REEL-TO-REEL REVIEW

Janine Elliot takes a listen to Mendelssohn Octet, Op.20 on the Chasing the Dragon label and reel-to-reel tape.

Listening to a new recording from Chasing the Dragon is much more than just an exercise of musical enjoyment. It’s a learning experience, and one that I always relish the chance at experiencing. It might be a learning curve of direct cut disc vs reel-to-reel sourced LP, or an adventure into binaural, or listening to the same music on WAV and DSD and hopefully hearing the difference. This new recording of the Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) Octet in Eb Op. 20 is one such example because as well as hearing the Locrian Ensemble led by Jack Liebeck play this highly engrossing work, they also perform the sweet Gypsy Folk Song “Two Guitars” by Ivan Vasiliev (1810-70), rearranged for octet by David Ogden, recorded in four different microphone methods simultaneously for you to decide which is the best. So, the performances are exactly the same, only the microphone techniques are different. More on that shortly. This recording is available on reel-to-reel, DSD128, 24/192 and later this year on two vinyl records with the first 33rpm LP side B recorded at half speed and the second LP playing at 45rpm. It also comes complete with a 40-page booklet about how it was all recorded.

The flamboyant Mike Valentine from Chasing the Dragon is not new to the audio world, having had a worthy career at the BBC (his last job was setting up Live Aid stage mics) and now photographing deep in the ocean for major films such as the last 5 James Bond movies, Star Wars Episode 1, Trainspotting and Bourne Supremacy, to name but a few. His contribution to recorded music via Chasing the Dragon is second to none and is now a major business in its own right. Mike is lucky to have access to reel to reel and digital recorders that would envy the audiophile, and he brings them along to his recordings, this one taking place on February 5^th at the Henry Wood Hall, South London. As well as a Studer A820 ½” 30ips recorder he uses the excellent 6-channel Nagra VI recording at 24/192 and 2 Tascam DA-3000s; one recording the Binaural head and the other recording DSD128. Each of the recorders uses a different recording technique; the Mendelssohn and the Gypsy Folk Song use two 1950’s AKG/FLEA C12 Valve microphones in spaced pair mode set to “omnidirectional” 18” apart with a Jecklin disc (a disc covered in sheepskin which separates the sound arriving at each mic creating a better stereo image), and the Gypsy Folk song is also recorded using three other microphone set-ups; Firstly, modern DPA 4006A transistor microphones similarly as spaced pair, omnidirectional with Jeckin disc, secondly another pair of C12 valves but this time set to “figure of eight” Blumlein configuration, placed one above the other, and finally a Neumann KU100 transistor dummy head Binaural microphone – appropriately wearing a covid19 face mask! All microphones were placed at the same spot at the edge of a semicircle of musicians. Cabling was by Vovox for the microphones and Nordost for the line-level feeds. Mike is particularly keen on keeping the sound as pure as possible and includes his favouring of analogue and particularly reel-to-reel. I asked him if he liked digital and he told me “well have you ever seen able to put a cow back together from a hamburger?”. Good point. That said, the Nagra and Tascam are excellent machines.

The Henry Wood Hall, in Trinity Church Square in Southwark, is a major rehearsal and recording studio in London and has an excellent natural reverb, meaning these recordings were all going to sound great with no need for added artificial reverb.  It all sounded especially good on the 15ips ¼” ATR MDS-36 reel to reel tape supplied for review played through my Graham Audio BBC LS5/9s. All of Mike’s recordings are excellent and this one was to be no exception, both acoustically and in performance. The Mendelssohn Octet is a great work to choose and highly unusual orchestration for the time; this is one of the very first octets, and to think this was recorded in 1825 by a 16-year-old Felix. Scored for four violins, two violas and two cellos the famous third movement was later transcribed by him for orchestra as a possible replacement for the minuet in his first symphony.

The players are all highly professional musicians in their own right, and what made this recording particularly interesting for me in a musician/audiophile sense, was that they were all playing instruments less than 12 years old. Indeed, leader Jack Liebeck’s violin was only made in 2021! The musicality of the performance would suggest very early Italian masters!

THE TAPE

This review concerns the excellent ATR MDS-36 3600ft reel-to-reel tape version for £360. I guess it’s important to talk a little about tape to understand why these recordings sound so good. Recording on reel-to-reel tape now is so much more advanced than it was in the 1970’s. The headroom afforded by elder Zonal, Agfa/BASF, TDK, Maxell, Philips and others was much less than the strength of signal you can now put onto the tape without distorting (“reference fluxivity”). At 540nWb/m the ATR MDS-36 tape used for mastering and for the copies is twice that of the 1970’s. That means that much more sound can be put on the tape without the need of horrid Dolby A or B. This allows for more dynamics and excitement and less hiss! Similarly, for best performance of new tapes it is worth having the operating level able to accept these higher levels of magnetism on the tape. Machines have internal regulation settings (eg 250nWb=0VU) so a machine calibrated at 250nWb/m playing a tape recorded higher at 320nWb/m will play back louder on your machine (+2VU). In this review I used three tape machines that are set at different levels to hear if this excellent recording played on all three. Of course it did, but I had to reduce the output level on the Sony TC766-2 a little. My rebuilt Ferrograph Logic 7 worked a treat. From the master tape a copy master is produced and it is from that that the 10½ inch copy tapes are made for resale. Studer A820’s and Sony APR5003’s make up the arsenal of machines at Mike’s disposal and all editing was carried out at Air Studios in London, where the direct cut double-LP was also made.

