"Richard L. Hess" wrote:
In some respects, I think we can credit Jack Mullin as the earliest craft editor, working with scissors to edit Bing Crosby and Burl Ives shows in 1947 on his Magnetophon transports with his own electronics.
And yes, you can hear some of them.
Even before then, MGM was editing on film to put together its soundtrack albums and cut production numbers down to three minutes..some of those edits sound as if they were done with an axe.
Were the Columbia pitch changes due to start-of-reel/end-of-reel speed changes or what?
That must have been the reason. Some glaring ones: Dinu Lipatti's Chopin Waltzes, very last track (side 1 I think), major pitch change right on the last note. EMI finally corrected that on the CD issue but we had to put up with that pitch change for over 30 years before that happened.
The worst edit I ever did was when we had the organ blower on for the main take and then we did a pickup at the end and someone had turned the organ blower off....
The worst editing on a best-selling LP is on Vladimir Horowitz's so-called "live" recording of the Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto on RCA. Parts are from the rehearsal, and the piano moves.
dl