It's not often you see a remastered CD that is quieter than the original CD. But that's the case with the new reissue of The Jayhawks' 2003 album Rainy Day Music.
Waveform for "Tailspin" from Original CD (2003)
Waveform for "Tailspin" from Remastered CD (2014)
Kudos to the Jayhawks and remastering engineer Vic Anesini for getting it right this time. The music really does sound much more natural now. The quieter remastering suits the gentle grace of the music better than the louder original mastering.
The album was originally recorded and mixed to analog tape by Ethan Johns and (from what I understand) the upcoming 2 LP reissue will may or may not be cut from analog tape. In the meantime, the new CD sounds really nice, and has 6 bonus cuts.
The vastly underrated Smile and Sound Of Lies have also been reissued on CD with bonus cuts, and will also be subject to 2 LP reissues. Just don't expect the same substantial sonic upgrade as with Rainy Day Music.
There is a real medicine show quality to this Pono promo video featuring famous musicians (David Crosby, Sting, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, James Taylor, Tom Petty, etc.) testifying to the life altering impact of Ponomusic. Each one has just been apparently blown away by a comparison between a hi-rez Ponomusic file and either a CD quality file or an MP3, or maybe an iTunes file (it's not totally clear what they've been listening to, and no context is given).
I never want to put myself in the position of saying what other people do and do not hear. I especially don't like to suggest that someone has been taken in by the power of suggestion. So let me be clear: I have no idea what these guys did or didn't hear, and I am not trying to imply their reactions are anything but 100% genuine. I'm also not saying they were suckered into believing they heard things that weren't real.
But as someone who has spent a lot of time comparing the sound quality of various digital resolutions, it is hard for me to accept that these reactions resulted solely from listening to music files with increased sampling frequency and bit depth alone. I have to believe something else is at work here. Quite possibly the different versions they heard were represented by different masterings. I don't know, and it's not like Pono provides any concrete details.
All other things being equal, the difference between hi-rez (24 bit) digital and CD quality digital (16 bit/44.1 kHz) is just not that profound. I'm not saying there aren't differences (there are) and I'm not saying those differences can't be heard (they can under the right circumstances). It's just that the difference is very subtle and difficult to hear, even for extremely experienced listeners with excellent hearing.
Don't believe me? Here's three different music files, each the same 30 second sample of Nick Drake's "Hazey Jane II." The first is a 24 bit/96 kHz version that I downloaded from Universal music. The second is a CD quality (16 bit/44.1 kHz) version that I generated from that same hi-rez version.* The third is a 192 kps MP3 created from the hi-rez version. Listen to each of them (preferably using some sort of ABX tester to make the test blind). Make sure whatever device you listen on is capable of 24 bit/96 kHz
resolution (you might have to change the MIDI settings on your
computer). Decide for yourself if the differences between them match the hype you see in Pono's video. Personally, I do not hear it.
Throwback Thursday: My old Philips SACD 1000. What a piece of crap. I paid [I wont say how much] for this player, the second SACD compatible player to hit the market. Shortly after the 30 day trial period ended it began malfunctioning. I sent it to Philips for repair (under warranty) five times or more. It never worked for more than two weeks straight again. I followed various internet discussions about this player, and as far as I could gather nearly every single one of them failed and could not be fixed.
Eventually Philips refunded my money, and I even managed to sell the player to someone for a couple hundred bucks for parts (it had some very high quality components under the hood). But it was not worth the frustration.
For a variety of reasons SACD (Super Audio CD) never really caught on, and Sony and Philips quickly all but abandoned the technology (which was supposed to be a major upgrade over CD sound). (Yes, I know that some specialty labels still produce SACDs).
I keep this photo as a reminder not to jump on every "big new thing" technology and to remain skeptical of marketing hype, especially when it is presented with a lot of technical jargon that I do not fully understand. I later discovered, through blind listening tests, that when all other things are equal, I am unable to hear a dime's worth of difference between SACD and CD anyway. It's one of many reasons I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to sign up for Neil Young's Pono music service.
In my last post about PonoMusic I expressed skepticism about whether their music files would actually sound significantly better, and criticized them for what I consider misleading advertising as it pertains to "high-resolution" digital recordings. I also promised to keep an open mind, and today I want to entertain the possibility that PonoMusic might end up being a good thing for sound quality despite my skepticism.
So far all of Pono's marketing as it pertains to the sound quality of the music they will be selling has focused on the sampling rate and bit depth of digital recordings. Again from their FAQ:
IS PONOMUSIC A NEW AUDIO FORMAT? WHAT ABOUT PONOMUSIC QUALITY?
No.
We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format
or standard. It is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get
access to and enjoy their favorite music in the highest resolution
possible for that song or album. The music in the PonoMusic.com store
is sold and downloaded in industry standard audio file formats.
The
PonoMusic Store uses FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio format as
its standard, for compatibility, although the PonoPlayer can play most
popular high-resolution music formats from other sources. PonoMusic has
a quality spectrum, ranging from really good to really great, depending
on the quality of the available master recordings:
In short, what this is telling us is that Pono will not be offering any kind of breakthrough in digital music technology. 192 kHZ/24bit PCM digital audio has been available in some form or another to consumers at least since the introduction of DVD-Audio nearly 15 years ago. There are already other digital music retailers that offer high-resolution digital music files for download. Likewise, the FLAC format is something of an industry standard for lossless compressed audio (although someone might want to alert Apple to that fact).
This is actually a good thing. The last thing we need at this juncture is a new digital format that isn't compatible with other players or current stereo equipment. Pono has not reinvented the wheel here, and there is no reason why they should. The music from their store will likely work with the equipment you already have (if you are an iTunes user you'll need to convert those FLAC files to something like AIFF or Apple Lossless files, but that is a topic for another day). In addition, their player will play the digital files you already own, as they have promised support for most varieties of PCM based audio files, including the kind Apple currently sells. In my view these are both sensible choices.
So if PonoMusic will not be offering anything new under the sun, why do I hold out hope that their product might actually lead to better sounding music for consumers? The answer, ironically, lies with the precedent set by Apple with their "Mastered for iTunes" program. Mastered for iTunes is a set of tools and best practice standards that Apple has made available to labels to create better sounding iTunes music files. I encourage you to read PDF Apple has made available on mastering music for iTunes, as it contains a set of common sense guidelines without excessive marketing hype. It suggests to me that Apple has a very good understanding of what some of the real problems with current digital music are: namely, excessive use of dynamic range compression and digital clipping. It has been my experience that the care that goes into making music sound its best at the mastering stage matters more (much more) than the eventual sample rate and bit depth delivered to the consumer.
