jim anderson

Mike, I'm sure that by the time the Pink Panther came along, Al was on to other things. He recorded Peter Gunn (though I haven't heard a good transfer of that-I still prefer my vinyl copy), Experiment in Terror, Hatari!, Days of Wine and Roses, and Bachelor in Paradise for Mancini. (Al may have also recorded Mr. Lucky and Breakfast at Tiffany's, too). There is an excellent XRCD transfer of both Breakfast and Charade by Akira Taguchi I can recommend the 3 cd set "Henry Mancini-The Days of Wine and Roses", too. It has good documentation of all the sessions. I believe Jim Malloy started his Mancini collaboration with "Charade" (not bad, eh?).

b3-er, I can say that I've only seen them and haven't heard them. I've been told from friends that they've managed to get close to the classic rca sound. Fortunately, the studios that I work in have many of the original 77's and 44's in excellent condition. the one thing that I have discovered over the years, is that those mics sound best in bi-directional pattern, rather that cardiod; they open up and sound much warmer with both sides open (duh!). I'm always amazed when I go to use them and have to get out a screwdriver and give the old metal plate a turn. the one recent ribbon that I've not been impressed with is the Royer. I find myself favoring the Coles, when given a choice. For me, it's another one of those cases where if all you heard was the former, then it would be acceptable, but when they're put side by side, there's no comparison.

jazzhound, microphones are a personal choice, a personal tool and each engineer uses them in their own way. any studio worth anything has the usual compliment of neumanns, sennheisers, beyers, shures, akg, rca etc. the better the studio, the better the mike locker. one should never have to ask: do you have a u-87, a km-84, a u-47 (tube or fet), a u-49, a dx-77, a 44 (in fact, they should have at least 2 of everything-one of something never helped anyone), etc. i have an extensive mike collection of my own and it's all the kind of equipment that a studio would never pop for: Brauner VM-1`s, DPA 4006's, 4007's, Sanken CU-41's and CMS-2's, Coles 4038 ribbons, Neumann USM-69 etc. i got tired of going to a studio and finding out that the high profile client (eric or pat, for example the kind of client that you only have to use one name) in the next studio had booked all of the good stuff (or found out that they might advertise that they had a certain esoteric microphone only to find out that it hadn't been working in years) as far as changing techniques from analogue to digital, i never thought that way, to me a recording that would work in dig would work in analogue-i would have tried to match the project to the format i still like 2" 16track no noise-now there's a fat sound (or is that phat?) so, core microphones, and some of these are going to seem obvious: SM-57, SM-58, U-87, MD-421, MD-441, RE-20, U-47, Fet-47. DX-77, 414, C-12, C-24, KM-84, (i can never remember the numbers of the new neumann line: 149's, 184's etc) and 3 M-50's if a studio can find them!!

greetings, any questions?