The Ultimate Tango Collection ToTANGO Restorations Version 5
ToTango Restorations Project delivers high definition Tango for DJ's,
collectors and audiophiles.
Let your customers HEAR that you care. ToTango Restorations Project
brings your milonga to life in a way your clients won't believe. When
it is a choice between milongas, yours will be tops.
* The Great Orquestas and Singers sounding clear and clean like you've never heard before; you won't believe the detail you'll hear in the music - it's full of revelations!
* Many rare, hard-to-find recordings will now be yours
* Every track is a totally new rendering, using new technology and
techniques refined over 10 years
* All tracks are carefully balanced for consistent volume and equalized
for a "dance hall" experience. You won't have to spend your time
adjusting volume or tone.
* You get great results, indoors or outdoors direct to powered speakers
or any reasonable quality audio / pa system. BUT you are really rewarded with top-shelf audio systems. Your system will never out-perform this music.
* Convenient packages from beginner DJ or dancer to serious collector
Files consistently named using the ToTango (c) protocol, by Orchestra,
Year, singer, song title. Now you can easily search and grab
tracks, tandas and requests on the fly, with any of the popular DJ
decks including MegaSeg, Zulu, J-River, Mixxx, iTunes and others.
See at a glance if the song is instrumental or vocal.
My main interest, of course, is in music for dancing. If a recording is made with the intention for one to sit and listen to it, it is not included in my Restoration Project.
This is not an academic collection, but rather a representative one.
Nothing is included to just bulk it up. My private collection is about 5 times bigger; what I offer to you is what a collector would want without hurting their ears.
Being a DJ, I take particular care with the little things. Everything is levelled. Each track ends at exactly the right time to fire-off the next one at the right moment.
One of the best things about Version 5 is the information in the file name. At a glance, you see the orquesta, vocalist(s), song title and year recorded. So every Artists's songs sit in chronological order in your folders. It adds a lot to the experience to hear how everything developed over time and also makes programming tandas a breeze.
The tango recordings which have come down to us vary wildly in quality, sound, level and duration. Even from the same year, any orquesta's recordings can range from not bad to thin and noisy in sound. I've evened all that out as much as can be done.
Available as a complete set; as "only the hits;" in carefully programmed tandas; and by custom order.
Delivered on DVD, external drive or CD (if a small order for only a few songs). Fast internet download for custom orders of 400 songs or less available.
Some audio samples below and more are coming.
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In the USA these days, they have Faux "News." In tango, we have faux sound. By which I mean: all these years of artificial echo, reverb, "stereo" effects and speed changes introduced since the 1950's by the record companies; let-alone all the noise and clicks and hiccups. My work is about getting rid of all of these and also every bit of thin-ness I can.
When I started this 10 years ago, the biggest issues were noise and speed discrepencies. I didn't like the artificial reverb and echo - but I hadn't heard enough old recordings to get a feel for how/when those problems got introduced. And, unlike noise, you can't take those effects away. You have to find source material without, or you're stuck with them.
I've been a professional audio engineer since I was a kid, so obvious things are ... obvious. As regards artificial reverb, the recordings of Tanturi and Fresedo bothered me the most. And as for delay effects, Fresedo and Troilo recordings were obviously really being screwed with. I loved the music, but started getting a real hate-on for how badly it was being treated.
Reverb and speed changes are easy to explain. Some guy at a record company decided he would "help" the music sound better. One guy's opinion thousands beg to disagree with.
The echo issue is entirely different. I am not able to assert definitively how/when it was introduced. After years of trying to figure it out, I am currently of the opinion that the engineers who recorded Troilo and Fresedo said, Hey - if we take the sound out through here and put it back through here, we get this neat effect. Do you like it? And both Fresedo and Troilo said, yes. (If they were ever actually asked. So many imponderables). Surely they must have had some input on the sound of their records. (Hopefully). Well - I'm being charitable here talking about records made in 1940 because Les Paul is accepted as having been the first to do it at the end of the 40's.
The thing is: in the manufacturing process later, the delay effect was increased (decibels acting exponentially). And the further away from the first Masters the duplications got, the more the effect was increased. Just the way things work.
So, guys like me 70 years later are stumped. I have recordings by both artists which have NO echo on them - even though I have versions of the same recordings from the record companies with a lot of echo.
And there are songs by both of them on which I have a slight echo as if it was done on the original Master and I have never heard versions without it.
All of which leads me to believe that Troilo and Fresedo themselves liked the effect. I'm just guessing based on my decades of recording music in the studio and knowing how it goes.
So - why do some songs we know have echo also not have any in other versions? Yikes. No definitive answer from me at this point in time. All I can say.
As regards tango music, I believe artficial reverb "distance" does NOT make the heart grow fonder. Not mine, anyway.
