Back in the Analog Saddle

Who knew that I would be running around in early August of 2015 preparing to do a bunch of analog-to-analog transfers? Here I am the Lone Ranger for real high-resolution audio/music and I’m going to spend a long weekend copying the masters of the Christian Jacob and LA4 projects to a second reel-to-reel deck…a Studer A820. It’s not a business that makes a lot of sense to me, but I have all of the pieces in place and retrieved the master tapes from the artist a couple of hours ago.

I wrote about Christian’s “Beautiful Jazz” solo piano recording in a post that questioned Michael Fremer’s very positive review of another jazz recording by Jerome Sabbagh’s new project called “The Turn”. He gave both the sound and the music 10s. OK fine. I’ve heard several tracks and they do sound amazing. And Jerome read my post and was able to clarify a lot of the assumptions that I made. The bottom line is that Michael Fremer, the vinyl LP guru and the format’s strongest advocate, is OK with a recording that was produced using Pro Tools. You can read the article by clicking here.

The Christian Jacob “Beautiful Jazz” recording is special in a number of ways. Rather than compromising the fidelity by transferring to high-resolution PCM digital as an interim stage, the artist insisted that we do both high-res digital and analog. They wanted their vinyl LP to be the real thing…100% analog. BTW If anyone is interested in the LP, I have 25 copies to sell. I told Christian that I was going to be at the California Audio Show in a couple of weeks and would be happy to display the album. If you’re going to be in San Francisco on the 14,15, or 16th of August, please come by. Otherwise, you can write to me and I’ll make sure you get a copy. I’m amazed that I’m offering a vinyl LP…seems a little strange, right?

If you want the 96 kHz/24-bit digital version, I’ll be adding that to the iTrax website very soon. I might even get time to do a 5.1 mix, if I can locate the edited version. Stay tuned.

After writing about Christian’s wonderful recording, a gentleman from Australia wrote and asked if I would be willing to make a reel-to-reel copy of the master reels. It sounded like a reasonable thing to do and after spreading the word on the World’s Best Forum and the Yahoo Reel to Reel group, I’m going to be doing a bunch of transfers. I’ve order the blank tape and convinced Rodney, the proprietor of Tim Jordan rentals, to let go of his prized Studer A820 to let me transport the machine to my studio for a day or two. I was surprised that he was the only rental house in town that has one of these amazing machines.

So this opportunity is a one shot deal. If you’re interested in getting a reel-to-reel copy of Christian Jacob’s “Beautiful Jazz” made directly from the master tapes using a state-of-the-art Studer A820 deck, please let me know as soon as possible. I also have the masters of the LA4 project on Concord Records. These copies are not inexpensive but they will be special.

The gentleman in Australia also asked if I would transfer a track from the 96/24 PCM version to analog tape for comparison. It’s not really a fair test because the digital version was actually mixed in my studio from 6 source microphone feeds while the analog tape was mixed live during the session. Still it should be interesting to see which version he prefers. If he goes for the digital to analog tape, then any of my masters could be used as sources for reel-to-reel copies.