On Friday, March 23, 2018 at 3:27:17 PM UTC-10, johneb...@gmail.com wrote:
> Recently, I've come across some discussions elsewhere that suggest that such splices and edits are very common, and have been for some time. If possible, maybe someone can point me towards a credible source with some information addressing this question.
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> One particular recording that was specifically cited was Stern's Beethoven violin concerto, which, it was alleged, was widely known to have nearly 400 edits in it. That just seems like an extraordinary number to me, especially in a work that runs fewer than 45 minutes (it would amount to an average of one every 6-7 seconds). In another discussion, a recording engineer said that a chamber group he recorded worked on just a few bars at a time, playing them over and over until they got them exactly the way they wanted them, and the recording was later stitched together from the many fragments, requiring dozens of hours of editing after the recording.
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> So, several questions:
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> 1) Has this practice been extensively used for many years? Is it more widespread now, since I'm guessing that it's probably a lot easier to do this sort of thing in a modern, digital recording facility?
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> 2) Are there some musicians who are known to have relied on it heavily, while others are known to have not done so?
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> 3) Was this practice known to be more extensively used by some labels, and less so by others? I could see how a really big name who is recording on a major label might feel some pressure about releasing a performance that is absolutely letter perfect, every moment, from beginning to end, but I find it really hard to imagine that the more "budget", off-brand labels like Vox or Nonesuch or any number of others would have invested dozen of hours in editing a recording back in the 50s, 60, or 70s.
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> 4) Are such extensively edited recordings regarded as, for lack of a better word, "dishonest" by those who are aware of the practice? I would have thought that professional pride would have prevented at least some artists
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> from engaging in this kind of editing, but maybe I'm being naive. It would also seem to me that it would make it more difficult to make a recording come across as coherent and cohesive when you're stitching a final product together out of many short snippets, but on the other hand, maybe that isn't really that much of a problem.

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.classical.recordings/c/RRhkXAxEDJY/m/BHt8KVTtBQAJ