Over the last 20 years, the record companies began releasing CD's where they introduced a digital spatial effect to make it sound "bigger" (making a "stereo" effect by delaying one side by a few milliseconds). It works - after a fashion. At first listen. In reality, and in a milonga, there's a BIG problem with this processing. You can hear the music - but it's not there. It's like you're trying to dance inside a hole. And if you switch from that sound to pure mono on the next record, it all has a diconcerting effect.
Stereo recordings came into being in 1958. So, every recording before that time which has a "stereo" effect has been artificially altered. I alter them back to pure mono. They sound a LOT better. My Masters are all 2-track mono. MONO if that's how they were recorded. 2-track for maximizing/consistency of sound after I've done my processing. No "holes," please!
Most of the additions in V.5 come from 1925 - 1940, but there are great new tunes from the 40's and into the 50's.
Canaro, Laurenz, D'Arienzo, Donato, Di Sarli, D'Agostino, De Caro, Calo, Demare, Fresedo, Pugliese, Tanturi, Troilo, Biagi, De Angelis, Rodriguez and Orquesta Tipica Victor have been re-done totally for v.5. Many songs have been added for the first time for each artist.
I've been working away happily and see (hear?) the light at the end of the
tunnel; ecstatic to have filled-in a lot of holes in orquesta's repertoire.
One for instance: I'm all excited about how the De Caro catalogue has come out, I've added so many new songs. But - another tango tragedy: he hardly recorded anything from 1931 - 38. Nevertheless, I've more than doubled what I had of him and it's heavenly. A lot of it sounds like more Laurenz - never a bad thing!
My latest tools are so sophisticated, it did take a while to not only figure
out how to use each one to the max, but just as important, how to use them
in a chain the best way. I tried a lot of different ways over the last many months. All time well
spent.
So, I sit with all the devices working with each other, and for each song
just make an adjustment along the chain. Really great for getting
consistency where there isn't any.
You know, every day I really enjoy doing whatever band I'm in the midst of. I do it with
enthusiasm. There's a delicate issue about the odd orquesta: giving your all to music even if it isn't your favourite.
De Angelis, for instance. Never been my fav (aside from the valses and 4 songs from the 50's). But, some good stuff and some people really like him. I had a good time doing him as best I could for a few days. Really good
results. Felt satisfied. Ended-up with 133 tangos all nicely cleaned/enhanced (plus vals/milonga).
But, really - when I played a new tanda of his 50's music in a milonga, I said - who needs it? Give
me the GOOD stuff! However, he's a major artist and every dj needs to have his best work - sounding good. (I know other dj's do as I do and use him early when things haven't really got going yet). Any fan of his asks me for De Angelis, I'll blow their socks off. Any era or singer they want. That's the general idea of what I do with every orquesta that made tango music in Argentina, Uruguay and Paris.
Naming all the files with year of recording and singer(s) was a really good thing to do. Helps one
understand the music and what to do with it much better. I feel every dj
in the world who uses this music will be much better at it. I am, anyway!
The embraceable you violin solo/duet section from Troilo's Guapeando (1941).
The Mission has been to improve the quality of all the glorious tango tango music recorded in Argentina. The need was certainly there, but no one was taking the bull by the horns when I started. It was an idea whose time had come; and a lot of people now buy some software and give it a try for themselves. It's pretty interesting for me to hear what these folks have been doing. Trust me - a lot of it is painful to listen to. And a lot of THAT has been done by big record companies. So, it's a jungle out there, as always.
Every artist is represented by more - and more beautiful - recordings than were previously in my restoration series. It's much more comprehensive. I certainly wish to maintain credibility and decorum, but I know for damn sure nobody has ever heard the great tango hits sound like this before. I can't tell you the pleasure I've been having every week playing it for the first time in the milonga. It's sort of an other-worldy experience to hear the music sounding like it was recorded yesterday in comparison to what we are used to.
My collection of material to choose from is now so huge that I've selected the best from sometimes dozens of versions of the same song that have been released in various forms since they were recorded. Bulk of raw material inventory has eliminated a previous limitation.
The system of Upgrades for past purchasers in place for the last 3 years was actually an idea that came from my customers. I kept going and folks wanted to get the latest. The upgrade from v.4 to v.5 is substantial, both in terms of quality and number of new tracks. But it's like night-and-day from older versions than v.4.
When I listen to it now, what I hear is that everything sounds sweet and soft in a punchy way - and in comparison, previous versions sound harsh and rough. All this due to the combination of better source material and the latest audio engineering tools. And, time.
There'll be a list for v.4 owners of what's changed and added in v.5. There'll be lots of opportunity to hear samples and, of course, the list of what the entire package consists of.
I do get a lot of requests for the music to be organized in tandas. Just for my own dj work, I have started from scratch with it all and created new playlists which have taken on new life because the selection is wider and more comprehensive AND better organized. So, I think anyone getting ToTANGO tandas is going to feel the rapture! ;-)
(Samples of the new restorations as you scroll down this page. More to come).
The other thing I've spent a lot of time on is correcting labelling/information errors.