THE MUSIC

Having the musicians placed so close to the microphones gives a highly intuitive performance and you really feel you are part of the octet, but it still sounds realistic. Unlike many of Mike’s “live” performances, any noise between movements has been edited out, and there are no yells of excitement at the end – as I experienced in several direct-cut discs in the past such as “Quentin Collins – a Day in the Life”! This was a very well-behaved performance but no less exciting. For this recording session, the complete Mendelssohn was performed twice through complete and then some retakes of little sections where necessary. Personally, there is nothing worse than having endless retakes of sections of music and splicing it all together to make a mishmash of music with no personality. This was going to be an “as live” performance, so if there are any minuscule mistakes then that is part of being live. The performance on this tape was excellent – and only once did I want to hear slightly more violin 1 – with a good dynamic range and sensitivity from the musicians when needed. Indeed, the musicians were so in tune with each other they could have been joined by an umbilical chord; the vertical writing of power chords performed with split-second accuracy by each of the musicians. The powerful but still controlled first movement (Allegro) was indeed played with both sensitivity and power, this movement lasting almost half the duration of the complete work. Each instrument is clearly defined in its own space allowing each melodic line to be heard with excellent clarity. The animated second movement (Andante) starts with some onerous C- chords before the melodic lines begin, turning it quickly into a major key. Then it is sent back violently – for a 16-year-old boy composer – back into a minor key. During the lovely major melodic lines, I had to close my eyes and listen. I didn’t want to be disturbed by colours and objects in my listening room. Whether minor or major key, the musicians had a full understanding of this great work and were able to convey the composer’s wishes, the best I have heard this work, with lovely solo work from Jack and the other musicians. The recording level and positioning of the microphones was perfect and the depth of the bass and clarity from violins sounded superb on tape. Where the second movement is a deep expedition between major and minor, the third movement (Presto) livens and lightens thing up immensely, despite it also beginning in a minor key (G minor). This is the best-known movement of this work and even ends up as an alternative to the third movement of his first symphony (which he conducted in its first-ever performance, in London, in 1829). Only in a few places did I feel the top D’s on the lead violin were not quite as clear as I would like.

The fourth movement (Presto) starts with a burst of low notes from the cellos before getting joined by the violists and then the violinists. Here there are intricate melodic lines – an 8-part fugato – carefully carved away by the musicians. Here again, there are lots of conversations between the instruments, not just between each group of instrumentalists; this couldn’t work just as a quartet. All this was perfectly clear and beautifully reproduced on tape. Parts of the second and third movement can be heard again in this closing movement, as can quotes from Handel’s Messiah “…and he shall reign forever and ever”. This is a truly brilliant performance of a brilliant work that should be heard more. The recording quality is excellent, and at £360 ties in with other company prices.

FOUR PERFORMANCES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE 

Now to the Gypsy Folk Song “Two Guitars” by the Russian composer Ivan Vasiliev, rearranged for octet. This is a lovely short work lasting just a couple of minutes but sounds so different using the four microphone set-ups. My favourite was the first performance using the two spaced-pair valve C12 microphones. There was an excellent amount of dynamic range and musicality which seemed better than the other microphone setups. The second using the spaced pair of DPA 4006A transistor mics didn’t quite sound so fluid and musical, though it was close. The third version using C12s figure-of-8 just sounded to me abnormal and very spaced. Finally, the KU100 binaural head didn’t have quite such a good dynamic range and didn’t sound to me so real as it did later when I used headphones. But hey, the choice is up to you to see which one you think is the best! This is a great learning curve to those not used to different microphones and microphone techniques.

CONCLUSION

Mendelssohn said of the Octet in Eb Op.20 that musicians must strictly adhere to playing with plenty of louds and softs “more strongly emphasized than is usual”, and the musicians do take this to heart as does Chasing the Dragon, ensuring an excellent noise floor and plenty of ff’s that I had to watch my VU meters on a number of occasions. Only once did I hear a very slight overload on one of my machines but that machine wasn’t able to take the extra headroom afforded by the ATR tape. This is a very energetic performance that sounded extremely lifelike and engaging on tape.  Recorded at 15ips CCIR on a lovely red metal reel, this is one recording I will have in my collection.

Price: £360

Janine Elliot

Review Equipment: Ferrograph Logic 7, Sony TC-766-2, Revox B77 (reel to reel) Synthesis Roma 98DC (KT88 power amp), Music First Audio Baby Reference (pre-amp); Graham LS5/9 plus Townshend Supertweeters (speakers); Sennheiser HD650 (headphones); Esprit, Tellurium Q, Ecosse and Townshend (cables).