Wow and flutter, etc. Tape Speed Issues - Tone Poet / Blue Note 80th anniversary vinyl LP problems.

I realize this is your business but I don’t agree with your potential conclusion at all.

The bottom line is that the releases to which thread is specifically dedicated are unusual in the severity of the problems they are displaying. We even now have an example of a release done AAA just four years ago which had no speed problems of note, but now does. Same engineer.

Even those of us sensitive to pitch fluctuations own hundreds or even thousands of records where pitch fluctuations are a non-issue.

IOW, these Blue Note 80 and Tone Poet reissues are the “odd man out,” if you will. Digital intervention, while perhaps helpful in extreme cases, is the last thing that should be used as a rule, IMO.

 

Simple - they don’t know which they are listening to, and say I prefer this or that. For something this obvious it’s enough.

 

Why? If the origination is tape, and the tape playback is made significantly better what sense can it possibly make to reject it? Digital vs analog intervention is a distinction without a difference if it exacerbates a problem without creating artifacts.

Pitch fluctuations are always an issue. You may be accustomed to it, but it’s in every mechanical recording and it’s non-musical.

And further, the system doesn’t know the severity of the wow or flutter, it simply fixes them to an accuracy orders of magnitude better than any current or vintage recorder, which is also why it works so well on recordings where the pitch issues are allegedly absent.

 

What advantage exactly is that?

Thanks. Actually it wasn’t way off, it was a typical well-maintained Ampex AG440 in good shape. It’s just the way tape works. There’s a lot of IM from any transport. Ironically among the worst is 30IPS 1/2” Studer.

The Led Zep and King Crimson would have obtained the same benefit. There isn’t a recording yet that hasn’t improved. I defy anyone to criticize the ECM Köln Concert but our version sounds more clear and more solid, but most salient and sadly so is that it’s unreleased, largely because of prejudicial misapprehensions about its validity because the notion that any digital intervention is a less than immaculate conception. And I don’t know how to reach them to pitch it. So to speak.

If Mr. Harley would like to test that out we’d be happy to do so.

 

It actually is most surprising on material that is free of egregious issues.

 

I'm hearing some wow also not only flutter on one sample (BN 80th Anniversary), second 41-43.

 

I think this is the most confusing and frustrating thing for folks. It would be nice to have an explanation.

 

My citing of Led Zep was not a criticism of any pitch anomalies but the general sound reproduction offered by the employment of a digital process. To me and many others the results were inferior to the originals and to the Classic reissues both AAA. Indeed Jimmy stated it was done that way for reasons of cost to allow the release of a more affordable product and as such he achieved his objectives with good sounding well pressed records; they would have been however, far better IMO if done AAA and many in this forum would have been glad to pay the extra but accept that fewer total sales would likely have resulted.

But of course this is not the point we are talking about in this thread. We already know what AAA BN reissues can sound like (MMJ) and many know too well what to our ears (brains) the 75th BNs sounded like in comparison. Sure, your systems will resolve this particular issue but leave, me at least, with a product that I feel is inferior to a MMJ in this instance.
Unlike Born to Run, these titles only show up the issue intermittently and only of any real concern on piano. Otherwise they stand equal to the MMJ releases and I enjoy them immensely, still: we just want to get to the route cause of the issue and hopefully prevent the second tranche being equally afflicted, or at least I do.

 

Well, many thought them inferior to the original CDs as well. It's not so much a question of digital vs analog, but how JP wanted the albums to be mastered.

I think the biggest problem with the 75th series was the poor pressings.

The actual digital mastering sounds excellent, from my experience of purchasing some of the high res downloads. Alan Yoshida did a great job on the first batch for example.

But I agree, this is a AAA series, and it should stay that way if possible. There is no reason, in theory, these releases should not sound as good as MMJ.

Blue Note did the right thing and put the dream team in place here, but clearly something went wrong in the implementation, be it the state of the tapes after all the previous transfers, or something else.

 

There’s no reason other than religion to stay AAA - not true 20 years ago but true now.

 

I don’t mean to be a bitch but you know this how? What are you comparing? What exactly would be inferior?

 

It's hard to overcome. There are many here who cheer the demise of digital in all its forms, and believe analog is always superior.

But this is (mostly) a AAA series, so we are all hoping that the tapes are not ****.

 

Simply by listening, it’s my choice. But hey, this is not the room for debating digital vs analogue or your product sir, that’s down the corridor on the right

 

I guess if it's AAA it's okay to have defects in the final product. That was my takeaway from a few posts by the tone poet person. I'm pretty sure one of the Tina Brooks titles coming out has issues. I remember it from the Mosaic set. Cuscuna outlined what they were in print. I wonder if they'll do the same for this reissue. I doubt it.

