Early pop/rock full digital recordings

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by misterweiss, Mar 25, 2010.

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  1. misterweiss

    misterweiss Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Maine
    Donald Fagan's The Nightfly album is often credited with being one of the first full digital recordings in pop music. It was recorded and released in 1982. Gordon Lightfoot's Dream Street Rose album was recorded in the end of 1979 and released in 1980, full digital. And I don't care what anyone says, "Make Way For The Lady" from that album is so crisp and clean it sends chills down my spine. Virtually no hiss in even the quietest of passages.

    I know Nashville was on the cutting edge (and probably still is) as far as recording studios go, and working in country radio in the early 80's, there were loads of full digital recordings coming from there.

    What were some other early full digital pop/rock recordings from the late 70's and early 80's? I don't mean like the Telarc stuff, but mainstream artists. I'm just curious.
     
  2. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    I was working in at a Discount Records in the late 70s when

    Ry Cooder's

    Bop Till You Drop record came out. I thought I remember reading that this was a full digital recording, however released on analog.
     
  3. Grant

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


    Stevie Wonder - Hotter Than July - 1980
    Dave Grusin - Mountain Dance - 1980
    Fleetwood Mac - Tusk - 1979 (digital recording?)
    Ry Cooder - Bop Till You Drop - 1979
    Cameo - Style - 1982
    Herb Alpert - Rise - 1979 (full digital recording?)
    Stevie Wonder - Life In The Secret Life Of Plants

    What may confuse the issue is that many earlier digital recordings were backed up to analog, and the analog copies may have been used for CD remasters. Also, the recording specifics were fuzzy, as some were actually DAD. Some albums were mis-labeled as DDD, like David Bowie's "Let's Dance". I still wonder about it, though, because producer Nile Rodgers owned one of the very first 24-track DASH available on the market, as did Stevie Wonder. Wonder also owned one of the first Sony two0track machines. Soundstream, from Utah, made digital gear that label GRP used. Even more, some were two-track digital recordings, and then mixed with an analog board, as digital mixers didn't come around until about 1983 or 1984.
     
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  4. puffyrock2

    puffyrock2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisiana
    ABBA's "The Visitors" was a somewhat early one from 1981
     
  5. Hawkwind's "Levitation" album from 1980 was one of the early digital recordings.

    from Wiki:
    The band, who consisted of the same personnel that had recorded the previous album Live Seventy Nine, entered The Roundhouse studios in July and August 1980 to record this album. The studio had been newly equipped with a 3M Digital Mastering System by Bronze Records, making this one of the earliest rock albums to be recorded with the burgeoning digital recording technology.

    During the recording, Dave Brock became dissatisfied with drummer Simon King's inability to keep consistent time, claiming that "he couldn't play his drums properly 'cos he was taking bad drugs", although King stated "I simply wanted to get away. I was very heavily into drinking... and [after leaving I was] fixed on getting my family life together". They considered using a drum machine that was in the studio, but no one knew how to use it. Guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton's wife Marion, who was press officer for Ginger Baker's manager Roy Ward's company, suggested approaching the drummer to contribute as a session player. He accepted the offer and completed his tracks in two days, surpassing expectations. Lloyd-Langton observed that "he breezed through ["Space Chase"] straight away. I don't think Simon could have played that... Ginger fitted the band like a glove. His style was just right for it."[2] The band asked the drummer to remain with them, and despite having previously declared to the press his intentions of joining the newly reformed Atomic Rooster, he "found the atmosphere during the sessions so fantastic that I immediately decided to stay with Hawkwind. For me it’s not just my umpteenth group, I’m determined to give it everything I’ve got. Hawkwind always have made timeless music, but you can definitely still hear the eighties in it
     
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  6. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
    I recall Roxy Music's Avalon was digital,
    may be wrong on that one, could have been an early cd release
     
  7. Scott in DC

    Scott in DC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Santana

    Santana - The Swing of Delight
     
  8. I hate to burst your bubble, but none of those releases were "full digital." Digital mixing desks and mastering consoles did not exist then. Because mixing and mastering were done in the analog domain, at least four digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversions were done during the production of these albums. So, even though digital tape may have been used at every step of the way (resulting in a DDD SPARS code), there were intermediate analog steps involved.
     