It has long been my view that the mastering process is the critical phase in music production that really needs to be addressed and improved. By and large it is at the mastering stage where sound quality is really getting messed up these days. I applaud Apple for taking steps to address this problem.
If Pono were to issue a similar set of guidelines to labels on best practices for mastering audio for PonoMusic, I think there is a real possibility it could result in better sounding digital music releases. Were Pono to leverage its influence to urge labels to ease back on dynamic range compression, avoid digital clipping, and not apply excessive frequency equalization, it would result in audibly better sounding music and differences that really could easily be heard even at CD level (44.1kHZ/16bit) resolution. Perhaps they could create some catchy name like "PonoApproved" for digital albums that meet their sound quality standards.
Now, to be clear, I don't have any special reason to think this will happen, and given Pono's exclusive focus to date on sampling rates and bit depth as the drivers for better sound quality, I am not particularly encouraged. But some precedent for this kind of thing does exist. Also, if PonoMusic is successful, it could push other digital music retailers like iTunes to offer higher quality, lossless, downloads as an option for consumers. All these things would be very welcome developments, and I'm happy to wait and see how things shake out before issuing any final judgement on Pono. I remain skeptical, but I wish Neil Young and Pono luck in their stated goal of making digital music sound better. If they are serious about it they must take steps to demand better sounding masters from record labels, and if they succeed in doing so we all stand to benefit.
I pulled this image from PonoMusic's (Neil Young's long gestating digital music service) kickstarter page. It appears to compare the difference in sound quality between various digital music options, from lossy compressed downloads and streaming music to 192kHz/24bit PCM digital files.
It sure looks like the files Pono's music store will offer are going to sound a lot better than what we're used to. Young describes the difference between ordinary digital files and hi-rez digital files as "surprising and dramatic," he claims they will restore the "soul" to digital music files. From Pono's FAQ:
WILL I REALLY HEAR THE PONOMUSIC DIFFERENCE IN SOUND QUALITY?
Yes. We are confident that you will hear the difference. We're even more confident you will feel it. Everyone who’s ever heard PonoMusic will tell you that the difference is surprising and dramatic. Especially when they listen to music that they know well – their favorite music. They're amazed by how much better the music sounds – and astonished at how much detail they didn’t realize was missing compared to the original. They tell us that not only do they hear the difference; they feel it in their body, in their soul.
Unfortunately, the above chart is more than a little misleading. There's no tidy way to show subjective differences in sound quality (i.e. what we actually hear as a music listener). What this chart actually shows is closer to the difference in file size between various digital music options.
There is really no argument that 192kHz/24bit music files will take up more space on your hard drive, and thus have more information in them, than CD quality (44.1kHz/16bit) files. It is likewise true that the CD quality files, even when losslessly compressed, will take up more space than MP3 or other lossy compressed files. If what you want is music files that are really large, the 192kHz/24bit FLAC files that Pono will be selling are definitely a good option.
Whether these files actually sound better than CD resolution files, or even higher bit rate encoded MP3s, is a subject of much more debate. Some listeners swear by so called "hi-rez" digital music, others say they can't hear a difference. Others go further and claim that it is not possible for humans to hear a difference between properly encoded CD quality digital and hi-rez digital, and say they have the science to back them up (I am not going to touch that one).
I never want to be in a position of telling people what they can or cannot hear, but I was curious if I could hear a difference between hi-rez digital files and CD quality files. The problem is that it is sometimes difficult to do an apples to apples comparison. Comparing a CD against a hi-rez digital file that was mastered differently does not tell us anything definitive about the virtues of higher sampling rates and greater bit depth.
In order to do a fair comparison, I downloaded the "Audiophile 96kHz/24bit" AIFF version of Stevie Wonder's Innervisions from HDTracks (this corresponds to the resolution of the middle yellow block on the chart above). This is music that I love and know very well, having listened to it in various music formats since the 1970s. I then made a CD resolution copy of my favorite track from the album, "Living For The City," using a high quality resampling program. I dropped both the "hi-rez" and CD quality files into a program called "ABXer" that allows you to do blind ABX comparisons between different music files. To make a long story short, despite my best efforts, I was unable to hear a difference between the two file resolutions. My final results were 5 correct identifications and 5 misidentifications, exactly the results one would expect if the test subject was guessing (which I was).
Despite being a dedicated music lover and someone who cares deeply about the quality of recorded sound (if not an "audiophile"), I don't think Pono is for me. Either my equipment (see details in comments) or my ears are not good enough to hear the difference. I'm not personally sold on the benefits of high-resolution music files for music listeners. I'm willing to keep an open mind about that, what I'm not willing to do is re-buy a lot of music I already own on the basis of misleading charts, nebulous promises about improved sound quality, and marketing hype.
Jico stylus of Japan has long offered high quality replacement styluses for phonographic cartridges. In contrast to most aftermarket stylus manufacturers, Jico produces replacement styluses that not only match the quality of the original stylus, they often surpass them. I have been using their SAS [Super Analog Stylus] replacement stylus for a Shure M97xE cartridge, and the Jico stylus transformed the cartridge from a rather ordinary (even boring) sounding cart to something that competes sonically with much higher priced cartridges (sadly, I would know as I've owned some of them).
Jico has just completed a redesign of their website, and are asking their customers to pass along the word. I would be happy to do so even if they were not offering a free t-shirt as a reward. If you have a moving magnet (or moving iron) cartridge with a user replaceable stylus, I highly recommend checking Jico's website to see if they offer a replacement for your cart.
Record fanatics like me owe the dedicated craftsmen at companies like Jico a huge debt of thanks. Without their continued dedication it would no longer be possible to enjoy high quality vinyl playback.
Young summarized his feelings on the need for better sound quality with a
rallying cry that might apply to his pricing strategy, too: "Occupy
audio!"
I'm going to call bullshit on Neil Young and his "occupy audio" rallying cry. You have to work on Wall Street to afford LPs at those prices. One of
the reasons I stuck with LPs while CDs took off was I could get them
dirt cheap while the music industry hideously overpriced CDs (while constantly promising that prices would come down soon). But now the tables have turned and LPs are a luxury good
for well-heeled "aesthetes." Sure I like the way LPs sound better than CDs, I also enjoy the experience of putting an LP on my turntable more than slapping a CD into the player. Maybe that makes me an aesthete or maybe that makes me an idiot, but I'll be [darned] if I'm gonna pay that kind of price for the privilege.
