Just One of Those Things was, as far as I can tell, Billy May’s first foray into stereo recording at Capitol, and Nat Cole’s second, coming roughly 7 months after Love is the Thing.  It was also recorded very early in Capitol’s stereo history, undertaken at a time when many sessions -- including the two by May and Cole that took place two months earlier -- were still being recorded in mono only.  

 

From roughly 1953-1956, Capitol’s mono recording techniques were something of a marvel:  Sound that was immediate, comfortable, clear, warm, direct, and natural all at once.  Typically, a “conservative multi-mic” technique was used for mono, meaning (for these big band sessions) each section might have its own mic, and each member of the rhythm section might have a mic.  Compare this to, say, the later recordings of the Basie Band from the 1980s, in which literally every player had a microphone inches from the bell of their horn, and you can get some idea of how recording of a big band has evolved/devolved/revolved over the years.  In the years mentioned, Capitol was the model of taste and restraint, and their mono recordings from the time period still stand up against anything produced since then, in my opinion.  B.G. in Hi-Fi, despite being a 1954 mono recording, still astonishes with its realism and tone quality.

 

It was with some caution, then, that the engineers at Capitol moved into the two-eared world, knowing that they had a reputation to uphold.  At the same time they were experimenting with stereo, they also had to continue to put out a top-quality mono product for commercial release on LP.  Remember: These Cole/May sessions were taking place prior to the advent of stereo disc technology for the home, so getting a top-quality mono product into the hands of consumers was still “Job One.”  Stereo tape did exist, but keep in mind that, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hefty $12.95 price tag for a Capitol stereo tape in 1957 is equivalent to a $98.87 price tag today (May, 2010) -- and you thought those gold CDs were expensive!  When you compound the high price for the software with the high price and scarcity of good stereo tape hardware, it becomes evident that stereo tape was a niche market (to put it mildly) in 1957.

 

And so we arrive at Just One of Those Things.  The album was recorded over four sessions at the Capitol Tower in Hollywood, by an engineering team headed up by the great John Krauss.  While 1957 was undoubtedly an exciting time to be working at Capitol, where stereo is concerned, experimentation clearly caused some hair to be pulled out, as things didn’t always go smoothly.

 

A point of clarification:  I own this recording in three guises:  1.) In mono on an original gray-label Capitol pressing from their Scranton plant, an N1/N4 pressing made from dupe tapes; 2.) on stereo compact disc mastered by Larry Walsh as part of The Billy May Sessions two-disc set from 1993, which is a remix from the 3-track session tapes, and now (March 2013) 3.) The stereo/mono/3-channel SACD from Analogue Productions, mixed/mastered by Steve Hoffman.  Additionally, SFH members DJ Wilbur and Apileocole have sent along some samples from three additional sources:  The 1987 Capitol CD, also mastered by Larry Walsh; the recent German Stardust boxed set on Bear Family; and the LP reissue on the S&P label, remixed and mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray.  On the sample pages that follow, please note that I have intentionally reversed the channels on the Billy May CD, as I’m certain that the rhythm section should be on the left in stereo, not on the right as presented in that particular remix.  

Session 1 - July 10, 1957

As we go through these sessions in the order they were recorded, one thing will become evident:  changes were made to the stereo recording technique as things progressed.  At song #1, session #1, we can immediately break this myth that at Capitol in the early stereo days everything was a three mic affair:  A mic way up high on the left, a mic way up high on the right, and a mic for the vocalist.  While this often was the case, it clearly is not the case here.  A few points:

 

•Indisputably, there is a spot mic on the piano, likely an RCA 44.  In fact, in a move that was quite rare, that piano spot mic shares the center track with Mr. Cole’s vocal, meaning that when it came time to remix for stereo, any time the engineer needed to change levels for Nat’s vocal, he was also changing levels for the piano.  In essence, the piano and vocal are “married” on this song, and throughout much of this first session.  

•On this first song, the piano is a bit loud on Nat’s center track, in my opinion, which doesn’t help matters.  

•The upright bass is also spot miked, quite prominently so, to the point that it distorts at points in Walsh’s remix.

•The winds are all beautifully miked in stereo! It sounds to me like they are seated in something akin to “concert position,” meaning: saxes in front, low brass in row two, and trumpets in row three, more-or-less symmetrically splayed left to right.  Note that this is not the same “overall stereo miking” that would follow on albums like Sinatra’s Come Fly with Me a few months later.  Rather, it sounds like two condenser microphones (U47s?) as section mics on the winds, at least to my ears.  