 

Okay for some folks and not others, depending on the nature of the defect and one's tolerance for it. I have to draw the line on some of these and will be eliminating them from my purchase list as I see fit.

 

Annnndd you don’t have a basis without a direct comparison with the same tape to vinyl on these titles passed through us. Not to be a bitch, but I’m proposing a test of that possibility, so it does belong here, and a peremptory rejection prior to investigation is of course *a* choice: the assertion was that there’s no way our method could be satisfactory - that you could actually have a nice experience that would more closely resemble the performance and the recording regardless of the alphabet moniker.

 

Is it possible for you to take a high-quality needle drop of Black Fire and apply your process? Or do you require a tape source at the outset?

 

99% of the time no. If by odd chance there’s a high frequency birdie in the grooves it’s possible. I have seen the ATR102 28.8 kHz signature on a lot of files, and would not be surprised to see that on the LP but better would be video sync or similar from the studio recording. But normally no, it’s a tape (or mag or mag VTR) playback technique

 

I’ve heard your program when MM used it on the title track of Song For My Father about 7-8 years ago. I don’t know how bad that tape was, but the more recent version they did this year used a different tape. The earlier one that used Plangent may have been inferior for other reasons, but it sounded markedly different in a direct shootout to my ears. Bright, less organic, and a bit too hard around the edges.

I’m not criticizing Plangent, mind you. And I suspect in some cases it is very useful. But overall it seems like you’re trying to fix something that usually isn’t broken and perhaps pitching the wrong audience. These releases we are discussing are the “odd man out” in analog sourced vinyl collecting, not the norm. I suspect what is true for me is true for many of us in that I have been buying vinyl forever and the number of pressings I have come across that have significant problems with wow and/or flutter is probably like .0001%. Sadly, the reissues that are the topic of this thread are averaging speed problems on what seems like every other release, but this is a highly unusual situation.

 

er! I don’t think those are the words I wrote, do put in quotation marks if I am wrong. In fact if you reread my first reply to you , quite the opposite; Born To Run is vastly improved from the mess that is the original at least as far as speed stability is concerned. Your inference is that every recording will be improved regardless with this process, it’s that that I dispute, not that the stability improvement can be in anyway detrimental I accept in principle but the that this can only be achieved by digitising the whole which is an unnecessary process if the speed stability is inaudible or at least not troublesome; at least that’s my understanding, correct me if I’m wrong?
Achieve this in the analogue domain and you peak the interest of Joe Harley for sure. But like I said this ain’t the place; a AAA release thread for this and after the principal thread got totally derailed I don’t think we should continue here, thank you.

 

It’s not an inference, it’s a fact, and proven. The speed instability of every tape machine we’ve encountered is audible. It’s not the just wow it’s the intermodulation distortion - put 60Hz flutter into an A440 and you get back 390Hz and 500Hz. Non musical, not harmonic.

All respect but this is exactly the place to have the discussion about the contempt prior to investigation, the thread is about speed issues, and that’s what we do. I’ve made the case that it is difficult to get past the preconceived notions that persist, and ironically so have you.

Unless you’re hearing Blue with and without the help and a AAdA of the same lp(and I would pay for a lacquer from our source for comparison if it comes to that) it’s presumptive.

I challenge the presumption and I get that it’s not your belief. Thanks for the discussion.
The only reason to refrain from posting a contribution in a tributary way would be if it was out of line for the producer on the risk that he thinks his fine work is being criticized. It’s the machinery, not his work, that I propose to improve. That can be misinterpreted. That said, back to your thread, sorry to intrude, but it was apropos.

 

That’s a different source, the one we had was compromised. Without breaking an NDA I can’t really get into it.

As for the “significant problems” again it’s in the performance and the distortion. There’s a different feel when the tempo and pitch are solid and the FM sideband distortion is gone. I’m repeating myself.

 

Wow. Hub-Tones on Music Matters is absolutely gorgeous. One of the best RVG recordings of the period and the mastering is superb. No speed issues. Highest recommendation. It’s getting tougher to find so if you enjoy this one don’t sleep on tracking one down. “Lament For Booker” is sublime. Sounds ten times better than the wobbly BN80.

 

Yeah, I bought the BN80 just to compare to my MM version. Not even close.

 

Hmm... So what gives? Same mastering engineering, same studio, same tape(?), only 4 years apart.

I have all the MM 33s, so I'm skipping any duplicates of those in the BN80 series (though considering ones where the only MM was a 45, just for convenience), but I was definitely interested in the next few batches, where there are few, if any, overlaps. Very bummed that these reports keep coming in.