In my entire life I don't think I've paid $42 for a vinyl record more than a handful of times, and I own some pretty nice, collectable stuff. I didn't pay $42 for my first pressing Gram Parsons records, I didn't pay $42 for my first press UK copy of The Clash's London Calling, I didn't pay $42 for my Funkadelic records, and I sure as [heck] didn't pay $42 for my copy of Tony Orlando and Dawn's Greatest Hits. That beautifully pressed and packaged Trypes LP I wrote about yesterday cost me less than $18. (That's a fair price for a new vinyl record, and I'm happy to support the efforts of a label like Acute Records.) The only time I can remember paying more than $42 was when I bit the bullet and bought a near mint copy of PiL's Metal Box on eBay, and I agonized over my extravagance for weeks afterward. Records aren't worth $42 to me, and I don't care whether Neil Young presses them in Germany or on Jupiter, or what kind of fancy wrapper he puts on them.
Perhaps the most insulting part of all this is one of the reasons these new LPs tend to sound better than their CD counterparts is because they intentionally make the CDs sound like [human waste]. As I've documented here many, many times modern CD mastering typically involves sucking all the dynamic range out of the music as well as applying overly-aggressive EQ. After foisting "perfect sound forever" on us for years, the music industry now tells us LPs sound better, and are happy to charge me a $30+ premium so I can congratulate myself on my ability to discern the difference between a common, vulgar, digital CD and a finely pressed, analog LP. But the truth is, if they're both well mastered, I struggle to hear any difference at all between LPs and CDs. Sorry, I want absolutely no part of this [unicorn infested] charade. I'll just scavenge yard sales for CDs
now that the cultural elites are dumping them.
Honestly, I think what really irks me about the whole thing is the fact that Young has
appropriated the language of the occupy movement to promote a product
that is priced strictly for the 1% crowd. It's in poor taste, and it's
insensitive to the economic struggles that so many Americans and others
around the world are facing at the moment. Occupy audio my [rear end].
Update 06/25/12: Portions of this post were edited due to moral objections from my children. All replacement words are now in brackets [ ]. I apologize for the use of potty mouth.
There's an interesting article in the LA Times in which Randall Roberts ponders the impact that streaming and download services are having on traditional notions of music "collecting." This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and if I ever get a few spare moments to organize my thoughts, I'll share them with you.
In the meantime, I recommend reading Roberts' piece, which is very good. How have services like Spotify, Rhapsody, iTunes, MOG, Google Music, etc. affected your music purchasing and collecting habits? How have they affected how you think about your music "collection"?
There was a pretty good article in yesterday's New York Times on buying a turntable and listening to vinyl records called "Enjoying Turntables Without Obsessing." Of course, considering the article covers relatively esoteric, audiophile-dweeb issues like moving magnet vs moving coil cartridges, and belt drive vs direct drive tables, I can image some might question the accuracy of the headline. But here was the least surprising part of the article for me:
"There is a fuller sound to it, and more depth to the sound," said Ryan
Holiday, the New Orleans-based marketing director for American Apparel.
He’s a new devotee of jazz and David Bowie, thanks to LPs.
Having heard some of the David Bowie CDs that have been released over the years (from Rykodisc and Virgin) it's not surprising to me that it would take LPs to convert Ryan into a Bowie fan. The old RCA Bowie LPs are not perfect (they were often pressed on dodgey oil crisis era vinyl), but they really do sound much better than the CDs. Fuller and with more depth is a good start to describing the difference between the LPs and the CDs. The Ryko CDs are also unnaturally bright, and the Virgins have the added deficit of having had all life sucked out of them with noise reduction. The Ryko CDs at least have some interesting, occasionally essential, bonus tracks to recommend them.
Yeah, they're occasionally a little noisy, but those Bowie RCA LPs beg you to crank the volume and rock out, while the CDs are pretty tough on the ears at even moderate listening volumes. I think it would be a lot harder to be Bowie fan if all you ever heard was the commonly available CDs, they simply don't do the music justice.
I just got my invite to try Spotify and installed it on my computer at work. I'm still trying to figure out what the limitations are. I just listened to a few songs from Bert Jansch's Toy Balloon album, and right now I'm listening to Davy Graham's Large As Life And Twice As Natural. At one point the program played about 30 seconds of some rap song, which I guess they think I might want to buy. Not sure what I think overall, but at the very least it seems like a good way to preview full tracks before making a purchase decision.
Anyone else in the U.S. trying Spotify out? If so, I'm eager to hear your impressions. I would also love feedback from any readers in the U.K. and Europe who have more experience with Spotify. What do you think of Spotify?
Today marks the release date of dos y dos the fourth album by the two bass guitar duo of Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE, etc.) and Kira Roessler (Black Flag). It's the first album Mike and Kira have released together since 1996's Justamente Tres on Kill Rock Stars, and the second since their marriage ended in divorce in 1994.
I had the opportunity to speak with Kira about the new dos album and the collaborative process involved in creating it, while also touching on more intangible topics like the nature of commitment. Kira told me that when she was in Black Flag the band's motto was "whatever you do, do it all the way," and it's clear that Kira still lives by that creed, even if the amount of time she has to dedicate to music is now limited by her busy and successful career as a Hollywood dialog editor.
Kira Roessler and Mike Watt.
Kira was very open and easy to interview, but there were times when I could hear flashes of the fierce competitiveness that no doubt served her well as one of the few women in the macho L.A. hardcore scene of the 1980s. She has also clearly used that fierce competitiveness to her advantage in collaborating with Mike Watt, and to push herself to become a better songwriter and bass player.
It took Kira and Mike a long time to develop the songs on dos y dos, and it is easy to hear how much care, thought and passion was put into the album's exquisite arrangements. As Kira says in our interview "There's love, there's hate, it's all in there." It's the band's finest hour so far, and the album can stand proudly alongside anything either Kira or Mike have done in the past.
Me: You and Mike have been doing dos for over 25 years now. What is it that keeps the two of you coming back to this configuration of two basses with occasional vocals?
Kira: Well, I think basically the same thing that started it. We are both so much bass players first. Take away dos and we are [still] such bass players through and through. So for us to play together, that’s the instrument. We're not going to suddenly jump instruments. I've been known to say that people who leave the bass and play guitar are traitors. So that's just me.
But you start with that. You start with the fact that we're bass players through and through. We compose on the bass without any real feeling that [the instrument] hampers our ability to compose. And then you have the fact of just our chemistry, if you will, and the relationship, which has gone from a fascination, through a marriage, through a level of commitment that regardless of marriage and the difficulties of that kind of relationship, there is a pretty deep connection that just doesn't quit.
So it keeps coming back to this. You know, a band is like a marriage, and I think our ability to commit to that is the same thing that made us commit to the marriage. And there's no…I almost can't imagine what it would be like without it. It's a lifelong commitment, just like it is to the bass guitar. Dos is a tribute to the bass guitar, and…the best possible way to do what I'm trying to do.
Now there's all this new stuff added on to it, like the fact that I've learned to be so much better at my craft because of dos. And that just reinforces the desire to keep doing it.
