Stealers Wheel audiophile LPs coming out!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by bhazen, Aug 12, 2015.

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  1. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    I think I remember hearing somewhere that you're fond of that one ... Another true confession. I thought I knew that album and thought I had a copy. Clonesteak PM'd me about the record about 50 times until I realized I didn't have it on hand at all, and then I went and got a UK pressing!

    I agree with everyone here, that record is unfairly and shockingly maligned. I think it's wonderful and cements the legacy of the band. Rafferty could flat out write songs, and as much as I like Gerry's solo work, I think he and Egan were just perfect. I wish they'd have stayed together. I don't usually go into specifics about what I'm trying to do, but I have requested that and hope to bring it to premium vinyl.
     
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  2. bibijeebies

    bibijeebies vinyl hairline spotter

    Location:
    Amstelveen (NL)
    Wonderful, now please Shane also bring these vinyl reissues to a European distributor at a fair price!
     
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  3. TBone61

    TBone61 Forum Resident

    Location:
    rural Michigan
    Happy to report I have both of these Stealers Wheel reissues. Other than "Stuck In The Middle" I wasn't too familiar with the SW catalogue but their music and the quality of the pressings have really drawn me in. On a side note, my copy of Ferguslie Park had a minor pressing defect that Shane graciously replaced.
     
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  4. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    When you get the rights to re-issue, absolutely do not forget to let us know.
    That album is just a wonderful listen and getting the quality work you did on the others will make a must have purchase.
    The SQ on the original recording is quite nice so you'll have an excellent starting point for a remaster.
    Really looking forward to it if you get it out.
     
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  5. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    Promise this group will be the first to know- I have to say it's been a uniformly excellent experience interacting with everyone here, a very refreshing change from what I experienced in other forums in the past! I'm very appreciative and have made a few announcements here first, and will continue to do so.

    I thought the same thing listening to Right or Wrong- wow, it sounds good! If the tapes are in the kind of shape the other two were in that would be sensational!
     
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  6. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    I hope you find this interesting, but Phill Brown was the mastering engineer on Ferguslie Park, and he wrote a wonderful autobiography:

    Find it HERE.

    While he unfortunately doesn't recount his experiences on Ferguslie, he is an amazing engineer who worked on many great great records. His resume is a who's who of rock music from the late 60s on. I was able to get in touch with Phill and get him a vinyl copy of my Ferguslie reissue, and it was a real thrill for me! Just a wonderful, wonderful guy and truly gracious. But wow is this book a helluva read!
     
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  7. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    Just curious- how many of you have checked out my Needle Drops page? Was it helpful?

    Check them out HERE. Would love any feedback you have on whether they were influencers.
     
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  8. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Shane,

    I'll be checking out these in the future, but I'd like to change topics while I'm listening to your superior reissue of Ferguslie Park again.

    Just read your 'better sound' explanation. I think it deserves to be required reading on this forum.

    Of course, in my case you're preaching to the converted (I returned to vinyl during '95 ~ '96 after a grievously misinformed purge of my vinyl collection several years earlier). You'll be preaching to the converted to many around here, too.

    Still, love what you wrote and agree in total. I'll link and cut-and-paste if you don't mind.

    Intervention Records | Master Sound Quality »

    "THE INTERVENTION MISSION: ARCHIVE-QUALITY LPS OF THE MUSIC WE LOVE
    I’m Shane Buettner, Founder and Boss of Intervention Records. IR exists for one simple reason, to produce archive-quality LPs of music we love!

    Intervention's sonic goal is that each record we do must be the single definitive, final version of that album, the one real music lovers will seek out. That’s why we work from the original master tapes whenever possible, and always from the very best sources available. We only approve and and move forward with our releases when we are confident we will produce the definitive vinyl edition of that recording.

    We will always reveal the exact source material we use and we stand by our commitment so that our customers know that our vinyl will always be the definitive go-to for any title we produce.

    While the LPs and the sound are the highest priority, recreating (or in some cases creating anew) the outer package is something we take every bit as seriously. The tactile memories many of us have of our first LPs are the amazing artistic statements of the cover and packaging. I grew up in the LP era and the first record I ever bought with my own allowance money (at 7 years old!) was Kiss Love Gun. An amazing cover that came complete with a faux paper love gun inside. Kiss’ showmanship involved a lot more than makeup!