•It sounds like there is a single spot mic on the, shall we say, “harp and small percussion” section.  That mic is lower in the mix in the stereo version than in the mono (where it is too strong in my view), but it is nevertheless there.

•There may be a spot mic on the drum kit, or in the general area of the drums and guitar.  It’s hard to tell, and I’m leaning toward “no.”

 

So, to my ears, we have five microphone for sure, maybe as many as seven:

 

Left track:

1. Small percussion/Harp (barely used in stereo mix)

2a. Drums (maybe - but I don’t think so)

2b. Guitar (another big ‘maybe’)

3. Bass

4. Left winds, relatively close and “present”

 

Center track:

5. Nat

6. Piano (and lots of it)

 

Right track:

7. Right winds, relatively close and “present”

 

Have a listen, from the Larry Walsh remix, and please take note of 1.) the dead-center location of the piano, clearly recorded on the same track as Mr. Cole; 2.) the location of the tuba, from within the brass section, slightly left of center; 3.) the wonderful tone quality and natural stereo spread in the saxes and brass; 4.) the tasty marimba sneaking through in the left channel near the start of the clip; 5.) the crystal clarity of the concert bell struck just before the fade at the end; and 6.) the warmth and prominence of the upright bass. Click NatColeSample1 1.mp3.

Isn’t that yummy?  What does it remind you of?  I’ll ask that question again further down this page.

 

Aside from a couple of nit-picky items (Why is the piano so loud and why is it on Nat’s vocal track? Why is the bass mildly distorted?), this is a pretty fine start to things.  Let’s look at the second song from the session:

Song #2 - “The Song is Ended”

 

Seriously, does popular music get any better than this?  Sadly, the topic at hand is technical, not musical, so we’ll save the Pop Music 101 for a different time.  

 

Technically, we have a mixed bag on this song.  Overall, the sound is still excellent, but now we have a hum in the left channel.  My initial guess is that it’s coming from John Collins’ guitar amplifier, but I don’t hear the hum at all in mono, only in stereo, so it was either a problem that cropped up during Walsh’s remix session (in the right channel of his reversed tracks), or it was a problem in the stereo chain at the original recording session.  Regardless, it is subtle, so not a huge deal.  To listen, click SummedMonoUse.wav.

Another technical curiousity:  Out of nowhere, we have about a 3db difference between  the left wind mic and the right for much of this song.  I’m pretty sure this is just a scoring issue.  For instance, if the first trumpets and first trombones are all on the left end of the row, things will tend to “lean” that direction a bit.  It also could be the seating pattern as it relates to the stereo mic pickup.  (More on this later in the website.)

 

The tuba is clearly spot-miked in the mono mix.  I think it may be spot-miked on the stereo mix, as well, but I’m not sure.  If it is, it is very subtly used.  Here’s a clip from the mono mix, and notice how on this song the tuba sound is very close, while the trombones are recessed by comparison. Click tubaMono.mp3 to listen.

That tuba spot mic was definitely not used on the previous song, so I suppose it may be the source of a hum in the line, but I doubt it, since I can’t hear the hum on the mono track.

 

Good news:  The piano and bass are both a little lower in level through the rest of the session.

Song #3 - “You’ll Never Know”

This is a track that did not appear on the original LP, but it does help fill in some of the technical pieces of the puzzle.   Remember my comment about the left wind channel being lower in volume on song #2 above?  On song #3, we have the tuba now in the right channel, and he’s either spot miked, or positioned closer to the right wind mic.  Regardless, he is more prominent, and he really helps to solidify that slightly-weak right side.

 

The tuba does raise a practical question as far as the stereo mics go, specifically: How many mics were available on the stereo chain?  I’ve heard from a reliable source that it was 6 inputs plus the split vocal mic, for a total of 7.  For this reason, I suspect that the emergence of tuba in the right channel on this track is due to a physical move within the studio, and not a new spot mic for stereo, as we already had 7 mics going by my initial count (which may be flawed, admittedly).

 

What was going on with the set-up for songs 1 through 3?

 

Something is causing the trumpets to have an open, airy quality that only occurs on this particular session but then disappears in following sessions.  It’s not bad on the later sessions, but it has a special quality here.  After much consternation, I think it’s probably just subtle changes in seating arrangement, physical location within the studio, etc.  Nothing more, nothing less -- although the Walsh mastering had me almost convinced otherwise.

 

Back to a question I raised earlier:  What did the first songs from this session remind you of?  They remind me of the tone and warmth of “classic Capitol mono” sound, but with stereo spread added, and I think the reason it has that sound is because it was miked like a mono session, but with two mics on the winds for stereo instead of a mono mic on the saxes and mono on the brass as would likely be the norm for mono.