Me: In rock music the bass is typically an under-utilized melodically. Why do you think that is?
Kira: [Laughs] I heard Mike say an interesting thing the other day. He almost implied that it was to keep the power of the bass out of the mix. In other words, that the bass can be so powerful that you have to kind of keep it squashed.
But I think that, just like as I was saying, just as there is a chemistry in our band there's a chemistry in all bands, and often times it is closely connected to who composes the songs and who does the writing. And traditionally that is the guitar player. They tend to be the leaders of the band, the ones who are planting the seeds creatively. I would say, for myself, when I'm playing in a rock band with a guitar player who's written a song, I think it's completely inappropriate for me to try to stand out. The best bass line for the song he's written may be one where I am completely understated.
I often say that one of my favorite bass players is Dusty Hill, because he always does what's exactly right for ZZ Top. He's not necessarily showing off his prowess and his technical skill, he's just doing what's right in the context [of the song]. And I think that is what a good bass player does…you know, [acts as] the grout between the tiles.
Now that doesn't mean it's limited to that. It's just that, as you said, traditionally that's what rock has done. You have a guitar player who writes a line and you have a bass player who either can't, or won't, step all over it to show off their skill and prowess. Occasionally you do, and those aren't my favorite bass players.
Me: For me, with any instrument, when I feel like someone is doing something to show off their technical prowess, it's a turn off.
Kira: Yeah! Exactly! To me it comes down to the emotion. There's no emotion in being fancy-pants and playing a bunch of notes. There's emotion in feeling what's right, and that could be very minimal, and very much full of space and holes. So if you're too busy filling up all the space, you're taking away emotion a lot of times.
Me: Yeah, I definitely agree. But on the other hand, there are some notable exceptions. To name the big one, there's Paul McCartney, who obviously tends to contribute a lot melodically through the bass guitar.
Kira: But he writes the songs!
Me: Yes, exactly.
Kira: Again, when the bass player is the songwriter, and you do see that…[take] Mike's rock bands [for example]...what he does solo wise is the same thing. His bass lines are much more melodic, and are much more important to the song when he is the songwriter. So I think it comes back to that a lot of the time. If the person has any restraint, he's going to allow the song to be what it is, which means deferring to the songwriter. If the drummer writes the song, it's the same thing as far as I’m concerned.
Me: Can you tell me a little bit about your new album dos y dos? What was its genesis, development process, recording, etc.?
Kira: Sure. This record has been a long, long, long time coming. [Laughs] ... That's for a number of reasons, including the more obvious ones like the fact that Mike is an incredibly busy man, and that I work very full-time for a living. So the amount of time that can be applied to the composition of songs at times is hampered. And the composition is the part that is extremely difficult in the case of dos, because to do it right the spaces and the interplay has to be worked out, and nuanced, and massaged. We can't just pull from our traditional bag of tricks. We have to go iteration after iteration to struggle with how to compose the song in such a way that the interplay is there, and so that the songwriter—whichever of us it is—can get what they are trying to get out of it.
So these songs have been evolving for 15 years, basically. The cover song on there, "No Me Quiero Mas," a Selena song, was one we started playing years and years ago. There are a couple of songs that date back maybe even farther.
Oftentimes, when I'm the composer I will write the seed of Mike's part, and he will modify it and make it his own. And when he writes the song, he typically leaves it open for me to write a part, and then we go around a few times on it. But, to make the point clear, the composition is complicated; the obstacles have been numerous in terms of composition.
Now the cool thing is, the upside has been that in the last few years we both have ProTools in our house. We both have the capacity—and he has a studio in his home—we can record one song at a time. The last record, Justamente Tres, we had to get the whole set together and go in and record it in just a day or two.
Me: That was something that I wanted to ask about specifically because, obviously, so much has changed within the music industry, both on the recording and distribution end since the last time you released a record. The previous records you recorded at [Ethan James' studio] Radio Tokyo. And this one was done in ProTools in Mike's home studio, correct?
Kira: Right. That’s correct. What happens is, in a demo kind of way, we can send the material back and forth...It's kind of like the way we did the first record. When we did the first record I lived in Connecticut. We would send cassette tapes back and forth in the mail to compose the songs. Now we send digital files back and forth, and work on the songs that way. And I can work on the songs at 6:30 in the morning, which is what works for me. And he can work whenever he works, and we can evolve the song. And then I go down to his studio to do the actual recording which, as I was saying, is actually the smallest aspect of it.
This time [the process] took so long that there were songs we had to go back and re-record because the sound on the later songs was so different from the sound on the earlier songs. And we wanted the sound of the record to be consistent from top to bottom, so we went back and re-recorded some of the earliest recordings.
Me: So far I've only heard an MP3 preview of the album, but I was very impressed with the sound quality. And I went back and listened to the first two dos records that were recorded in a proper studio, and I think I actually—and not to put down Ethan James at all—but I liked how the new album sounds better.
Kira: It does [sound better]! And it's interesting that you mention that, because I went back and did the same thing recently. Someone who was doing an interview asked for a couple of our old songs to hear, and I brought some of them up. And I was surprised to hear the same thing. Part of that, as I've said, [is because] a lot has changed for Mike and I since then. We have better tools now. My current bass sounds better than what I was using then. We have very good preamps down there that we're recording through.
You know, people can argue the analog digital world, but there is so much more to it than just that. So you've got this issue of top-to-bottom, how my fingers hit the strings, what kind of strings they are, what kind of bass it is, what kind of preamp it is, etc., etc. So it's not Ethan James per se, but how it went from our hands to Ethan…
Me: Right. I think a lot of times people get hung up on that analog digital divide either because it's something that feel like they can understand, or because it's the kind of binary divide that people seem to be attracted to. But you're right, there really is so much more going on than that.
Kira: Frankly, I don’t think most people could hear the difference. [Laughs] I really don't.
Me: I think you're probably right.
Kira: If you take a good quality recording of both, and give a person some good quality headphones, or speakers, and sit them in front of them, and do a compare and contrast. You know, your audiophile, your top 1% audiophile is going to hear the difference.
Me: Yeah, but…Steve Albini might take issue with both of us on this point.
Kira: [Laughs] He certainly would! And I would be happy to argue with Steve! I've recorded a record with Steve, and I take issue with some of the ways that he does things too…He's a good example of what I'm talking about. His strategy in being an engineer or…producer is very much to let the band hang themselves, if that's what they're going to do. Ethan James let dos sound the way dos sounded, and Albini would do the same. And Mike and I, given that we had this environment, this song by song crafting, had the ability to overcome some of the mistakes that we might not be able to overcome if we were to work through someone like that. Because we have to figure out what's working and not working and hear it back, hear what we're doing right, hear what we're doing wrong, take it away, come back.
