Over the last few months we have been busy preparing for our first stereo release; Leonid Kogan Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61.
Played by Leonid Kogan and the Paris Conservatiore Orchestra Conducted by Constantin Silvestri.
The tapes arrived from EMI France and the original master tapes in excellent condition.
The source used was the all valve powered Lyrec T818 Tape console. This machine has been extensively restored (see previous posts) and has the flexibility to play tapes in both mono and stereo. The tape heads are interchangeable between mono and stereo and the console features both mono and stereo valve amplifiers. It also has the advantage of a preview head allowing “varigroove” (essential when cutting long ochesteral sides). The mono cutting amplifier in the console is an all-valve Ortofon GO541, the stereo cutting amplifiers are all-valve Ortofon GOS601’s. The Lathe is the Lyrec SV8 with interchangeable mono and stereo cutter-heads. For mono we are using the Ortofon DS522 and for stereo the Ortofon DSS731.
The artwork was a slow process with incorrect sleeve samples supplied initially (fig. 5) without matching board and out of spec., so new board samples were requested. New tooling was required to create the correct hand made fold over to match the original (fig. 4). The correct sleeve fold (fig. 6) was approved once we had inspected the new sample. Each sleeve was hand folded for the main run of 300. Laminate front is also correct to the original.
fig. 6 (Incorrect sleeve sample)
All liner notes were re-typed and a letter pressed galley proof provided to copy-check and approve (fig. 7 – 8). Final letter pressing of sleeves due to commence this week of July.
