion are not very stable. Some records are very dynamic, while others are a little immature.
Because of the close cooperation between RCA and Decca Records Company in the UK, the recording of RCA in Europe is in the charge of Decca Ace Recorder Wilkinson, and its excellent effect can be imagined. In the United States, Richard Moore, the earliest producer, and Lewis Leighton, the sound engineer, recorded mono records together. Producer Jack Pfeiffer and sound engineer Leslie Chase were assigned to another group to record stereo records. Later, Richard Moore, Lewis Leighton and Jack Prever became the soul figures behind RCA. This group of "Three Musketeers" has witnessed almost all the glorious courses of RCA in the "golden age". Jack Preiffer, in particular, is the greatest contributor to the creation of RCA "live stereo", and we must especially mention him here.
Jack Preiffer joined RCA on 1949 after receiving a double degree in music and electronic engineering from the university. Soon, his talent attracted attention, and he was transferred to the artist &; Pepertoire's department began to deal with those difficult artists. The first female pianist he met, Randovska, was a headache for others. The old man who was recording Bach's piano concerto at that time was 70 years old. She didn't want to go back and forth to new york, leaving the record company at a loss. Jack Preiffer quickly gained the trust of the old woman after taking over, and simply asked the technical team to go to her home in Connecticut to record. Later, until the old man died, he regarded Jack as a confidant. The artists in charge of Jack Prever are conductors toscanini, Federer, Meng Qi, robert shaw, stokowski and Lerner. Violinists Kafitz, Sigetty, milstein; Pianists Rubinstein, Hollo, Van Clenburne; Singer price; There are also Guanelli, Tokyo Quartet and so on.
During his production career of more than 30 years, Jack Preiffer has won many record awards, including 1990 Best Producer Lifetime Achievement Award awarded by the International recording arts and Science Association. 1994 "Complete Works of toscanini" highest achievement award; 1996 Grammy Award for The Complete Works of Heifetz, etc. 1992 RCA's "Living Stereo" was re-released on CD, and Jack Prever was once again the producer. 1996, he was listening to an upcoming CD master tape of "Living Stereo" in the recording studio, but unfortunately he died of a heart attack, which is a model of truly doing his best to die.
In addition to Jack Preiffer, the most famous enthusiast should be Lewis Layton, the gold medal sound engineer of RCA. Among the reprinted "Living Stereo" series of CDs, his works are the most. Most of the recordings of Lewis Leighton's surgery keep intense dynamics, with far-reaching sound stage and excellent permeability. The most rare thing is that the orchestral works he recorded are soft in steel and have a strong faint sweetness.
As a large-scale record company with a long history, RCA is also a star-studded place in jazz, blues and pop music, with numerous treasures. For example, a piece of Lanyu House (movie number: RCA2584 18) has been recognized as a necessary record for testing human voice by the sound industry. From 65438 to 0987, after joining BMG Record Group, RCA's recording career has further developed. In addition to maintaining its leading position in the American record industry, it also cooperated with the "Melody" record company of the former Soviet Union to sort out many precious historical recordings of Russia. Recently, the company published a live-action version of Turandot in Beijing (film number: BMGRCA 74321606172), LD and 4-azimuth multi-angle DVD, which were staged in the Palace Museum in September 1998. In addition, RCA music production has become increasingly international, and some musicians, including China, have signed contracts under it, greatly enriching the artistic resources of this brand.