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From: dca@edison.UUCP (David C. Albrecht)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Re: SuperFi LPs (This does make sense folks!)
Message-ID: <463@edison.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Apr-85 12:51:59 EST
Article-I.D.: edison.463
Posted: Mon Apr 15 12:51:59 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 04:47:29 EST
References: <7000001@petrus.UUCP> <1593@ukma.UUCP>
Organization: General Electric Company, Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 31

> >   SSI plans to offer to the public the ultimate analog recording--
> > half-speed direct-to-disc LPs.  "We won't just be offering the
> > Chipmunks," Speakes said, "there are many instruments, particularly
> > in the woodwind family, that can be played one octave below score,
> > and sound natural when the playback speed is doubled."
> >
> 	Play the music one octave lower than normal (i.e. half
> the normal frequency) at half the normal tempo. This would allow
> the musician to play complicated passages with a greater degree
> of "correctness".
> 

I still feel this is more of a joke.  A good many instruments have a
different harmonic structure in different parts of the instrument,
taking a lower octave and transposing it will produce somewhat artificial
sounding instruments.
The attack and decay curve shape is usually not a variable that is
easily if at all adjusted (in a piano for instance).
Musicians will have to be fed intraveneous oxygen to sustain long holds
when played at half speed.  Any breaths will have to be carefully filtered
out as they would sound ridiculous.
Any sort of tempo expressiveness or dynamics will be difficult to transfer
to half speed.
Lastly, the finest performances are not identified by technical perfection,
they are rather associated with involved, expressive, exciting performances
(if you don't understand what I mean listen to the Telarc 1812 sometime).
How much involvement is a musician likely to have in a half speed performance.
Pretty silly if you ask me.

David Albrecht
General Electric