Most Realistic Recordings

I don't know in what numbers Robert Fulton (speaker and amplifier designer of Fulton Musical Industries---FMI, as well as recording engineer) pressed his ARK label LP's, but they are very special. Minimalist mic'ed, recorded in local Minnesota churches, Fulton managed to capture the sound of pipe organs and choirs far, far better than have most big-label engineers.

In his choir recordings, you can hear each individual voice---superb inner detail. His organ recordings are astounding, the "shudder" of the massive sound waves created by 32' pipe organs as you have rarely heard in recordings (if you have loudspeakers/subs which can reproduced 16Hz ;-). His recordings also capture the sound of the space in which they were made as well as I have ever heard.

While digging in LP bins, keep a look out for anything on the ARK label. 

I was present when retailer Walter Davies played Gordon Lightfoot’s great version version (my favorite) of "Me And Bobby McGee" for Bill Johnson of ARC, who was at Walter’s shop delivering and setting up a complete ARC system for his newest dealer (Johnson, a pilot and small plane owner, visited his new dealers via flying himself to them!). I was stunned by the sound quality of the recording (as well as it’s musical worth), as was Johnson. Bill said "Hey, that IS a great recording". Walter gave Bill the LP, and I returned home to San Jose and bought myself a copy of the Lightfoot album that contains the song (If You Could Read My Mind). I of course still own and play the album. Used copies are not hard to find, or expensive.

The recording is also great for featuring the bottleneck guitar playing by the master of the instrument, Ry Cooder. I also use the track for component evaluations. Reference demo material!

I wouldn't say it's exactly realistic, but it sure is exciting: Talking Book by Stevie Wonder. Stevie plays every instrument on some tracks, including drums (and blind at that!). "Superstition" rocks like mad, especially the clavinet and drums.

For voice and acoustic guitar, get a copy of Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens. However, make sure it is the version on Analogue Productions (available as a single disc at 33-1/3 RPM and a double disc at 45), as it is the only version on LP that was mastered properly (by Bernie Grundman): without Dolby A processing.

For years HP raved about the version on Island UK (the "pink label" pressing), which perplexed me; my copy sounded weird, the overtones characteristic of Cats' Ovation guitar and the drumset cymbals strangely muted. The kick drum was also absent it's weight and punch.

Bernie Grundman discovered, when mastering the album for Classic Records in the mid-90's, that the original mastering had been done assuming the recordings were made using Dolby noise reduction. They weren't! All released versions of the album were issued with their high frequencies depressed by the Dolby playback equalization and compression!

Oh yeah, forgot about that one Herb! Took me years to find a copy of For Duke after HP raved about it so much. It was going for pretty big money there for awhile.

@edcyn: Damn, I'm sure then we've seen each other, as I shopped at the Classical Annex on Sunset regularly. The main guy in Weezer worked in the Pop store, and Axel Rose in the video store. One big happy family ;-) .

When Weezer hit big, the main guy was asked about working at Tower, and described it as a nightmare (I think he got picked on by a bully employee). The main office sent a memo to every Tower forbidding them from participating in any Weezer promotion from that moment forward. 

@edcyn: In the mid-90’s District Supervisor Bob Fetryl offered me the Panorama City store to manage, but I had heard about the drive-by-shootings the store had experienced. No thanks! Bad neighborhood, and I loved my BMW 528e ;-) .

For those who know the sound of an old harpsichord, the recordings of Trevor Pinnock performing works by Scarlatti, Vivaldi, and various members of the Bach family will love his LP’s on the UK label CRD. Fantastic music, fantastic sound!

For the sound of the cello, get a copy of Janos Starker performing J.S. Bach’s Suites For Unaccompanied Cello. The Mercury Records original is almost impossible to find (and very expensive when it is), but Speaker’s Corner has a great 3-LP reissue (retailing for around $100), and Analogue Productions a 6-LP (45 RPM) version ($200-ish).

For the sound of a drumset, there is the old standby: The Sheffield Drum Record, a direct-to-disc LP on Sheffield Labs. Studio great Jim Keltner on one side, Ron Tutt (most well known for his work with Elvis Presley) on the other.

For stringed instruments, few commercial recordings come close to the sound Kavi Alexander captured of Ry Cooder and B.M. Bhatt improvising together, released on Water Lily Records, and earning both Cooder and Bhatt Grammy’s for Best World Music Album in 1994. The LP was mastered by Kevin Gray (who has done a lot of LP’s for Analogue Productions, including the entire Capitol Records Beach Boys’ catalogue), and serving as Technical Advisor was the late, great Tim de Paravicini, designer of the EAR-Yoshino amps and pre-amps. Kavi’s vacuum tube recorder, by the way, was fitted with tubes from another late great, Roger Modjeski of Music Reference and RAM Tube Works fame.

And don't forget Muddy Waters Folk Singer, available in a couple of pressings. I have the old version reissued by MoFi, but I'm sure the current one on Analogue Productions is even better at presenting Muddy's voice and acoustic guitar. 

James Boyk was (and perhaps still is) a music teacher at UCLA, and recorded himself (using a pair of ribbon mics in Blumlein-fashion into an Ampex 351 recorder) playing a Steinway piano in a recital hall at Caltech, releasing the recordings on his Performance Recordings label.

James is himself an audiophile, and used the QUAD ESL as his recording monitor loudspeaker. I don't know how hard the PR LP's are to find, but they're worth looking for! VERY high quality recordings, very natural sound. No electronic equalization, compression, or limiting employed. 

I myself have made recordings in a similar (but more financially-limited) fashion, using a pair of small-capsule condenser mics directly into a Revox A77 recorder. Those recordings sound more like live music than do all but the best of my LP's and CD's. Make your own!