    I have always loved rich, chunky cover art and gatefold jackets that so many artists and artisans labored to create before the CD came along and miniaturized this formerly bigger-than-life experience. This is not at all unlike what happened when so many grand, ornate single-screen movie houses gave way to shoebox-sized multiplexes. Same program material, but a dramatically different sensory experience.

    When possible we will upgrade single-jacket releases to beautiful gatefolds, we will create lyrics sheets and other inserts whenever we can but we’ll still store your LPs in the best, most protective inners sleeves. We expect these LPs to last and look and sound as fresh decades away as they do today.

    Why Vinyl? Why Not High-Res Digital?
    Records sound the best, period. Vinyl records are the best, most consistent way of producing the emotional thrills and chills that happen when you feel like you’re attending a performance. This emotional sensation can be achieved even with studio recordings when the source allows it, and vinyl playback is the most reliable and durable way to deliver this mainline hit of musical emotion time and time again for decades.

    Vinyl takes the lid off the music in way that the best digital never does. Notes start and stop and float on with timing that is impeccable (assuming your turntable speed is set correctly!), timbres of instruments and vocals are natural, and the imaging rounds out fully into the third dimension. Vinyl recreates these subtleties with far more finesse and nuance.

    While high-res digital sounds noticeably better than 16bit/44kHz it’s still just better digital. It still doesn’t relax the soul or immerse the listener the way vinyl does, even when the vinyl is sourced from digital masters. How can this be? I believe that moving the signal processing out of real-time playback like a digitally-sourced LP does results in superior sound. And of course with modern 20- or 24-bit masters the full bit depth is preserved during mastering as opposed the CD, which involves truncating the music exponentially to fit into a 16-bit container.

    I can only speculate on the specific mechanics of all this, but the ear/brain needs to do a lot of heavily lifting to turn digital’s discrete samples of audio into an approximation of a continuous waveform. There is a ton of processing in any Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) that occurs in real-time while you are listening. The oversampling and filtering that occurs is seldom benign in the time domain, and in nearly all digital playback devices playback involves unnatural artifacts, including ringing artifacts that actually occur before the musical transient as well as after it. Where in nature would one hear distortion of a transient before the transient itself? Only in digital audio!

    Analog playback on vinyl by contrast is a mechanical process and relatively straightforward on the ear/brain during real-time playback. As the stylus navigates the groove the waveform is reproduced without oversampling, brick-wall filters or digital signal processing. Dragging a rock through a valley is an apt analogy; from a high level it really is that simple.

    How does all this hypothetical add up to what we hear? Vinyl takes the lid off the music in way that the best digital never does. Notes start and stop and float on with timing that is impeccable (assuming your turntable speed is set correctly!), timbres of instruments and vocals are wonderfully natural, and the imaging rounds out fully into the third dimension. Performers live and breathe in your listening room. Vinyl also does microdynamics in far superior and convincing fashion - like when a singer ramps up or down in vocal power, or steps slightly closer to or farther away from the mic. Vinyl recreates these subtleties with far more finesse and nuance than digital ever will.

    What Makes a Great-Sounding Record?
    Sound quality on LPs is a delicate dance between the quality and condition of the source material and today’s superiority in mastering and manufacturing. While in decades past "new" records were made by melting down old records, dirt and labels and all, today’s vinyl is a boutique process using pure new materials. Records that used to be pressed in the millions at different facilities with vastly different qualities are now typically pressed at a single place in the thousands. IR's stampers are replaced every 500 copies. Every copy of every Intervention record is by nature a hot stamper!

    So it is often possible to exceed the sound of an original pressing even with secondary sources because today’s mastering suites and production facilities are so superior. But there’s more!

    There are often two aesthetics in vinyl reissues- to recreate the original vinyl releases, or to capture what’s really on the master. Intervention Records pursues what’s on the master, not the potential limitations of the original LPs and there are solid reasons for this approach. Many many LPs from the 60s, 70s and 80s were bass limited on purpose, and often the mastering chains and consumer playback systems were lower in resolution resulting in engineers pushing the midrange and treble to create a false sense of "detai" or excitement.

