Album of the Evening

I am listening to a unique jazz album.

Salute to Bunny Berigan - Rusty Dedrick All Stars

Artist: James Taylor

Album: Sweet Baby James

Widespread Panic

Ball and Dirty Side Down

HDNet showed a mini-concert of Judas Preist doing a live performance of their classic album "British Steel" from beginning to end.

Was this without commercial breaks ? Otherwise it doesn't count I think.

Brian Bromberg - Wood.

One of the best recordings I know, were it for capturing the bass well.

Album: Arvo Pärt - Alina

Artist: Vladimir Spivakov

This ECM recording is, to me, one of the most beautiful pieces of music written in the past 50 years. If you have not heard it, I urge you to do so - asap.

Cool! When I finally discovered iTunes (2007?), I did use the iTunes DJ and shuffle function. But later on, I returned to my old habbit of playing complete albums. I'm no fetishist about it, when I get bored, I change to another album. I'm also not the type to sit down and close my eyes to listen. Instead, I aim to surround my life with music. Good music.

So past Sunday, the whole family had things to do in the house: wife (accountant) got behind with work and the kids are in the midst of exams, each were in their "own space". And the weather was bad, so I spent my time reading the weekend newspaper from a to z and even got some (estimates) paperwork done myself. All this while listening (with moderate level not to overpower my housemates in adjacent rooms) to:

Cabaret Voltaire:

1/ 1974-1976 (CD 1992 with their earliest collected work)

2/ The Conversation (2CD 1994 including a 53' (!) track)

3/ Hai! (1982 Live In Tokyo)

4/ International Language (CD 1993)

5/ The Living Legends 5/14 tracks (CD 1990 compilation)

This between 13:31 and 18:54

All albums are ripped CD's to AIFF format

Cabaret Voltaire is one of the electro pioneers from Sheffield, style: Industrial. You probably will have guessed I never get bored listening to them.

Now, it's Nirvana's In Utero on the background.

Jennifer Warnes - The Hunter

Yes - The Yes Album

Still a little gem.

Hi Peter,

"...Yes - The Yes Album

Still a little gem..."

Is that the CD?

It was one of the early ones I did while at Atlantic. (Wish the tape we had was a bit better though; it was recorded so hot, I had to drop the level by 7 dB just to avoid clipping the VU meters - and by then, the top end had long gone bye-bye).

Me? AudGuy's post made me get Mark Knopfler's "Shangri-La" off the shelf.

I always enjoy Mark's work. Better sounding than most typical pop too (albeit a bit tightly compressed).

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

The new Bon Iver album "Bon Iver" hit the shelves today, so listening to that. Nothing daring in this and over processed to boot. There is real beauty in the songs in spite of that but it's not a natural sound to a style that would lend itself to it.

Barry, this is great !! I mean, meeting you like this by accident.

Yes, it is the CD I have the LP as well).

A bit of a coincidental happenings, but during listening I had in mind what I wanted to write here, but dinner started - and to be honest I had to cut the last track and briefly posted.

But what I wanted to write was this (use your personal and special imagination) :

I play this album regularly. Like the early Led Zeppelins (mainly I and III, also Atlantic I think). I play these kind of albums because they so much show their potential. This means : not quite good, but the better the playback chain the more they will improve. So, if I improve something clearly, these are amongst those to play again and watch.

Things seem to come together now;

Coincidentally tonight I explicitly watched the compression level, with the idea it should be allright because of its time. I don't know the numbers by now anymore, but it was moderately "good" (well, not so good that is).

Albums like this are typically prone for improvement, because something isn't right in the first place. It seems destroyed, but a lot can be made of it. Get Yer Ya Ya's Out is one of the best examples of it. Completely flat and nothing much worth at first, but man, this can be a really good sounding album afterall (which it *deserves*).

The Yes Album is my example of fairly well sounding "rock cymbals", while they are actually hidden and smeared. To this regard, the early Led Zepp is almost the best example of how to do it right. Maybe it tells you something (I mean, with your inside knowledge) ?

For a sort of fun earlier tonight I wanted to add this :

I am always waiting for the day that Pink Floyd's Animals is going to sound allright-ish. It may never happen (such a waste of such a great actual performance).

But the real fun is (and my hunt for life) : when is A Whole Lotta Love (Zepp) going to sound right. As you will know, this sounds like one big pile of distortion on the massive bass hits. Well, I didn't play it for 5 months or so, but the last time I was under the impression that I got it. I started to get that the hits are really not even guitar hits, but something like a Hammond. Deep Purple like.

Since these 5 months I obtained an almost infinite improvement of SQ here. I should really try that track again. I'm sure that at one day I will be able to easily point out that this isn't a massive analogue "over". It's just something LP nor CD could catch very well ... or is it the playback means ?

See, this is how obsessed I am. Recordings can be not the best, but it doesn't mean nothing can be made out of it.

