The Work, the Performance and then the Sound. Jimmy Lock remembered

James Lock, the veteran Decca engineer, died on February 10. Back in September 1996 he gave an interview to Gramophone's audio editor John Borwick. In memory of a major player in the Decca story we re-visit that interview here …

John Borwick Jimmy, I know you have been a balance engineer at Decca for a very long time; do you now have an official title?

James Lock Officially I am Chief Engineer and Acoustic Adviser to the Artists and Repertoire Department. That last part means that I am responsible for the selection of the majority of the halls and locations that we record in.

JB We'll come back to the important question of venues in a moment: but when did you actually start at Decca?

JL January 1st, 1963: although I had spent some time at IBC and Saga Records, Decca was the one company I had always wanted to work for and I felt very lucky to be taken on. Arthur Haddy was in charge and I found myself acting as tape operator to begin with for that famous engineer Kenneth Wilkinson. Learning from Wilkie, technically and how he dealt with the artists, was a great experience for which I am very grateful. The classical recording department was split at that time with Wilkie doing all the London, Snape and Italian recordings while Gordon Parry was in charge of the team working in Vienna and Roy Wallace was responsible for the Geneva recordings with Ernest Ansermet and the Suisse Romande Orchestra. The Vienna team stayed out there for months at a time to record and edit the 1958-65 Culshaw/Solti Ring and many other major operatic albums, and had an appartment so that they could live more or less on top of the Sofiensaal where the recordings were made. The practice in those days was to record and edit the tape masters on location as there were only limited facilities at the recording studio in London.

JB How about the microphone techniques: had they already been established at that time?

JL Well, the Decca 'tree' array was regularly used as the basic approach to orchestra and opera recordings. As you know, it comprises a bar about six feet long with the main Left and Right microphones at the ends and a Centre mic suspended on a cross-bar about three feet in front. These are usually joined by a pair of wider spaced outrigger microphones to help cover the full width of the orchestra. At first directional mics were used on the tree but we soon began experimenting with omnidirectional mics, the Neumann M50, and this made a big difference. The Ring, for instance, was recorded with directional mics as were the Ansermet/SRO sessions in Geneva recorded by Roy Wallace (the inventor of the Decca tree). I took over from him there in 1964 and changed to omnis which produced a more open orchestral sound. The directional mics were perhaps better suited to opera but omnis gradually took over for most recordings.

JB Further ancillary mics are usually visible during all sorts of recordings.

JL Yes: the five mics across the front form the main system and that basically is the sound. If the conductor has got the balance right, it gives you a clear picture with perspective and depth, usually with the addition of mics for the basses and woodwind. Take that away and you've got nothing. Any spot mics are really only sweeteners and kept very low down in volume.

JB Have new mic types resulted in any important changes?

JL Yes: the Neumann M50 has been with us for about 40 years now and we were still buying them until the mid-1970s. The built-in circuitry has been continually updated and they still form the basic Decca sound. Unfortunately they are very rare these days. We have about 40 still in use but have introduced others as necessary, especially Schoeps which are slimmer and used almost exclusively for live recordings.

JB We have become more and more aware of the level of residual noise as CDs, for example, have brought us the possibility of much wider dynamic range.

JL Yes: LPs got cleaner and quieter, Dolby noise reduction removed much of the tape hiss, and noise in mixer consoles got better, provided you used the gain structure correctly. Then along came digital recording machines, still used with analogue mixers, and finally digital mic amplifiers and mixers. We were of course much more aware of the studio noises such as chairs, foot movements, pages turning, ambience and of course edits. However, technology has developed so rapidly in the digital era that almost every disturbance can be eliminated. We at Decca keep a record of the mixer type and gain settings used for each recording so that we can get back to the conditions that give least system noise.

JB I know that you also have printed log sheets for microphone layouts because I pirated this idea for my Tonmeister students at Surrey University. Keeping these session sheets on file helps another engineer going to the given venue, or anyone planning to work on the session tapes. Now how important is the venue itself?

JL The venue is crucial to the whole thing. If that isn't right then our microphone system doesn't work. At Decca we don't compromise on halls. It was always decreed, right through from John Culshaw and Ray Minshull to our present Vice President, Evans Mirageas, that venues are of vital importance. We don't just make a recording in a place that happens to be convenient. We look for a hall first and then make the contracts with the artists. I believe that you can never make a good sound in a bad hall.

JB Have you any favourite venues?

JL Kingsway Hall London, was my favourite. One could write a book about all the world-famous recordings made there. It was a great tragedy that it was allowed to disappear in the way that it happened and recording in London has never been the same. I sincerely hope that one day it might be restored. I particularly like Vienna, I suppose because I worked there for so long and have many happy memories of successful recordings. The Konzerthaus I prefer in many ways to the now redundant Sofiensaal which is still standing but in a rapidly deteriorating state. There are several excellent recording venues in Vienna. Other favourites of mine are the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, St Eustache in Montreal, the Davies Auditorium in San Francisco, Victoria Hall in Geneva and the Jesus-Christus Kirche in Berlin.

