Analog Corner

Hi Michael - I did buy all those Led Zeppelin and Neil Young albums on Classic Records. Do you or anyone knows what happened to Classic Records? Thanks

Hello Michael,
I agree mostly with you what's been said about the reissues and not known sources for vinyl cuts nowadays. I think because companies see that they can be a part of that sort of vinyl records hype, they just want to earn money and cut vinyl records from whatever they get. I've emailed many of them asking what's the source without any response - mainly from the big ones, the smaller ones which still care about the customers (brazilian reissues, funk reissues kind of the niche) they usually are clear and responsive what's been used for the source and that's very good. Usually I will buy the music on the medium/format on which it's been recorded - so if recorded in digital I will first listen to digital, if analog I will first audition analog. Common problem now is that early digital do not sound good, rather harsh time to time and needs to be remastered - sometimes with very good result, sometimes not with compression, sometimes even pressed on vinyl may be less compressed as well - which is pretty common today I think. Another side of the coin besides the very bad mastering done today (!) is the quality control of the vinyl record pressing and its packaging - avoid raw paper inner sleeves as hell - at least polylined ones have to be used. For pressing, many, many pop market reissues are bad pressed, loops, debris, stains on the surface etc. which tops it off and make us, customers not happy with that unfortunately. Packaging varies, outer packaging is usually good, not saying about some of the pixelized covers or low resolution reproductions, but rather what bothers me a lot aforementioned cheap, raw paper inner sleeves which leave a lot of static and dirt on the surface of the vinyl. Anyway, I am happy that vinyl records are back again and those are partially a resolution for the BAD/LOUD mastering still happening on the recording business.

I was surprised by the comment about bob Ludwig checking out his cutting system. I'd read several times over the years that he got out of the vinyl cutting business after his cut of the Stones Exile In Main Street done back in the 90's was somehow botched during pressing. Since then lots of vinyl has his name in the mastering credits but it's invariably because they've been cut from digital files Ludwig mastered. Even the excellent Elton John reissues this year are mastered by Bob Ludwig in hires digital and cut to vinyl by Sean Magee.

Just got my copy today of Foo's Concrete and Gold - Chris Bellman is credited for the LP mastering, not Bob Ludwig.

I have the regular edition, not the limited edition - did Ludwig cut the limited version?

I thought the album sounded quite good - side one, a bit congested, but side two and especially side three sounded great. Far more detail than the 24-44 download. Perfectly quiet vinyl, too.

I often wondered why "Analog Planet" does not "do" cassettes, even though at times that was the main analog medium...Could it because, per the above, Fremer does not care that much for opera (or even classical)?

Here is why: in listening to opera, the crackle-and-pop of LPs becomes very annoying, it is there in the quietest passages, like an unwelcome cough from the audience. On the other hand opera really has very little music above, say, 10kHz, where cassettes kind of top out, so there is little harm.

I thought about this because I am just listening to Berlioz's "La Damnation de Faust" on 80s L'Oiseau-Lyre brand French cassettes and I can swear no hi-rez medium could do it more justice. On an LP there would have been all kind of annoying distractions.