Another day tomorrow ...

Regards,

Peter

Terence Blanchard

Wandering Moon

Hi Peter,

Interesting you mention the old Led Zeppelin CDs. I did all the originals (except for the fourth album, aka "Zoso" - with "Stairway To Heaven", which was done at the Warner division in Los Angeles, before Atlantic in NY made me the CD mastering "department".) It is gratifying to see that they are still sought out today, even though those have been remastered a few times since.

A big frustration in those days was the insistence of management on my using "EQ'd limited" copies created during vinyl mastering. The thought this would make the CD sound more like the LP. In terms of compressed dynamics and bandlimiting, they were correct.

Needless to say, it often took more work on my part to try and "undo" some of the damage that resulted from the processes used by some vinyl cutters and from the fact that the source I was given to work with was also a generation away from the original.

With many of the bands from the UK (including Yes and Led Zeppelin), the situation was a bit different. Instead of "EQ'd limited" copies, most of the time what I was given was (to the best of my knowledge) a flat transfer of the originals, which were kept in their native land. The downside here, aside from the generation loss, was poorly set up analog machines for running the copies, combined with silly loud recording levels. When the signal wasn't clipping, there was the self erasure of the top end that resulted from the too hot levels. This accounts for your description of the cymbal on the Yes CD.

Regarding the "potential" you hear, I believe this is due to the fact that I don't use dynamic compression. Limited dynamics are in my view, one of the weakest links in most recordings, particularly pop and rock. I have always left original dynamics intact.

Of course, there were some occasions when I found the original masters for certain albums in the tape library and I used those to create the CD masters. Some examples are the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album, a few of the AC/DC albums (For Those About To Rock comes to mind), the first Bad Company album, Pete Townshend's "Scoop", Warren Zevon's "A Quiet Normal Life" and I'm sure there were some others but some of the memory cells have retired since those days long ago.

What a relief it was, when I went independent and formed BDA, to work only with original masters. I remember when I remastered the entire Bob Marley catalog for Island (the second of three times the catalog has been released on CD), Island sent me a box of digital copies. I called them and suggested that the CD was what folks would be listening to for years to come and I asked what they were saving the originals for. The next day, Federal Express delivered several cartons of the original masters - the mixes created in Jamaica.

Of course, converters in those days were not what we have today. And editing was performed using Sony's DAE1100, a "spaceship console" looking hardware device that controlled a pair of video machines. The masters were created on 3/4" video tape, "U-matic" cartridges.

Having edited analog tape with a razor blade for many years, that Sony editor made me say "I can get in and out in the width of that razor blade." Of course, today, I have several editing/mastering applications on my laptop that run rings around that old Sony.

I'm sure I could do any of those old albums again today and it would sound much better. In fact, with the speed of technological progress, I could keep mastering the same album over and over again and it would continue to get better... but I'd never get to make any new records and that is what enjoy the most.

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

Peter: I love the Led Zep track. It's been one of my reference tracks for years. I don't hear a pile of distortion; I hear slam and dynamics. I love the song, but the real reason I use it as a reference is the imaging. If the system can't produce the swirling 3D sound created by the "flanging & phasing," then the speakers or room acoustics are screwing up something fundamental. I find the song just jaw-dropping.

I played it for some friends less than two weeks ago. The surround effects were mind-blowing to me, but one friend, an experienced audiophile, didn't hear what I was talking about even though he was seated dead center. I was puzzled. It just goes to show that human sensory organs are infinitely variable.

- Mark B

Hank Mobley

Soul Station

Album by Vic Chesnutt

"Discovered" him when he played on Trinity Revisited by the Cowboy Junkies. The best cuts on that great CD/DVD are those in which he performed. I won't say that to Margo...promise.

Still discovering his stuff. Very disarming. Very human.

Mostly acoustic, singer/songwriter for those who don't know him. Discovering such artists (that you like) makes this hobby worth it.

The Bo-keys - Got To Get Back!

Sly & The Family Stone:

Album 1) Stand!

Album 2) Life

Artist: Minnie Driver

Album: Sea Stories

Thank you for a great story Barry. Sorry I encouraged for some off topic lines folks.

Well Mark, if someone misses that 3D stuff ... maybe he isn't into the music (very well imaginable !). But I'd say plain deaf.

Re those hits : you just don't want to hear it ! haha

I do this by heart now, but there are 4 of those hits only, and it's right after that 3D part and before the drums come back in.

@cscuzzo

Thanks for recommending him. I'd never heard of him before.

I also didn't realize that the latest Cowboy Junkies album (Demons) is a collection of his songs.

KK

Artist: Bryan Ferry

Album: Olympia

His best yet!

Vacation is great! Todays selections have included:

Wings Greatest Hits

Modern Cool (Patricia Barber)

Return to Forever

...

More on the menu later I think.

-Paul

Material - Hallucination Engine

Dave Alvin - Eleven Eleven