JB So what about Montreal and the St Eustache Church?

JL I'm quite proud of finding that venue. It took me nearly a year and a half, looking at about 40 locations. I had to judge the acoustics with all the pews in position and try to imagine it set up for recording.

JB I think of the St Eustache sound as a kind of brand loyalty factor in itself, aided and abetted of course by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal musicians who Edward Greenfield described in Gramophone (reviewing their Daphnis recording as "the best French orchestra in the world".

JI I started the early recordings there with Ray Minshull as producer and then had to hand over to John Dunkerly. This was due to the fact that Solti and the Chicago Symphony were recording flat out and the Medinah Temple was becoming a hindrence from the recording point of view. Orchestra hall was liked by Solti and the orchestra but considered by Decca to be too small and dry in acoustical terms. I had a meeting with Sir Georg to discuss the problem and agreed to record there if could be given a free hand to improve the acoustic for recording. This was granted and we set about putting a purpose-designed extension stage of about 20 feet in position. Also the seats were covered in wood. The whole operation now takes about four hours to complete and the results speak for themselves. Solti was happy (to be back in his 'home'), the orchestra was happy, the chorus was happy, and we were happy. Working conditions in Chicago became much better all round. Naturally I was saddened not to be involved in the repertoire being recorded in Montreal as a lot of it was music that I had recorded in Geneva with Ansermet and the SRO. However, Montreal is in excellent hands.

JB Does live recording have a future, compared with the more controlled conditions of a studio session?

JL Absolutely. If you had asked me that ten years ago I'd have said very, very reticently "maybe". We had problems previously, not just with audience noise, but with the different internal balance between rehearsal and performance, and changed positions of soloists. We've now perfected a much better way of recording live. It has to be a multi-track approach so that individual microphone failure or imbalance can be corrected. The sound we can get now is as good or better than at a studio session. Musically speaking the performance at a live concert can be fantastic"compared with the studio version made take by take.

JB Audiences nowadays seem to be much better behaved: I mean coughing can be seriously annoying.

JL It helps if you warn them that the concert is being recorded and, in Chicago for example, they have cough sweets in the foyer.

JB You mentioned multi-track recording, particularly for live shows. The eventual mix-down to two-track stereo used to involve losses and increased noise in the old analogue-to-analogue days but I suppose digital processing avoids these problems?

JL There is still some degradation related to dither, for instance, but we load each track to peak level and so we push any inherent noise down when we transfer to stereo. Anyway we also go for a two-track mix at the session. This can be played back to the conductor and others, perhaps between a first and second evening performance, as often happens with opera for example, so that the second version can correct any mistakes heard in the first.

JB I suppose it helps too that the original recording is now in digital and remains in the digital domain through the editing and other post-production stages.

JL Well, I am still a two-track person and like to use the stereo mix when I can. Multi-track is a help to me but whenever possible most of my records go out as the original two-track. You've just been looking inside our newly rebuilt reduction room with our newest acquisition the AMS Neve Logic 2 digital recording console. This is fully automated and computer controlled and is going to be an enormous help in all our postproduction work. I believe that the Meistersingerrecording you heard us working on today will prove to be a landmark like the Ring was 30 years ago. We recorded it live but the final version should sound like a good studio production with all the effects and drama beautifully in place –thanks to multi-track and automated digital remixing.

JB Have you used the new Decca Optical Disc Recorder yet? It seems to have distinct advantages over other digital recorders.

JL Yes I have and it's phenomenal. Of course it doesn't do anything about the musical balance, which is always going to be up to the engineer. It's just a carrier but in terms of instant access to takes for playback, logging take numbers and even keyed-in comments by the producer or engineer, it works more quickly than artists and engineers can think.

JB Are there some recordings you're particularly proud of?

JL To take just a few examples, the recital disc of Régine Crespin singing Ravel's Shéhérazade and Berlioz's Nuits d'Eté with Ansermet/SRO, the first Norma with Sutherland and Horne, the Karajan La bohème and Madama Butterfly, Mahler's First Symphony with Solti, Der Rosenkavalier VPO/Solti, Mahler's Ninth Symphony Chicago/Solti, Britten's Death in Venice and his three Church Parables, and more recently Così fan tutte with COE/Solti recorded live in the Royal Festival Hall. In a way every recording is special to me. The essentials for a great recording were always defined to me by Arthur Haddy in the following order: the Work, the Performance and then the Sound.

JB Stereo had already begun when you joined Decca so you didn't have to make the transition from mono to stereo.