Me: I'm intrigued by the title of the album for a couple of reasons. One of the things that the title brings to mind for me is dancing (as in "swing your partner dosey doe.") Was that a connotation you had in mind on any level?
Kira: [Laughs] No. Dos y dos equals quattro, and it's our fourth record. We have this sort of thing going with the records being somewhat titled after the number, and this one is our fourth. Our last record, Justamente Tres, was we thought going to be the last dos album, so we thought it was going to be "just three." So no, the dancing tie in I don't think was really there, but mathematics, the Spanish mathematics, absolutely.
Me: So maybe this is your mathematical background creeping in?
Kira: Well, Mike actually gave it the title, so I take no credit.
Me: The reason that it brings to mind dance for me is because, having listened to the album, there is an almost dance like quality to it. I'm thinking of dancing that involves partnership, and what you have is a similar kind of musical partnership. There's been a conversational quality to all of the dos albums, but with this one, to me, there is almost a dance-like quality to it. Not dancing as in going out clubbing--I'm thinking more along the lines of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers--there is a certain fleetness of foot to this album.
Kira: Well that's kind of what I'm saying about the interplay and composition, and I think Mike and I are getting better at it. You can hear this evolution of us being able to execute what we've been trying to do all along, which is that interplay, that fleetness of foot and lightness without getting bogged down in the fact that we're using these heavy low-end instruments. [We want to] still have the full frequency that the instrument is capable of, but without stepping all over each other. Which is a good dancing analogy too, that's when it doesn't work, if you’re stepping on each others' toes.
So we have to somehow compositionally work around each other, and I think we're both getting better at that. And we fight and struggle with that. You don't know how hard it is! And he's constantly, even more than me, saying, "no that’s too busy, we're stepping on each other." So we're constantly stripping things out of it, and it's weird to keep pulling stuff out until it feels like there's hardly anything left. But that's the exercise from the beginning when we're throwing stuff at each other; it's an editing process, we keep pulling stuff out until it has that sort of lightness to it.
Me: Listening to this, when I close my eyes, it was almost as if I could picture Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on the dance floor because of that very quality that you're describing. I think it's remarkably well done from that perspective.
Kira: Well that's cool because that is what we're going for. I think we're getting better at it, and I think it has made me a much better bass player when I write for guitar music, or other music, because I've learned to be better at finding the spaces. I've learned to be better at not stepping on the guitar player's toes. It's also really helped me in my teaching. I do some bass lessons, and when I have students who aren't just starting out, I work really hard with them on not writing just the obvious, traditional, bass lines in their rock music, but actually stretching the limits a little bit and finding spaces and leaving holes. So it's become a big part of how I think, and play bass regardless of dos.
Me: Another thing I noticed about the new album is that it was much harder for me to tell your playing and Mike's playing apart. On the previous albums usually I could listen and say, "okay that's a Mike thing," or "that’s a Kira thing," but here there is a fluidity and seamlessness between the two of you, and the way that you exchange ideas, that seems a bit different this time.
Kira: [Laughs] That's funny, because I think we do play differently. I think one of the things that's better—and I think that is a better thing that you're describing—is that the sound of our basses are better, and they match better, and we're better able to…take care of the sonic qualities, and make sure everything sounds balanced, and that nobody stands out too much one way or another, good or bad. We wanted it to sound more like interplay than competing. But it is in some ways still a duel as well. [Laughs] I mean it's war! I don’t know if you can tell, but it's war!
Kira and Mike go to war!
Me: I can hear that too. But mostly I hear an exchange of ideas...
Kira: There is! There's love, there's hate, it's all in there. But what I meant by that is that we are obviously in really different places in our lives. Mike plays all the time, every day, hours and hours a day he's playing on stage. And I'm fighting and battling all the time to find half and hour before work to play my bass. So I can't slide. Ever since I was 6 and I had a big brother, and we both played piano, there's been this vicious competitive streak in me, that just says that I can't show that I’m not as much. When I joined Black Flag, it was the same thing. I [felt I couldn't] show that because I'm a girl, I'm weak. There's this constant thing of not wanting to show any weakness. It's probably a huge character flaw! But I also try to benefit from it and use it as motivation, because just recognizing it as a character flaw doesn't necessarily make it go away.
Me: Do you know what Ginger Rogers said about dancing with Fred Astaire?
Kira: No.
Me: She said, "I did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels." [Ed. note, I misattributed this quote to Ginger Rogers, it was apparently first used by cartoonist Bob Thaves in his comic strip Frank And Ernest.]
Kira: There you go! And I'll just say with hands half the size of Mike Watt!
Me: Right! But that is something that's interesting. I mean, playing with Mike Watt, you've obviously, despite other demands on your time, you've kept your playing at a very high level. Playing with Mike Watt, that's like stepping onto the tennis court with Pete Sampras or something. You can't be out of practice and hope to keep up.
Kira: It's challenging. It really is. And I of course, my personality is such that I feel the competitive aspect a lot more than Mike does. I think it's hard for Mike to imagine being on the other side of the tennis court. And I don't think he is necessarily enforcing it, or creating it, it's just there. Luckily I have all these years of fighting this battle, so I practice a lot. We have a dos gig coming up and I'm practicing all the time. Mike's hands are in shape already. All he has to do is remember the parts. I have to get my hands stronger and more mobile, as well as remember all those parts, because I don't play dos all the time. It's interesting. We'll get together and practice, and my biggest challenge often is the implementation, and his will be to remember his parts. He has a million other songs in his head that he has to push aside. And I have the problem of just getting my fingers to do what I'm telling them to do.
Me: Well, in my mind, and I'm sure the mind of anyone who's followed your career, you have nothing to prove. But it sounds like you still feel like you do, like that hunger is still there.
Kira: Well, it's like you said, if I'm going to get on the tennis court with whoever…I just can't let up. It's not so much about proving myself as it is that I can't go out on the court without stretching, or not have done as much prep as I can do. I don't want to go out there and look like I'm not even trying. So there's this feeling of I have to do my part. And, yeah, there's a part of me that worries I won't succeed. I literally work 60-hour weeks. I literally have these huge obstacles in the way of just being prepared as best I can to be on the other side of the tennis court.
Me: Your main job is as a film dialog editor, correct?
Kira: Right. Dialog and ADR [automated dialog replacement].
Me: Do you like that?
Kira: I do. I'm paid well. It's something that is sometimes, but not always, creative. I've worked my way up in this field and had some career success, which is affirming. The problem with that is that in the old days I had big breaks between projects, and now those come fewer and further between. The pain of success is that I keep getting offered great work, such great work that I feel I can't turn it down, even if I might like to have a break. So even if I can maybe afford to take a break, I can't turn the work down because it's such a great opportunity. So things are going really well in that way, but that also makes it harder to find those little breaks to do more music stuff. But I do like it, and I've had some success at it, which is that job satisfaction that we all want.