In the old days, I myself had a somewhat loose system of identifying dates. I had a good reason at the time: I grouped the SOUND of an artist's material so one wouldn't get caught going from rich-to-tinny if dj-ing on the fly. My quality has improved, so that point is now mostly mute. Now, I put the year of the recording in the title along with the name(s) of the singer(s). And it's GREAT to have all the songs sitting in the actual year grouping from start-to-finish. Fun to hear all the styles and ideas developing step-by-step through the years.
The record companies have treated some vocalists particularly badly. You've always gotten whole D'Agostino albums with the singer identified as Angel Vargas when it was in fact Tino Garcia or Ruben Cane or Raul Aldao or Roberto Alvar, for instance. Confusing and disrespectful, to say the least.
As with selecting individual tracks from comparing many sources, I've been comparing discographies from various sources to weed-out errors they all come up with.
Speaking of Angel D'Agostino and Angel Vargas, it has always driven me absolutely crazy that their wonderful music sounds SO technically bad in what we have. They made a lot of recordings, so there are enough to choose from that they are represented in milongas, BUT - hard to program when they are so thin and noisy and the sound varies so much from recording to recording.
The big problem is that, like Biagi, D'Agostino loved dynamics and intricate subtlety. All the time he went really soft and then really loud. When there is scratchiness, all the beauty is lost. You can't hear the soft parts for clicks and the loud parts are distorted to the point of pain.
Here is, I believe, how he would like us to hear his music. It's an example of what I mean when I wonder if a lot of what I have now will ever be improved upon. I'm just sayin'.
Download Rondando tu esquina (1945) and enjoy! We're listening to a wonderful old 78 RPM record that actually sounds pretty darn good now, all things considered. You play this in a milonga, they're right there in the room with you.
Personally, I've always held Angel D'Agostino in the highest regard. His music has meant a lot to me. In the very beginning, before I knew anything about tango and didn't even know there was such a thing as milonga, I fell absolutely in love with it the first time I heard his (their) El Porteñito. I couldn't believe the joy it made me feel.
And I've always thought he was brilliant to elevate himself above others, in a way, by keeping one of the very best singers with him (Angel Vargas, of course) for so long. What a pair they made! I have often lamented that other orquestas are not appreciated as much as they deserve; but much of it can be put down to the fact that people just don't LOVE their singers. You could say there were others as good, but surely nobody was BETTER than Vargas at evoking a passionate love of tango tango music. And I find their milongas and vals sublime.
Really, I'm pretty hard-pressed to find a reason or the time to play the recordings D'Agostino made with other vocalists (I carry 90 wonderful Vargas tracks with me. There is no time to play them all. And you want to hear one of the other singers who are not a happening thing? I don't think so). I make them available, because it's not up to me what people are going to use. However, that being said, I regularly play the vals Ella with the singer Garcia from 1955 because it moves people. It's the closest D'Agostino got to his former magic with Vargas.
(I believe D'Agostino was a tango dancer - unlike most musicians. He really knew how to suggest possibilities of movement in the tender embrace)!
As with the biggest-name artists whose recordings have driven me crazy because they are so noisy and distorted, I have always been mad to hear artists like Salgan and Gobbi without all the depressing flaws that have come down to us. It seems a lot of recordings made from 1945-55 suffer from that old needle always being in the red when the sessions were happening. There was distortion, and then there was DISTORTION. Not a good thing to have underneath noise. So for 60 years, Gobbi's recordings have sounded dreadful.
(Note: My versions are NOT too loud - recommend you set your speaker volume at a comfortable level for them. The cd versions are often at too low level. Or, rather - they are all over the place).
Tanturi - Castillo "Madame Ivonne" from CD. Believe-it-or-not, this HAS noise reduction on it (causing all the unpleasant weirdness to the sound). Why I do everything differently than everybody else. I'm trying to preserve - not destroy!
The two imperatives in restoration: noise elimination and sound enhancement/levelling. A couple of examples of improvement where there wasn't a lot of noise ...
Although there were 18 clicks in Biagi's "La Maleva" (I DON'T take out bandoneon clicks!), the major deficiency is the thin sound. This is the part of what I do that you would never hear unless you compared it to the original.
La Maleva from CD. This is clean. It just should sound better, in my opinion. You have to fill the room to make the dance experience really felicitous.
Needless to say, having all the songs in your library levelled so you aren't reaching for the volume control all the time is a treat! (I've found many CD's which have an output level of -10 dB. Yikes. That's huge. If you played it up to hear it, your next cut would take your head off). Of course, it's the re-mastering enhancement which goes into it before the levelling that is the magic.
And then there's the speed issue ...
People who are crazy for collecting tango recordings notice right away the variance in speed of the same recordings issued by different companies over time. Sometimes, they didn't know they were doing it necessarily; but sometimes, they cranked it up to make it more "exciting." These folks obviously weren't dancers!
What I dare to say (if I may) is that what I do in restoration is to put one IN THE ROOM WITH THE ORCHESTRA. The best place to be if you want to dance!
