Music recordings

Today is Bela Bartok's 100th birthday. Lots of his music on all classical FM stations around, I am recording so many things. Good that I got those CrO2 tapes with their improved recording quality. A pity only that my recorder does not have manual control. The automatic gain control kills all the dynamics; when the music is quiet, the hiss comes up. So when I listen to the music tapes, I keep my hand at the volume controller, and I do manual dynamic enhancement (turning down when the music is supposed to be quiet, turning up when it is loud. Stupid that I have to do that. Damn the automatic gain control!