[ChurchBass] [GEAR] Buzz Feiten tuning (reply)
Posted by: billbolton <billbolton@...>
> Methinks more likely... and this is *way* extrapolating, they just did
> what we did in our band not many years following... we just tuned to
> each other.
The pianos in the EMI studios were definitely kept in tune, plus the
EMI recording engineers and George Martin would have cared about
tuning even if the performers didn't. EMI had a long tradition of
exacting standards in terms of its technical and musical production
facilities. Its very unlikely that were any accidental differences in
tunings on the actual recording performance of the Beatles.
While the record master post production process was supposed to be
carefully controlled, in most cases speed synchronisation of the
available mastering equipment, both tape an acetate, was based on
power mains frequency locking. Its a simple fact that while power
mains frequency is very stable *over longer periods of time*, even
today it does drift around by small percentages over shorter periods
of time. So a recording mastered at a 49.99 Hz low (UK Mains
frequency) low would show a different tuning on the released album
than would one while the main frequency was at 50.01 Hz high.
Now a days studio recording equipment tends to be locked to SMPTE
timecodes which are generated using a minimum of high quality crystal
locked time source. In the case of large studios complexes the SMPTE
time code generators are often locked in someway to an atomic time
source.
> I sometimes carried a pitch fork to keep from getting *too* far
> off, but quite frankly, we just didn't *care* that much.
C'mon I bet someone carried set of a set of pitch pipes... not as
accurate as a pitch fork but small, cheap and still something to keep
you in the concert pitch tuning ball park!
Cheers,
Bill
Bill Bolton
Sydney, Australia