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  9. steeler1979

    steeler1979 Darren from Nashville

    Location:
    Nashville,Tn. USA
    Rush Permanent Waves 1980? Not sure, going from ye ole memory banks
     
  10. Cassiel

    Cassiel Sonic Reducer

    Location:
    NYC, USA
    IIRC, Peter Gabriel's Security, Saga's In Transit, and Rush's Signals were fully digital.
     
  11. reb

    reb Money Beats Soul

    Location:
    Long Island
    So what year did full digital arrive?
     
  12. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    The first digital recording must be Bop Till You Drop - that would be 1979. But "full" digital didn't arrive until October 1, 1982, when the first compact discs were sold. Even then, there was only one full digital popular (non classical) title released in the first batch, and that was The Herbie Hancock Trio with Ron Carter and Tony Williams CBS/Sony 38DP-17.
     
  13. ElevatorSkyMovie

    ElevatorSkyMovie Senior Member

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    I think Rush stayed analog up to Power Windows. I think they may have mixed to digital 2 track, but the tracking was analog.

    I think Hold Your Fire was the first time the tracked digital.

    Like someone posted earlier, there was not an ALL digital path in the 80's. There were no digital consoles, so there were multiple AD and DA conversions.
     
  14. reb

    reb Money Beats Soul

    Location:
    Long Island
    I have no proof but this record sure sounds digital.

    Roger Daltrey- "Under A Raging Moon"

    and so does

    Pete Townshend- " Deep End Live"
     
  15. Grant

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

    Digitally recorded and mixed? 1983. The data may not be exact, but digital multitrack recorders didn't come along until then.
     
  16. houston

    houston Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, Texas, USA
    I think the Scorpions "love at frst sting", and Madonna "like a virgin" are full digital recordings, from 1984...wasn't Gabriel's "security" full digital in late 1982? maybe?
     
  17. ElevatorSkyMovie

    ElevatorSkyMovie Senior Member

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    You couldn't mix digitally in 1983.
     
  18. Graham Start

    Graham Start Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Giorgio Moroder's E=MC2 was recorded direct to 2-track digital (except for backing vocals which were synced to sequencer via SMPTE), and that was 1979. Okay, still not "full digital" but pretty close, and it's a synth-pop/electro-disco album.

    Ironically, I'm pretty sure the current CD of this album is sourced from a needle-drop.
     
  19. Not true. The first digital multitrack recorder was released in 1978, the 3M Digital Audio Mastering System, a 32 track recorder at 16 bit/50 kHz. Bop Til You Drop was the first rock album to use it, a year later.
     
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  20. steeler1979

    steeler1979 Darren from Nashville

    Location:
    Nashville,Tn. USA
    You are probably right about Rush, I just seem to recall the DDD on the original WG cd of Permanent Waves, once again, I'm probably suffering from a failing memory. :shake:
     
  21. PROG U.K.

    PROG U.K. Audiophile-Anglophile

    Location:
    New England
    Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
    Elton John - Leather Jackets
    Elton John - Live In Australia
     
  22. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend

    Location:
    The OC
    I'm pretty sure that Secret Life of Plants was recorded to analog. I wasn't involved with the whole album but some of it was done at Lyon Studios in Newport and I was there for those sessions. We didn't have a digital machine. They used our Ampex MM-1100 24 track.

    Either it was mixed to digital or we were working with a 2" transfer. I guess that's a possiblity but it doesn't really make much sense to me.

    I'm pretty sure the same thing applies for Tusk. I was at Village once during those sessions. Long story, but both them and us had Studer A80's and both were in for quick service at Studer LA. Ours was done and when we went to get it it was gone. We had to go to Village and rescue our machine which they had taken supposedly by mistake.
     
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  23. Grant

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

    But you could in late 1983.
     
  24. RZangpo2

    RZangpo2 Forum Know-It-All

    Location:
    New York
    Joe Jackson, Body and Soul was probably the first digital recording I bought (on LP).
     
  25. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend

    Location:
    The OC
    Why not? There were 2 track digital recorders many years before that. Then again mixing digitally is different than mixing to digital. Perhaps that's what you meant.
     
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