My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields Discussing Analog vs Digital for an hour on NPR

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Brian Gupton, Mar 6, 2018.

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  1. Brian Gupton

    Brian Gupton Forum Resident Thread Starter

  2. Brian Gupton

    Brian Gupton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    He’s pretty clearly an audiophile. He talks about many of the same issues we debate here, but interesting to get a recording artist’s perspective.
     
  3. punkmusick

    punkmusick Amateur drummer

    Location:
    Brazil
    Check the thread devoted to this release in the Music Corner forum.
     
  4. Brian Gupton

    Brian Gupton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Will do. This interview is only marginally about Loveless. He’s mostly talking about analog versus digital and even a hefty chunk about vinyl playback.
     
    punkmusick likes this.
  5. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    What is an electric guitar supposed to sound like?
     
  6. ralf11

    ralf11 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Earth
    the fuzz should be fuzzy
    the wah-wah pedal should sound like real wah-wah
    and the grunge should be grungy
     
  7. Minty_fresh

    Minty_fresh Forum Resident

    Location:
    B.
    The analog purists (neurotics) here will shout at this. But then I bet 98% of the people here don’t know who Shields is.
     
  8. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    Right! Is this the type of music that is really going to benefit from all analog? Don't think so. It sounds (analog) like a money grab.
     
  9. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Huh? Why wouldn't that type of music benefit from analog?
     
  10. A Lad Insane

    A Lad Insane Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    aye
    Yeah, for most here, nothing recorded after about 1972 is worthy... ;)
     
    bru87tr, Donniej and recstar24 like this.
  11. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    A man who has good form blowing through a tower of cash in the pursuit of sonic perfection. He's an audiophile, you say?
     
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  12. recstar24

    recstar24 Senior Member

    Location:
    Glen Ellyn, IL
    Just finished listening to the podcast (very cool channel, subscribed!). Kevin is a very interesting man and super nerdy in the best of ways. The all analog version of loveless clearly was a labor of love and fanatical devotion - we are talking spending countless hours on transitions that are tiny blips of cross fading but splicing the tape in the way where it's smooth and seamless. It's absolutely insane but a part of me understands the need and desire to get it done just right.

    He's clearly a very smart dude too and I wish he got more into the part of the discussion that goes into turntables and tonearm geometry and alignment lol. The interview was great and he even offerered AB clips of the different versions and it was cool hearing Kevin comment on the versions in real time!
     
    ceddy10165, Paully, Satrus and 2 others like this.
  13. Combination

    Combination Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Orleans
    Did the host bring up all the complaining on here? :p
     
    Gumboo likes this.
  14. Paully

    Paully De gustibus non est disputandum

    Location:
    Tennessee
    Fantastic discussion and I am enjoying listening to it. Always nice to have one's biases confirmed... :) Thanks for posting!
     
  15. Brian Gupton

    Brian Gupton Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Money grab??? How exactly would remixing an album that was originally digital in analog be a money grab? In fact, he says in the interview that it took far longer and cost far more money than they had anticipated. He clearly did this as a labor of love.

    And any music could benefit from being analog rather than digital and he explains why in the interview.
     
  16. Paul K

    Paul K Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Yes it is the kind that will benefit.
    Did you read or listen to the recent articles and interviews with the man?
     
    erowid likes this.
  17. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Well, he just grabbed $45 out of my PapPal account, sounds like a money grab to me! :)

    This was easier for me as I don't own any version of Loveless on physical media. We'll see how it sounds. I'm not completely sure I agree with the notion that any music can benefit from the analog treatment like this. MBV is lo-fi by design, lo-fi is lo-fi. I fall back on my standard answer of The Ramones, music that sounds how it sounds, can't really be made to sound better, and this is absolutely okay as it sounds exactly how it should.
     
    SandAndGlass and Donniej like this.
  18. Ulises

    Ulises Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    I was so excited for these pressings and ordered both. Gotta say I’m a little disappointed in the prevalence of pops and tics on both albums. Was hoping for something in the league of music matters here—black backgrounds, no excess noise—but this isn’t that. After all the work that went into these, I wish they would have put a bit more effort into quality control.
     
    recstar24 and SandAndGlass like this.
  19. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    That is incredibly disappointing.
     
    patient_ot likes this.
  20. Ulises

    Ulises Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Could be I just got a bad batch. Hoping you have better luck.
     
  21. recstar24

    recstar24 Senior Member

    Location:
    Glen Ellyn, IL
    One of the points he brought up (which I admit was hard to fully grasp on first listen and I plan on relistening!) is that for whatever reason, his original digital version didn't seem to capture all of the transient information, whereas the all analog version preserves all of those nice snappy transients. He seemed to imply that the all analog version is actually punchier and more dynamic, whereas the original digital version due to inferior hardware seems slightly more dull.
     
  22. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    He’s the one on the right.

    [​IMG]
     
    googlymoogly likes this.
  23. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    That's really too bad. I had been very excited for these but held off due the high shipping costs. Plus I wanted to see some feedback on quality.

    Maybe I'll stick with my old CD versions and maybe pick up the remasters on CD that I never got (just bought the EP collection) from a few years back.
     
  24. Mugrug12

    Mugrug12 The Jungle Is a Skyscraper

    Location:
    Massachusetts
    Wow this is a fascinating interview. Can someone help me understand one thing?
    So the transitions are from computer originally right? But I was once told the music itself was recorded to dat originally. Maybe I missed this in the show but what was the originally recording medium?
     
  25. DigMyGroove

    DigMyGroove Forum Resident

    Thanks for posting this. It’s a facinating interview, and definitely right on the money for this Forum’s members.

    I must admit though I’m familiar with the band by name and always thought it was a great moniker, I don’t know their music at all. I will certainly investigate further having been exposed to the group through this interview!
     
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