Me: Absolutely, and I've seen some of the projects you've worked on, so it's obvious to me that you've risen to the very top of your field. How hard was it for you to transition into a career away from music?
Kira: Well I've never done music for a living. So maybe that's helped. My last quarter at UCLA was after I was asked to leave Black Flag, so I had to get work right out of school. I was in computers for 11 years, because that's what I studied. This wasn't on my radar at that time. So I was working in the corporate world, and not really enjoying it that much…and then I met someone who was running a really small sound house who my brother was doing some composing for. So in a musical context, because they asked me to do some bass work, I met this guy, and we got to be friends, and I started begging him to hire me at the absolute lowest level. I took a three quarter pay cut just to start at the bottom and work my way up in a new field. But I've always worked, and it's always been a struggle to balance that with playing bass.
Me: It's interesting because back when I was kid in high school and buying independent releases by bands like Black Flag or the Minutemen, I think I had a very unrealistic idea of what the financial situation was like for bands in that position. As far as I was concerned, I was buying these albums at the same record stores where you could buy a Bon Jovi, or whatever, record. I knew those bands weren't making Bon Jovi money, but it wasn't until I read Our Band Could Be Your Life that it fully dawned on me just how financially deprived that lifestyle actually was.
Kira: Yeah. And, you know, it hit me pretty early that I didn't want to be another starving artist because I have an older brother who sort of chose that route.
Me: That's Paul [Roessler]?
Kira: Yeah. And so I had a little sense that that wasn't the life for me. And I had already been doing it. I was at UCLA working my tail off, and then touring. So for me keeping those balls in the air was almost normal. I mean, I was in high school and gigging and staying out all night. I think my brother and I almost have opposite philosophical ideas about this; for me it doesn't take away from my artistic integrity that I go to school or work, and he had this attitude of if you're a true artist you dedicate your life and soul to it, even if you starve. I always believed I still existed in that realm even if I couldn't always be holding my bass.
Me: Not having been blessed with any artistic talent whatsoever, this has never been a dilemma for me, so I suppose it's hard for me to relate to. But there has always been something about the "starving artist" ideal that struck me as...I don't know…adolescent.
Kira: [Laughs] Well I understand that, and yet there are people who truly believe that. My brother truly has some, and we know others, painters, where there's a disconnect that almost makes them unable to go and work. And they think of themselves as literally not having the capacity to do that. Now, I agree with you, there are times when I say "Oh come on!" And yet we know that through the ages there have been artists who just bled and sweated all over their art and couldn't do anything else.
Me: Oh yeah, absolutely. And God bless those people, and I believe the world is a better place for having them in it. So what I said wasn't meant to denigrate anyone, it's just that it's a hard mentality for me to understand fully.
Kira: And it is for me too, because it was never how I wanted to live. But, if when I finished school, if I was still in Black Flag, I would not have started to work. That was the only time where I was ready to try that. At the time I considered what I was doing at school as a backup plan.
Me: So when you were in Black Flag, you did see that as a potential lifestyle?
Kira: Well, to give it some context, [the attitude in] Black Flag was "whatever you do, do it all the way." That's what my tattoo means to me. That's what I believed. So I did believe that's what it would take to continue on in Black Flag. And I had made the decision that I was going to give it my all. I didn't think of it, frankly, as a forever thing. I just thought, "I'm going to give this a chance." Because my time at UCLA was killing me. So I liked the idea of finally just getting a break from that, and committing to Black Flag full time without school hanging over all our heads, affecting our tour schedules, which was a pain in the butt.
So giving Black Flag my full effort seemed appropriate and right. Was it how I wanted to live? Not necessarily. But I was at least going to give it a chance, because I hadn't yet. UCLA was sucking me dry. And it was sucking Black Flag dry too, because of our tour schedule. We were doing miserable tours, because to accommodate my schoolwork we could only tour in the winter and summer. And the best time to tour is in the spring and fall. But I had to maintain a certain number of quarters at UCLA to maintain my student status…
Me: What do listen to these days, especially in terms of new music?
Kira: Jeez, new music! I like the new Melvins. I don't even know if it's their newest one anymore, The Bride Screamed Murder. Recently I've been listening to things that have been around for a while, but hadn't been on my radar. So it's kind of embarrassing to admit…
Me: I don't think that's anything to be embarrassed by. That might have embarrassed me at a certain point in my life, but not now.
Kira: Yeah, but some of this stuff has been around for a long time. One of my recent absolute favorites is The Evens, which is Ian MacKaye's band with his wife [Amy Farina]. They've been around forever, but I just hadn't checked them out. I really love some of these smaller bands, which is not surprising since I'm in a two-person band. The Evens are a two-person band, Mates Of State is another two-person band I really like. Although I recently saw video of them on stage, and they had a bunch of other people on stage with them, and I was like, "What the hell? I thought you were a two-person band!" I love them.
I like Latin music. I like Albita, who's a Cubana singer. I listen to her a lot, as well as Shakira when she does not her crossover stuff, but her Columbian roots music. I listen to Spanish radio mostly when I'm driving on my very short commute to work.
I've got a list of things that I'm constantly trying to check out. I have two nephews who are in their 20s, and they're a little more in touch, and they make suggestions all the time. They turned me on to Bright Eyes, who I really like.
Me: Back to the new dos album, I see that you have a vinyl release planned.
Kira: Yes, I have it in hand. We have CDs and vinyl, and there will also be download capability. Everything is being released on July 12th. We have a record release party scheduled in Pedro. We have a video, which will be exclusively premiered at the party, then we'll make it available elsewhere. It's fun because it has been so long, and like you said, because there are all these new technologies, and at the same time there's a resurgence of interest in vinyl. So we're having a good time promoting a new album, we've got a couple of gigs coming up. But we're happy to give this album the love that it deserves, despite the demands on our time. He's in Europe, but he'll be back in time for the record release party...
Me: I should probably let you go, but I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to talk to me...I think you and Mike have created something really special with this new album, and I hope this interview will help bring it some of the attention it deserves.
Kira: Well thank you very much for taking your time out, and I enjoyed the interview.
According to Digital Music News, vinyl record sales are up 41% over the first half of 2011. This follows a reported 14% growth rate for the year 2010. I've expressed pretty deep skepticism about the sustainability of the so-called vinyl revival, so it's interesting to see vinyl sales have not yet reached any kind of plateau.
It's hard for me to know exactly where this growth is coming from.
