Michael Fremer

Album Reviews
Earle Pays Tribute to Townes Van Zandt
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  1 comments

Steve Earle’s dusty, gritty tribute to his late friend Townes Van Zandt issued last year is about what you can usually expect from “tribute” albums. The two met when Earle was still a kid and Van Zandt was already established.

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Album Reviews
Jenkins and Kenny Burrell Backed By Stellar Rhythm Section
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  0 comments

This 1957 set spotlights the obscure Chicago alto sax hard bop player John Jenkins who led but one Blue Note session and three altogether in his short recording career, which he ended in the early '60s. 

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Album Reviews
Early Rickie Lee Gets Deluxe Mo-Fi Treatment
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  1 comments

The opener to this heavily produced album “We Belong Together” owes its existence to Bruce Springsteen, but most of the rest channels Laura Nyro.

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Album Reviews
Cash Draws From Her Dad's List of 100 Essential American Songs
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  1 comments

Drawn from a list of "100 Essential Country Songs" her dad penciled on a yellow legal pad after realizing that his young daughter didn't know any of what he considered to be part of his, and therefore her musical DNA, Roseanne Cash's The List is a full circle tribute to her father Johnny and her musical homecoming. It's an album the elder Cash would have been thrilled to hear.

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Album Reviews
Back to Mono For Mellencamp and T-Bone Burnett
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  2 comments

Equipped with John Mellencamp's then recently acquired vintage 1/4" reel-to-reel 1955 Ampex 601 mono tape recorder  and a pair of iconic 50's era RCA ribbon microphones ( a 77 DX and 44 used singly) presumably supplied by producer T-Bone Burnett, the duo, accompanied by Mellencamp's wife Elaine, who shot the album's cover photo, hit the road during a break in last summer's  Bob Dylan-John Mellencamp-Willie Nelson tour to record thirteen freshly penned songs Mr. Mellencamp had written over thirteen prolific days.

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Book Reviews
A Zip Code With Its Own Playlist!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 31, 2010  |  0 comments

Your head will spin dizzily with pleasure before you reach the end of the first chapter of "Canyon of Dreams," Harvey Kubernik’s lovingly told history of the unique Hollywood micro-climate known as Laurel Canyon. The supernovas and the dimly lit alike open up to L.A. native, record biz insider and scene maker Kubernik who transmits their stories with an immediacy that will make you feel more like an eavesdropper than a history buff.

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Phono Preamp ReviewsVinyl Digitizing Tips
Pure Vinyl LP recording & editing software
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 19, 2010  |  10 comments
As long as you're spinning an LP for your listening pleasure, and if digitizing it at a resolution of 24-bit/192kHz is transparent to the analog source, why not record and store the LP on your computer at that high sampling rate for future convenient playback via iTunes or for iPod use, or for burning to CD-R? And, while you're at it, why not record the LP unequalized and apply the RIAA curve in the digital domain, where you're not dependent on capacitors and resistors that are imprecise to begin with, and can drift over time? With no drift of phase or value, the virtual filter's results should be better than with any analog filter. And in the digital domain, you can program in any curve known, and select it at the click of a mouse. Aside from the sweat equity invested in programming it in the first place, it wouldn't add a penny to the program's cost.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Seta Nano phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 19, 2010  |  2 comments
The minuscule electrical output of an analog signal from a moving-coil cartridge needs to be boosted before it can be converted to digital and equalized in the digital domain. Of course, you could use your current phono preamplifier and record an equalized signal to hard disk, but then you wouldn't get to experience Pure Vinyl's digital RIAA correction—nor would you be able to avail yourself of all the equalization curves provide by Pure Vinyl, of which there are almost too many to count.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Seta Model L phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 19, 2010  |  1 comments
The minuscule electrical output of an analog signal from a moving-coil cartridge needs to be boosted before it can be converted to digital and equalized in the digital domain. Of course, you could use your current phono preamplifier and record an equalized signal to hard disk, but then you wouldn't get to experience Pure Vinyl's digital RIAA correction—nor would you be able to avail yourself of all the equalization curves provide by Pure Vinyl, of which there are almost too many to count.
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Album Reviews
Stupendous-Sounding Sea Change From Mo-Fi
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2010  |  1 comments

Sea Change, Beck's late-afternoon, mid-tempo reverie of an album, harkens back to the great old days of painstaking production, carefully drawn arrangements, and a concern for—and love of—sound and musical textures for their own sakes. Tempi are languid, notes are caressed, and gaping atmospheric spaces welcome listeners willing to be drawn in.

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