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Old 9th May 2020, 2:50 pm   #61
Craig Sawyers
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

Continuing my picky monologue about the number of pieces of classical music. Considering Western music, from Medieval to Modern there have been slightly more than 100 composers (at least those that are remembered). Multiply by (say) five to take into account Eastern composers, to give 500 composers worldwide. Suppose each composed on average 100 pieces of music for 50,000 compositions. Suppose further that each has been performed 1000 times.

That gives a rough estimate of all classical music in all interpretations as 50,000,000. As a continuation of a thought exercise, suppose each of these were recorded on CD's, and each of those 50,000,000 fits on a single CD with 650Mb of storage.

Thus the entire classical music and interpretation output is just a number 3.25 x 10^16 Bytes.

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Old 9th May 2020, 3:13 pm   #62
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

Back on topic please.
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Old 9th May 2020, 3:46 pm   #63
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I realise I was sailing close to the wind, Paul!

I'm actually listening to Tubular Bells as I type. Both better and worse than I remember. Bits are clearly hitting the end stops of the VU meters, and there are rather irritating timing errors. And you can hear when an instrument comes in too loud and if then turned down (or he was using a compressor). But given when it was recorded, and the relatively primitive overdubbing technology it is not that bad.

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Old 9th May 2020, 4:15 pm   #64
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Originally Posted by m0cemdave View Post
Yes, but Virgin were running an import duty / tax scam that kept their costs down (until it was discovered, after which it was only the old school tie that saved RB from doing time...)
"Old School Tie"?
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Old 9th May 2020, 4:31 pm   #65
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Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
I realise I was sailing close to the wind, Paul!

I'm actually listening to Tubular Bells as I type. Both better and worse than I remember. Bits are clearly hitting the end stops of the VU meters, and there are rather irritating timing errors. And you can hear when an instrument comes in too loud and if then turned down (or he was using a compressor). But given when it was recorded, and the relatively primitive overdubbing technology it is not that bad.

Craig
Yes, we have to remember what recording used to be like before the computer age, esp. in the world of home studios. Getting something absolutely perfect was not easy and as such for a lot of artists small mistakes were not worried about, esp. as studio time was expensive.

Jean Michel Jarre did his classic album Oxygene on an 8 track machine, no sequencers (well there was the minipops drum machine plus the AKS and the RMI Harmonic Sequencer had arpeggiators).
The delays were done using a revox tape machine and as such because of the way he did it the songs had to be either one of two BPM's, as that's what was obtained by changing the two position speed selector. Plus an awful lot of white noise (from the VCS3/AKS iirc) was used esp. during the bits between songs as it covered up the relatively high noise floor!

Even more interesting was that before he got the 8 track (so everything pre-Oxygene) he used four two track tape machines manually synched by starting them all and using his had on the reels to slow them down as needed to get them all at the same point, he reckoned that he could get about 4 minutes of recording like that.
Later on he had Michel Geiss modify the machines so that they could all be started at the same time with one button.
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Old 9th May 2020, 4:34 pm   #66
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

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I realise I was sailing close to the wind, Paul!

I'm actually listening to Tubular Bells as I type. Both better and worse than I remember. Bits are clearly hitting the end stops of the VU meters, and there are rather irritating timing errors. And you can hear when an instrument comes in too loud and if then turned down (or he was using a compressor). But given when it was recorded, and the relatively primitive overdubbing technology it is not that bad.

Craig
There are some deliberate compressor effects of course.

The achievement isn't that it's all technically perfect (it's certainly not) but that it's as good as it is, given the technology available at the time. We have all become used to layered production now that everything is done in the digital domain, but the loops on TB are exactly that, loops of tape marked with chinagraph pencils and held together with splicing tape. All the levels are set by blokes twiddling faders.
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Old 9th May 2020, 4:54 pm   #67
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Tubular bells is tubular bells, warts and all, and it's still fun, and also an instant trip back to what you were doing in that era.

For me, miles and years vanish and I'm back in Rolls-Royce's trainee accommodation on Filton airfield. One of the guys there alternated between TB and Curved Air. No-one complained. Focus 'Janis' puts me in the student union lounge back at uni. The smell of freshly baked bread gives a car park in the sixties in Bridlington. I can put an X on a map for all of these with a few metre's precision. The connectivity in memories is strange. But tubular bells is one of those things that marks a waypoint for a great many people.

I know where I was when I heard Kennedy had been shot, where I watched the first moon landing (A scrap TV22 I'd repaired for myself) and where I first heard Dark side of the moon.

We navigate our memories by reference to these things.

