Recordings to check left/right on speakers

quote:

Originally posted by James Hamilton:
I am not sure if my speakers are correct left/right ...
or
b) Says that the guitar/trumpet/xylophone/celeste/... is on the left/right in a particular recording.

Forgive me if I am telling you the obvious, but on most classical orchestral recordings the violins will be on the left and double basses on the right. (You may find a few with violins on both left and right, but you'll never find any with basses on the left.)

If you have Pinball Wizard from Tommy by the Who, the acoustic guitar intro is on the right (to the point where the left channel sounds dead), the electric guitar definitely comes in on the left!

Regards

quote:

but you'll never find any with basses on the left.)

Not actually correct. Klemperer adopted the layout pioneered by Beethoven of having the double basses directly behind the first violins on the left of the stereo layout, as perceived by the audience. The second violins are naturally on the right with the celli immediately behind them.

Boult used this arrangement from time to time according the the shape of the stage in certain halls, most notably the Royal Festival Hall.

Boult wrote lucidly on the reasons why this is a ggod layout, and expressed the view that the ideal was what the Vienna Phil have in the Musikverein, where the basses are at the back under the organ case. Boult would use this arrangement for large string orchestra performances in the RFH, as being the most conducive to good self-balancing and the best ensemble.

The case for putting the double basses right by the first violins [on the left] and as such adjacent to woodwinds is also one of improving the ensemble between the top line and the bottom line of the orchestra, and if these two are well together, all the rest of the ensemble improves with no extra effort.

I once produced one such stereo recording with Klemperer [at a dem], and was assured [by someone who knew no better] that the layout was wrong! I tried to gently point out that Beethoven pioneered this sensible arrangement, and Klemperer was something of a Beethoven specialist in his time!

Others who used this layout were Toscanini, Furtwangler, Bruno Walter, and Weingartner. It has largely fallen out of use nowadays, though Vernon Handley still uses it where the stage allows for it. Handley was a pupil of Boult's.

George

PS: The easiest way to tell if "left is left" is to turn the balance knob to the left or right and see which way the balance goes.

When Welser-Most brought the Cleveland Orchestra for the festival in 2004 for three of the most thrilling concerts I have ever heard and seen, he arranged the basses in a straight row, raised up at the back of the orchestra. As with the rest of the bad, they bowed in synchronisation with breathtaking, military precision and visually they appeared to be the engine driving the orchestra forwards. I'm not really doing them justice, but if you ever get the chance to see and hear them do.


Before we get to recordings, I take if your amp doesn't have a balance control - as that should tell you.

As to recordings. I'm going to suggest a non-classical one. First up is Queen with Breakthru. About 30 seconds in, as the main there is a guitar (bass, I think, though someone will doubtless now correct my ignorance) that plays a 7 note phrase, first on the left, then the right, then the centre (indeed, this track ones told me I head wired up my hi-fi wrong as i listened and thought, that isn't right).

regards, Tam

For Jeremy,

Klemperer conducting the first part of the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica Symphonyy, and you can dsee how he has the orchestra set out with the double basses behind the first violins - on the left for the audience, here.

George

It's the nick-name of ther Third Symphony of Beethoven.

It was the first really massive symphony lasting nearly twice as long as the classical Symphonies of Mozart and Haydn of only ten or twenty years earlier.

I played you the "Clock Symphony" of Haydn, which is number 101, at your house which is probably twenty five minutes long, whule the Eroica is usually about 50 minutes long in performance.

It is also semi-descriptive, though not really programme music. The second movement is a Funeral March, and the Symphony was dedicated briefly to Napoleon [Beethoven was a bit of a revolutionary] and it took Beethoven to see that Napoleon was just another mad militaristic dictator for him to remove the dedication. His wry comment later would be that he had already written Napoleon's Funeral March.

For some this symphony represents all that is greatest in Beethoven's Symphonic Music! For myself I think Beethoven never stopped improving as he matured.

ATB from George

Eroica is heroic in German.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Eroica is heroic in German.

Actually, it's heroic in Italian - though no doubt George will find an obscure single instance where it is from the Latvian!
cheers

Noted.

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

I don't have a copy of Tommy [thanks Jeremy] but I do have Queen [thanks Tam] and I will use this track to set my setup is correct.

Actually I have a NAC-82 and I can check the speakers are corrected correctly with the balance control [as suggested .. thanks George] but what I am really concerned is if I have the CD player [non-Naim so uses RCA plugs] connected correcly i.e. with all the various connections do I hear the left-hand channel from the left-hand speaker [and vice versa].

James H.

Dear James,

I have a non-Naim CD player, and the first time I put it right to left on the RCA ouputs. It is a confounded nuisance!

ATB from George

If you have "Quo Live" check out Caroline. It's exactly as if you were watching them. Parfitt kicks off with the rythmn guitar on the left (as you look at it) ... Lancaster joins him on bass from the right and then Rossi (lead) and Coghlan (drums) arrive centre stage.

Just like the Odeon, Clark St, Edinburgh May 79 ... (and possibly every performance since it was released)

Cheers
Scott

Eric Clapton's 461 Ocean Boulevard starts with the first guitar part from the left speaker and the next from the right.