I have a few friends who, like me, buy vinyl records. But none of us ever ditched our turntables or stopped buying vinyl records, so I doubt we are contributing to any serious growth. Also, we mostly buy used records with a smattering of new releases mixed in. And any of the stories you see about sales growth for vinyl records, of course, only relate to new LP sales. But most people I know have no idea that you can buy vinyl records of new releases in the year 2011.
Sometimes I'll talk to someone who will say something like "I'd like to get a turntable again," but they don't seem particularly serious about it. When they say it, it sounds like some vague but unobtainable ambition, like saying "One of these days I'd really like to sail around the world in a Sunfish."
So maybe it really is the young whippersnappers fueling this growth?
Anyone who follows this blog knows that I am a big-time record nerd. I love records. I love everything about records. Almost. There is one thing I do not love, and that is LPs that are pressed off-center.
Of all the problems that can plague LPs, off-center pressings are in my opinion the worst. Yes, warped records are a pain, and so are ones that are scratched and noisy. But those can usually be returned for a better copy. But, in my experience, if an LP is pressed off-center, then the whole batch of LPs will have been pressed off-center as well. And since most new LPs are released in fairly limited runs these days, that typically means that all of them will be off center. I have learned the hard way that when you get an off-center pressing, the replacement copy will also almost always be off-center as well, so will the replacement for that one, and so on...
I don't expect LPs to sound like CDs (for better and for worse). I'm not one of these people who complains anytime there is a slight bit of surface noise on an LP, or if it is not perfectly flat. But I cannot tolerate off-center pressings. LP noise (clicks, pops, etc.) is typically intermittent and I can generally tune it out. Also, a lot of times an album that has a few clicks or pops on first play will start to play quietly after a good cleaning and a few plays. Likewise, a good turntable/tonearm/cartridge combo can play through minor warps without too much sonic damage. But off-center pressings affect the sound quality of the entire LP and create a horrible, warbling tone (from excessive wow and flutter). And aside from the old Nakamichi Dragon CT turntable, even the best turntable set up will sound horrible playing an off-center LP.
I can only listen to an off-center LP for a few seconds before wanting to crawl out of my skin. Sadly, the only "fix" is to ream out a larger spindle hole on the record and then manually center the LP every time you want to play it. To call this is a major PITA would be a serious understatement.
How much so I hate off-center pressings? Enough that I posted a demo video on youtube using Panda Bear's Tomboy LP as an example (see above).
I feel like I have crossed some invisible--perhaps imaginary--threshold with my recent purchase of Robyn Hitchcock's new album, Tromsø, Kaptein. Rather than ordering the album on CD, I chose to buy the (lossless) FLAC download. For the first time, I skipped the physical release of a Robyn Hitchcock album. Of course I've bought digital albums in the past, but doing so for a major (for me) artist like Robyn Hitchcock feels somehow different.
It's a sensible choice, but it still somehow feels a little strange. But (with shipping) the CD would have cost me over $20 (there was no vinyl release of this album) and the FLAC download was $11. So purely from an economic standpoint, my decision makes sense.
The were other factors in play however. The last Hitchcock album I bought on vinyl, Goodnight Oslo, despite being well-mastered and virtually free of clicks and pops, was something of a disaster sonically. I pre-ordered it from Yep-Roc, and when I got the vinyl in the mail, I found side two was pressed well off-center, leading to audible warble. Yep Roc kindly mailed me a replacement copy, and I mailed the defective LP back to them. Unfortunately, my replacement copy had the exact same problem. I then bought another copy at my local record shop, and when it too featured an off-center side two, I gave up, and have mostly listened to the MP3 that came as a bonus with the vinyl.
It's hard not to think about the environmental impact of my old-fogeyism in this case. How much larger was the carbon footprint of my multiple vinyl purchases than if I had just settled for a download in the first place? There is the carbon emission associated with producing three slabs of vinyl, plus the emissions associated with shipping it back and forth. It's gotta add up, right? How many icebergs need to melt for me to continue feeding my vinyl habit when there are other options available?
After that experience, I passed on the vinyl edition of Robyn's next album, Propellor Time, and simply purchased the CD at my local record store. But I don't think I listened to the CD in the traditional sense once. Don't get me wrong, I've listened to the album numerous times, but that has either been on my laptop music server or on my iPod. The CD has done little more than gather dust in a drawer after being ripped (losslessly) to iTunes.
All of which left me questioning the wisdom of paying twice as much for a CD as for a FLAC download that is bit-for-bit identical to the data encoded on the CD. I had to convert the FLAC files to a format that iTunes recognizes in order for them to be useful to me, but that wasn't hard.
So now I have Robyn's new album with sound quality that is equal to the CD, and the carbon footprint of my purchase is much smaller than it would have been otherwise. Allow me to pat myself on the back in typical American self-congratulatory fashion for being a friend to the planet and a defender of the icecaps. I am the Greatest American Hero. I spit on the rest of you and your decadent, wasteful ways.
The downside is that I have no fucking clue who plays on the album. There are some enchanting female backing vocals as well as some lovely string bass, but I have no idea who is responsible. A Google search revealed all kinds of places to download the album illegally, but no details on who plays on it (Paul Noble produced, I can tell you that).
The album itself is fantastic. I would put Hitchcock's body of work from Spooked to the present up against any other period of his career. In fact, this may be the best stretch he's had overall, even if none of the albums quite match something like Underwater Moonlight. Highly recommended.
What would you say if I told you there was an amazing new way to organize your CD library with the help of a PC (Personal Computer)? Probably something along the lines of, "No shit, it's called iTunes and it's been around since 2001, welcome to the 21st Century moron."
Okay fine, I probably deserved that, but you didn't have to be so rude about it. But believe it or not, I wasn't referring to iTunes, Winamp, MediaMonkey, fobar2000, or any other digital media player. No, I'm talking about BesTradeUSA.com'sDC101 and DC300(dig those jet age names!) CD Library - Automatic CD storage/retrieval system. I was amazed to read about these products in this Sunday's Providence Journal (though I cannot find a trace of the article on projo.com, I swear I'm not making this up, you can find the same story at Vindy.com). The DC101 and DC300 are state of the art solutions to an age-old problem that no longer exists: how do you organize and catalog all your Compact Discs?
For me, the DC101 CD Organizer's name brings back not only unpleasant memories of the classic rock station I was forced to listen to on the school bus, but also a horrific plane crash in 1982. Visually, the DC101's subtly contoured edges recall the elegant slide projector carousels of yore, or perhaps a yogurt maker. BesTradeUSA describes the DC101 thusly:
"The CD Manager/Organizer/Finder allows you to categorize and manage (storage/retrieval) your CD/DVD/VCD/CD-R/DVD-RW titles (e.g. electronic books, financial data, images, photos, video, audio, ..etc). It's only limited by your imagination."