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Old 9th May 2020, 5:50 pm   #68
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I suspect that I'm one of a select few that have never listened to this, other than catching the occasional excerpt. Oh well...
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Old 9th May 2020, 6:09 pm   #69
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For me it brings back memories of the common room at college where it seemed to be on loop playback. At the time it didn't really rock my boat, but I bought it all the same. Years later I now enjoy it without any pretentions to be 'in'. 2001 A Space Odyssey was much
the same for me, couldn't make head nor tail of that at first!
SJM.
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Old 9th May 2020, 6:22 pm   #70
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I suspect that I'm one of a select few that have never listened to this, other than catching the occasional excerpt. Oh well...
Me neither, Bill, so you're not alone.
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Old 9th May 2020, 6:32 pm   #71
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Tubular bells is tubular bells, warts and all, and it's still fun.
Exactly, and the technological limitations are part of the whole. Having started when the state of the art was the block and blade (or, where I learned, the brass scissors and the V-splice), I have to pinch myself occasionally to realise just how far things have come in terms of manipulability of sound.

Around 1990, I was on attachment as tape-op at a regional centre. All around were tearing their hair out trying to make a particular line of a song line up as the first clean audio at the end of another tape, the whole forming the peroration of the programme. After half a dozen put-of-sync attempts done by the machine counters, I piped up and asked them to let the dog see the rabbit. Having lined up the two bits of tape at the required end point, I then marked the tapes with chinagraph, turned them over and played them backwards to the beginning of the sequence, taking care to start and stop the machines together. Once stopped, both tapes were marked again, turned over and lined up on said marks. Telling the panel SM to throw the fader up at the appropriate point, I started the tapes. It worked first time, but the whole farrago took half an hour. Today you could line it up in a second or two on a DAW.

Trouble is, the more can be done, the more is expected. I've just done a job which involved reconstructing a 1953 broadcast from three disparate domestic recordings, one of which was a mike-and-speaker job. Using software, I matched the speeds and frequency characteristics, adjusting noise levels as required with more software, and sorting out abrupt level changes in the DAW playlist. Three days' work for twenty minutes' material, and all of it was in the realms of science fiction thirty years ago.
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Old 9th May 2020, 10:51 pm   #72
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

As my system still not set up let alone even knowing where to look for my original copy of TB I decided to cast around internet as I have not listened to this in at least 2 decades.

I soon found on youtube a session recorded by BBC November 73

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXatvzWAzLU

Tank tops tea cozy headware shoulder length hair, frightening I looked like that back then

Cheers

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Old 9th May 2020, 11:24 pm   #73
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
I realise I was sailing close to the wind, Paul!

I'm actually listening to Tubular Bells as I type. Both better and worse than I remember. Bits are clearly hitting the end stops of the VU meters, and there are rather irritating timing errors. And you can hear when an instrument comes in too loud and if then turned down (or he was using a compressor). But given when it was recorded, and the relatively primitive overdubbing technology it is not that bad.

Craig
Yes, we have to remember what recording used to be like before the computer age, esp. in the world of home studios. Getting something absolutely perfect was not easy and as such for a lot of artists small mistakes were not worried about, esp. as studio time was expensive.

Jean Michel Jarre did his classic album Oxygene on an 8 track machine, no sequencers (well there was the minipops drum machine plus the AKS and the RMI Harmonic Sequencer had arpeggiators).
The delays were done using a revox tape machine and as such because of the way he did it the songs had to be either one of two BPM's, as that's what was obtained by changing the two position speed selector. Plus an awful lot of white noise (from the VCS3/AKS iirc) was used esp. during the bits between songs as it covered up the relatively high noise floor!

Even more interesting was that before he got the 8 track (so everything pre-Oxygene) he used four two track tape machines manually synched by starting them all and using his had on the reels to slow them down as needed to get them all at the same point, he reckoned that he could get about 4 minutes of recording like that.
Later on he had Michel Geiss modify the machines so that they could all be started at the same time with one button.
I was lucky to get a near perfect copy in 1997 when hardly anyone wanted vinyl, so I only paid £3 for it.
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Old 9th May 2020, 11:46 pm   #74
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

I remember back in the day an old mate of mine who bought Tubular Bells, said I must listen to it he lent it to me and I took it home, I did listen to it....for about two mins then it was out with my Temptations Greatest Hits LP, never quite understood all the hype about it let alone all this stuff about compressed recordings perfect recordings and all that stuff....

....If this was a bit distorted or compressed or whatever would it really matter....not one drot for me...Wow hats off to Cab and the Nicholas Bros. it's way before my time too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4_ziUFgXOw

Now that's what I call a performance.

Lawrence.
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Old 10th May 2020, 12:03 am   #75
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Default Re: Tubular Bells

I think this thread has run its course now. Thanks for all comments.
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