    Record companies were notorious back in the day for hiring people to listen to their records with mass market “kiddy” stereos to see if the “needle” would jump out of the groove during playback, and if it did they would typically go and filter out the bass without the knowledge let alone consent of the band or the engineers who mastered these records.

    This is why it’s crucial in so many cases to be true to what’s on the original master, not the original vinyl release. You will always hear the full range of the master with rich but detailed bass, beautiful midrange textures and shimmering high frequencies. With Intervention you are hearing everything that's on the master!"


    Clearly you've made a company that caters to my wishes as far as listening to music is concerned. Not all that common in my experience.

    Here's to all the success you can handle!

    Cheers!
     
    IR Shane likes this.
  9. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Shane,

    I have a reissue candidate for you to consider:

    [​IMG]

    Awful cover art, incredible album.
     
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  10. Clonesteak

    Clonesteak Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kalamazoo, MI
    Is this album hard to find in record shops? Looking online it looks sparse. I love what I hear off of the Internet. I think I found myself a new band to listen to. Thank you for the post.
     
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  11. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    The Stealers Wheel SACDs finally(!) arrived and shipped out to retailers yesterday! So Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds ought to have them early next week, and Amazon will have them in a few days.

    Click HERE to order from Acoustic Sounds.

    Click HERE to order from Elusive Disc.
     
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  12. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    The Stealers SACDs are arriving at Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds tomorrow!
     
  13. badfingerjoe

    badfingerjoe Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Thanks for the update!
     
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  14. Joti Cover

    Joti Cover Forum Resident

    Fantastic news - Thanks, Shane. Ordered from Elusive.
     
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  15. Joti Cover

    Joti Cover Forum Resident

    How wonderful you were able to reach Phill and present that great rendering of Ferguslie to him. I bet he just loved it (how not?) And thanks for the heads up on his autobiography (interested in what else he did as FP is recorded so well) - will check this out soon, Shane. Keep it going man, its a fat trip for us all.
     
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  16. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    They are in stock and shipping from Acoustic Sounds and Elusive!
     
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  17. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    Phill was very enthusiastic, and in fact helped me make some crucial contacts for some upcoming projects. Nothing to announce yet, but Phill is a wonderful guy and my goodness, one of the best damned engineers to ever work a board!
     
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  18. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    Phil posts occasionally on Vinyl Engine.
     
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  19. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I might get at least one of these. I not only heard "Stuck In The Middle" on the radio, I also heard "Star" and "Everyone's Agreed Everything Will be Fine" on the radio too, although they weren't major hits. I always liked Gerry Rafferty's style of music.
     
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  20. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    Click HERE and check out my high-res needle drops. There are three songs from Stealers 1 and two from Ferguslie, including "Steamboat Row" which might just be my favorite Stealers Wheel song!
     
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  21. IR Shane

    IR Shane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Puget Sound, WA
    I have to confess to not knowing of that site before reading your post, thanks for bringing that one to my attention!
     
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  22. zongo

    zongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Davis, CA
    YES! Truly awesome, great album. Actually, all of Steamhammer's albums were quite good, but "MkII" stands out as probably the best. I would love to get a lovingly mastered version of that album, preferably on SACD, but on vinyl would be fine too.
     
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  23. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Sparse isn't the word. The US Epic press is more common, but I prefer the UK CBS. When it comes up on eBay it usually goes for quite a bit if in nice condition.
     
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  24. Dok

    Dok Senior Member

    Finally got thru the new SACD and it sounds wonderful! Full bodied and very natural sounding and highly crankable. There is a small caveat though and I'm sorry to report that there are two 'ticks' in track 4, 'I Get By,' at the 2:30 and 2:32 marks with the first one being louder. I don't know if they are digital artifacts or on the tape. My guess would be the former. Anyone else hear these?
     
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  25. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    They could be on the tape. I can think of at least one audiophile CD release I have where you can hear a couple of tape clicks (MOFI Beach Boys Surfin' USA / Surfer Girl).
     
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