HAECO-CSG Beginning with Fool?

[Brasil_Nut]

Here's a question about Fool On The Hill...

Wasn't Fool the first A&M album to utilize the HAECO-CSG System for mono and stereo reproduction, regardless of the system used? How exactly did it work? I mean, if you listened to an earlier Lp marked "Stereo" on a Hi-Fi system, did you only get one channel? Likewise on an Lp marked "mono" when used on a stereo system -- what was the result of that? Just curious.

The prior thread about Fool On The Hill, the Rebound vs. the Japanese reissues, etc., made me wonder about the HAECO-CSG system. And I thought I'd heard somewhere that Fool was the first A&M Lp to utilize it.

I grew up listening to reels. My father had an extensive collection. Of course, save for a few early reel tapes, I heard the majority of everything in Stereo - always. I've always wondered about A&M's "new" System from the time I read about it on the cover of Fool On The Hill.

Anyone know? Thanks in advance.

Jon

 

[Mr Bill]

Not sure about the HAECO-CSG stuff -- Neil is the expert on that (To me it stood for Hiss Added Encoding Compression...).

But having mono and stereo LPs as a kid AND having both a clunky stereo and a single speaker mono record player I'll answer your other question. Playing a Stereo record on a mono system you heard the record with some phase cancellation. Playing a mono record on a stereo system generated more or less the same sound out both channels. The Haeco system was supposed to help reduce the phase cancellation when playing stereo records on mono systems...

--Mr Bill

 

[Harry]

Recent Corner discussions have touched on HAECO-CSG. They're here:

http://www.amcorner.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1282&highlight=haeco

http://www.amcorner.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1585&highlight=haeco

There's an easy way for Mendes fans to hear the difference between the CSG processing and non-CSG processing. Compare any "The Look Of Love" on the GREATEST HITS album with the original album's track. If you listen carefully with headphones to the opening vocal "The look of love is in your eyes, a look that time can't disguise..." and try to place Janis' vocals in your head. On the original album version (found on the newer Verve CD), she'll sound like she's distinctly in the center. Compare that with the CSG-ed track on GREATEST HITS. The vocals sound like they're somehow indistinctly split between the left and the right. That's the difference that CSG provided, that would prevent the phase-cancellation on a mono system.

Harry
...comparing tracks, online...

 

[Brasil_Nut]

Recent Corner discussions have touched on HAECO-CSG...

There's an easy way for Mendes fans to hear the difference between the CSG processing and non-CSG processing. Compare any "The Look Of Love" on the GREATEST HITS album with the original album's track. If you listen carefully with headphones to the opening vocal "The look of love is in your eyes, a look that time can't disguise..." and try to place Janis' vocals in your head. On the original album version (found on the newer Verve CD), she'll sound like she's distinctly in the center. Compare that with the CSG-ed track on GREATEST HITS. The vocals sound like they're somehow indistinctly split between the left and the right. That's the difference that CSG provided, that would prevent the phase-cancellation on a mono system.

Thanks for the info, Harry. I wasn't around a great deal when the original HAECO-CSG topic came up. I appreciate the reference and now understand the system much better than I did. I'll take you up on your advice and compare the two versions of "Look Of Love." Thanks again.

Jon

 

[Rudy]

Worst HAECO-CSG example I've ever heard is "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head"--the whole track almost sounds out of phase, even over speakers! A shame they didn't apply some sort of reverse phase-adjustment to fix it. (Which could make it worse, for that matter.)

My LP of Tamba 4's We And The Sea occasionally sounded like it had the processing, but it could just be the way it was recorded. (I think it was too early for the process to have been used on it.)

 

[LPJim]

I've got promos of SP 4157 (Chris Montez WATCH WHAT HAPPENS) and SP 4159 (Sandpipers SPANISH ALBUM). Both have gold oval shaped stickers on the front cover stating that the "CSG Process" was used.
It's possible FOOL was released before either of these titles, even though the catalog numbers were lower.
JB

 

[Brasil_Nut]

...My LP of Tamba 4's We And The Sea occasionally sounded like it had the processing, but it could just be the way it was recorded. (I think it was too early for the process to have been used on it.)

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. The entire album is muffled to me. "O Morro" has a great deal of tape hiss. Everything seems far away. Not clear at all. "We And The Sea" has better clarity, but it drops out every once in a while. I've noticed that "Dolphin" has a section in the middle of the song that completely phases out, then comes back. The worst-sounding song on the album has to be "Consolacao" -- it's really a mess. I've owned a couple of copies of WE AND THE SEA. All of them poor in sound quality. Even Dad's reel-to-reel copy suffered the same fate. A similar situation with SAMBA BLIM -- both albums were poorly recorded (IMHO).

Maybe Rudy Van Gelder wasn't quite sure what to make of Tamba 4? Almost as if the entire WE AND THE SEA album has a "filter" over it. I mean, Wes Montgomery's A DAY IN THE LIFE, DOWN HERE ON THE GROUND and ROAD SONG -- not to mention Wanderley and Benson's recordings were all recorded in the Van Gelder Studios. They sound just fine.

Any input on this, Neil? Harry? You guys seem to know the score on the A&M/CTI recordings.

Jon

...miffed to be muffled, online...

 

[Rudy]

To me, a lot of the CTi albums had an overly "warm" sound...like there was a hump in the mid-bass region that just muddied things up. When I transfered both of my Jobim LPs to CD, I did a slight EQ tweak reducing the mid-bass and to me they sound better and not so boomy.

I still say that parts of We And The Sea are in mono and were recorded elsewhere: "O Morro", "Canto do Ossanha" and "Consolation" sound much brighter and just about everything comes out of the center...except for the guiltar, which I feel was overdubbed at a later time at Van Gelder's. Notice how the stereo and tonal balance on these tunes does no match the other songs or Samba Blim. The Tamba Trio recorded for another label in Brazil prior to A&M. Notice too how "ambitious" all three of these songs are in comparison to the others (which fit more into the "easygoing jazz" that A&M/CTi was recording).

 

[Harry]

The best sounding We And The Sea has to be the recent Verve-by-Request re-issue on CD.

My first taste of this album came from a copy of a scratchy LP dubbed to cassette. Needless to say, it left me wanting something better. Next up came a fairly unplayable little jukebox LP. The opening grooves had some really bad pits in them, but playing it after the first few line, I ccan tell that the recording quality has that muffled sound that everyone mentions. The Japanese A&M released the album to CD a few years ago and I thought that was as good as it got. I think it was no-noised to eliminate some of the hiss, and the muffled overall sound prevailed. Finally in 2000, PolyGram/Verve did a remastering job and it sounds like night and day. This recording is bright and clean - yes there's some hiss detectable, but it's kept tamed in the background. The highs are finally in balance with the mid-range and bass, making the whole thing sound more natural.

The mono-ness of the tracks Neil mentioned are quite evident, especially with headphones. I still can't tell if it was intentional or not, but it surely is notieceable that just a lone guitar resides on the left channel, while everything else is dead-mono in the center on the opening track, "O Morro."

Harry
...happy with the Verve-By-Request version, online...

 

[Rudy]

One thing I noticed about the Verve version, too, was that there was more hiss on those "mono"-like tracks, where the others were more typical of the tape hiss found on Samba Blim (which also is a cleaner sounding version than the LP).