JL In the early 1950s Decca seemed to have a lead on other people, though only a very small group were involved. Arthur Haddy was at the forefront of stereo developments and Wilkie was absolutely his own master. Most of the balance engineers now at Decca went through a period of working with Wilkie and carry on his 'The Decca Sound' tradition. Also Cyril Windebank, in charge of the cutting rooms, along with cutting engineers Tony Hawkins, Harry Fisher and Ted Burkett were very good judges of sound, and feedback from them on one's balances was invaluable.

JB Then along came digital.

JL We began with that famous 1979 New Year's Day Concert in Vienna which I engineered straight on to two-track live using our new Decca digital tape machine with an analogue backup. There was great excitement; it was also Boskovsky's 25th Anniversary of conducting the New Year Concert, and scheduled to be his last.

JB You've just reissued that on CD, and I must say it sounds marvellous. From then on I suppose digital recording became the norm?

JL Well there were arguments for and against it and I think the antidigital people did have a point, remembering that analogue at its best is fairly unbeatable. The early digital sound was often hard and fatiguing if you compare it now, but we were not doing anything different with our microphones. Digital has now got better, cleaner, softer, and in my opinion is fully acceptable.

JB The analogue master tapes can be splendid but we could never sell 30ips tapes as a consumer product and the transfers to LP and cassette did lose quite a lot on the way. That's why it's often so rewarding to go back to analogue masters for reissue on CD.

JL I transferred the Solti Ring from analogue to digital and the famous Karajan Die Fledermaus. It generally helps on big productions like that if the balance engineer on the original sessions is involved on the transfers.

JB This 'cleaning up' business; does it work? On occasion it seems that electronic processing has got rid of the hiss but degraded the sound of the music.

JL Well the latest transfer technologies are wonderful but they must be used properly by an engineer with lots of patience and a good ear. The real object of the exercise is to recapture the original sound and therefore it is a painstaking task to align the original masters as accurately as possible on the analogue machine. This means frequency response, speed and azimuth; and also of course undoing the majority of splices and re-editing. Once in the digital domain, the joins can be re-edited more effectively.

JB Tell me about your most recent recordings.

JL I did two recordings before Christmas, recitals by Angela Gheorghiu and Renée Fleming. We've just started Orfeo with Christopher Hogwood, Cecilia Bartoli and Uwe Heilmann. Then there's the Meistersinger we're now editing and Walküre, so my plate's quite full.

JB To what extent do you hand over the unedited tapes to the people here at the Decca Centre and wash your hands of them?

JL Before any recording goes through to editing it should be tidied up as a final master: the artists, producer and ourselves will have heard it and finalized the best takes. With the modern technology available, the selected takes that constitute the master can be rebalanced and finessed to such a degree as to make the editing easier, allowing the editors to be more creative musically.

JB Any thoughts about video?

JL Video is now occupying all our minds. Were going to be recording L'Elisir d'amore in Lyons with Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu, firstly in the video format, at two live performances, and then in special sound-only sessions. It will be the first time that we've actually recorded the same project for the two media separately. In other words the CD is not going to be the sound taken from the live videotaped performances, because quite frankly I find the sound from live performances of opera very difficult to accept without a picture to help explain the bangs and crashes and out-offocus sound. I have long argued for a better sound for video productions. I've been involved in Video recordings since the early days when the soundtrack was recorded first with excellent results, but the synchronization was appalling. We've never done this double recording thing before and I welcome it as giving us the chance to get the best of both worlds, to the benefit of purchasers of both the video and the audio CD.

JB That leads us nicely to the question of new media.

JL Five-channel discrete surround sound is the coming thing. We've just prepared the reissue of our 1990 World Cup "Three tenors" VHS tape in Dolby Pro Logic. I worked on the original recording and enjoyed transferring it to surround sound, but this new version is not compatible. You can't play the Pro Logic version successfully on a stereo system, so we're keeping both formats. Also this year we're scheduling certain recordings for surround sound but insisting on five discrete channels to avoid the problems of the current matrix systems.

JB Will DVD, the proposed new high density CD format, make the difference? It is promising to deliver five or more discrete channels.

JL I find that very exciting. We all remember surround sound, SQ systems and others on disc, and how inferior they made the stereo playback signal. That's why Decca never issued quadraphony on LP, though we made experimental cuttings and recorded multi-track masters for possible future surround use, the Haydn symphonies with Dorati, a complete Tannhäuser, Madama Butterfly with Karajan, etc.

JB So the five-inch audio CD will never be replaced by DCC or MD?

JL No. I love the CD even though the booklets tend to be a bit disappointing compared with the larger LP version. However, apart from that small grumble, I find this the most exciting time in the recording business. We are able to plan ahead by setting down our recordings in such a way that they anticipate and can readily be transferred to any future consumer format.

JB Thank you Jimmy. Now I'll let you return to your lovely new mixing console and Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

Read Valerie Solti's tribute to Jimmy Lock