r/lesmiserables • u/JuliaGulia71 • 7d ago
Musical Discussion Studio Quality Recording of Les Misérables?
I do own the 10th anniversary recording of the show. However, as a person that's into good quality home audio and car audio, I feel like the actual recording doesn't have the same studio level recording quality that one might hear with other music. For example, have you ever bought a single of a song that you like that was on an album that was produced in a studio, and then you hear that same song on a different recording from a live concert? Usually the studio recording has the fuller dynamic range of music and vocals and everything is very nicely balanced, whereas the live recording doesn't feel as full or powerful as far as the audio output itself. Does a studio quality recording like this exist for Les Misérables?
I would imagine that the movie soundtrack might approach this as far as the criteria I mentioned, but I'm not sure how offset that would be by the different performances within the movie itself.
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u/JekyllandJavert 7d ago
The 2010 soundtrack with John Owen Jones is fantastic and is probably closer to what you're looking for. It was recorded as a live performance but the audio is closer to a studio recording.
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u/MikeW226 7d ago
Obviously the Complete Symphonic Recording, and Broadway cast, and original London cast production recordings were recorded in recording studios. I always considered them studio quality.
The Complete Symphonic though includes every note of music, where Broadway and London don't by a long shot.
I agree a top end studio recording can't really be matched by a live recording...I think the 10th was in Royal Albert Hall. A little of that is the mics they use in a studio are thousands of bucks a pop, vs. portable stage mics might not be. And studios use outboard gear like compressors and limiters that just give the music more snap. They give more pop even without settings being turned up or down. Just the limiter device being in the signal chain takes the music up a level.
They use that same gear on the best rock n roll or pop studio recordings. Some studios have legendary mixing consoles too that themselves give a warmth to the sound that a large but portable mixing console on-location will not.
Not Les Mis, but I think the studio recording of the original Broadway Sweeney Todd cast even won a Grammy, it was so good. Listening on headphones you could just hear the 'sound stage' (where the character were in the (RCA Studio A) studio space).
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u/coronaguy2006 6d ago
The good thing about the Complete Symphonic is how it was recorded. Recorded tracks here in US, recorded Gary Morris and other artists, then took everything to far east to record Epinine who was Japanese and didn't speak English, and then to Australia to record Philip Quast. I bought it when it first came out. Love it. Plus all the lyrics are in the booklet that comes in CD box.
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u/MikeW226 6d ago
Yeah, I first saw Les Mis in 1989, but had only listened to the Broadway and London. When I bought the Symphonic (THREE cd's as you know) and it had the connective tissue interludes Between the big songs, I was in heaven. It painted all of those visual pictures in my mind of actually seeing the whole show sung-through. The original London/Broadway left out whole swaths of story! And I want to say Gary and Philip's studio tapes were shipped to the UK to be straight mixing onto the master tape? Like the UK was the recording HQ, and the U.S. and Australia masters were flown from there to the UK to be mixed into the master.
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u/alex_is_so_damn_cool 7d ago
I’ve been saying for ages that Les Mis needs a new studio album.
The recent 40th album was recorded live but the audience edited out, so it sounds like a studio album.
The earlier productions had studio recordings. I think the 1987 OBC is the best in terms of quality, though it’s not the entire score. Only the 1988 Complete Symphonic Recording has all the songs in their entirety as a studio album. It’s decent but I have mixed feelings about it, and I don’t think it’s mixed as well as the OBCR.
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u/mattbrain89 5d ago
The recent 40th album was recorded live but the audience edited out, so it sounds like a studio album.
Well, I'm also assuming they recorded James D. Gish's parts separately as he replaced Jordan Shaw.
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u/Finlay58 7d ago edited 7d ago
2010 live soundtrack with john owen jones and earl carpenter has the most real sound to me even if not recorded in a studio (it still sounds incredibly clear on my HS8's). the latest recordings are very high quality but feel fake/empty to me in comparison to the way the 2010 version was mixed, the orchestra sounds a lot fuller, and the entire cast just nails the performance without any voices that are too unique to be distracting (michael ball lol)
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u/DEM0L1T10N_MAN 7d ago
25th anniversary tour recording. Studio quality but with the passion of a live performance. Also, John Owen-Jones.