That's right, no more fumbling for your Barry White's All Time Greatest Hits CD to set the proper mood. The DC101 hooks up to your Personal Computer via a USB input, so just type in the name of the CD you want, and let the DC101 do the rest! Your new special lady (or gentleman) friend will not only be impressed by how organized your are, and your unimpeachable sense of style, but also your easy command of the latest technology. I'm not saying the DC101 will get you laid but....well, actually, yeah that is exactly what I'm saying.
If, like me, you own more than 150 CDs, you needn't worry, the DC101 has still got you covered because you can stack and daisy chain up to 127 of them, allowing you to store and organize over 19,049 discs! I imagine you'd need pretty high ceilings to stack 127 of these units one on top of the other, and for stability's sake I would recommend separating them into five stacks of 21 and one stack of 22, or better yet six stacks of 18 and one stack of 19 (better safe than sorry).
If you step up to the deluxe DC300 model, you gain direct keypad entry, a built in USB hub, and CDDB update. But that's not all you get! The DC300 conveniently pushes your Compact Disc out entirely for easy, fingerprint-proof retrieval. Now all you need is a robot to put the CD in your Compact Disc Player, and your life will be as easy as George Jetson's ("Boy Rosie, these nine hour work weeks are killing me!").
The DC300 is available in either elegant almond, or stunning gray, and like the DC101 it can be stacked and daisy chained up to 127 times. The DC300 looks like the actual slide projector to the DC101's carousel, and its simple solidity will let the world know that you are a person of substance.
I have seen the future and it is called the DC101/DC300 CD Library - Automatic CD storage/retrieval system.
When you purchase your DC101 or DC300 organizers, you might also want to check out BesTradeUSA's amazing SNAP SHOT 2110 Digital Camera with 2.1 Mega Pixels (!) and 1.5" LCD display while it is on sale for the low, low price of $199 (MSRP $399). As BesTradeUSA says, "Digital Your Memory."
If you go to Apple's homepage today you will be greeted by the message above about an "exciting announcement from iTunes" tomorrow at 10:00 AM Eastern. Despite my recent complaints about Apple and iTunes, I must tip my hat to them for their mastery of the art of hype. No one has any idea what what the big announcement will be, but that doesn't stop everyone from guessing. Apple does an amazing job of keeping things secret and only letting the public know about new products and features on their own terms. Also, no matter how many times these announcements fail to live up the advance hype, people always get worked up over the "next big thing" from Apple anyway.
Bonus SAT answer:
Lucy with football is to Charlie Brown as: A) Steve Jobs with 'big announcement' is to Apple fans.
There's really only one thing that, in my opinion, could live up to this level of hype: the announcement of an "iTunes Cloud" service where people pay a monthly subscription fee that allows them to access the entire iTunes catalog. As downloads continue to fall well short of making up for the revenue that labels have lost over the past 10 years, it's become increasingly clear to me that the industry will eventually move toward some kind of subscription-based model. iTunes and Apple, with the world's largest digital catalog and the most popular hardware devices that could access a music cloud (iPhones, iPads, etc.), are ideally positioned to be the market leader when this shift occurs.
So if that is the announcement, it would legitimately constitute big news, and a day worth remembering. It would signal a seismic shift in the way pre-recorded music is distributed, and forever change our relationship to it. A music "cloud" would represent a far bigger shift, in my opinion, than the move toward downloads did, because with downloads you still "owned" something. Sure it wasn't something physical anymore, but--in theory at least--it still belonged to you. Once we move to a "cloud" access model, the idea of owning pre-recorded music will rapidly become an anachronism. It won't wipe record collector geeks like myself off the face of the planet in an instant, but it will make the hobby appear even more quaint and inconsequential than it currently does.
Of course given the "just another day" reference, Apple may just be planning to announce that you can download the Beatles catalog from iTunes, which would be quite lame and forgettable. (But would they really reference a Macca solo song to announce acquiring the rights to the Beatles catalog? If so, that sound you just heard was John Lennon rolling over in his grave.)
So will tomorrow be just another day when Steve Jobs pulls the football out from under us and leaves us lying on our backs cursing our gullibility, or will something really big happen? Either way, I once again tip my hat to Apple's spectacular ability to generate hype.
Update:All Things Digital says a "cloud" announcement is not likely given that contracts with music industry companies would have to be in place, and as far as anyone knows that hasn't happened yet. It's also not likely to be a more limited "cloud" that you can upload content you already own to, as the music industry has been arguing that such a service would also require a new contract. In short, given the number of players that would have to be involved, a cloud announcement just isn't something Apple could surprise us all with.
One last thought: Paul McCartney recently moved his solo catalog from EMI to Concord Music Group, so the announcement might have something to do with that. As a result, HD Tracks recently made Band On The Run available as a hi-rez (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC download (allowing you to choose dynamically compressed and un-compressed versions). But audiophile Macca releases seem like something that would be of interest to too small a percentage of the population to qualify as a big announcement.
The Furutech GT40 USB DAC with Phono Stage is a very intriguing looking new product. I'm wondering if anybody has heard one of these? The GT40 combines several essential functions for those of us who still listen to LPs, but also like to digitize (or "needledrop") vinyl, as well as use a computer or other music server as a source for high quality music. It combines a phono pre-amp, DAC (digital-to-analog converter) with USB input, ADC (analog-to-digital converter), plus a headphone amplifier into one package. I have no experience with Furutech products, but I know they are a highly respected audio manufacturer.
Currently, the top shelf of my stereo system is a tangle of cords and equipment. I have a Grado PH-1 phono stage, an Edirol UA-1EX USB ADC, and a Valab NOS DAC, along with all the cords necessary to power and connect them. I am always switching connections back and forth because my integrated amp has a limited number of inputs. While this arrangement is kind of cumbersome, each component does its job well, and I am happy with the way everything sounds (and that matters to me more than convenience). That said, if I could combine all these functions into a single box without taking a step back in sound quality, it would be nice. Really nice.
People often ask me for advice about digitizing vinyl and unfortunately I have no recommendations for them beyond assembling a hodge-podge of components as I have done. All-in-one USB turntables almost universally stink (with the possible exception of a Pro-Ject table I wrote about a while back). But even the Pro-Ject unit is limited to 44.1 kHz/16 bit digital audio output, and in my experience you need to capture the signal from the vinyl at a higher resolution than that before doing any processing to get really good results.
The Furutech GT40 is the first product I am aware of the combines all these functions, and also allows up to 96 kHz/24 bit analog-to-digital conversion. If you've heard or used one of these, I'd be very interested to hear your feedback. I am especially curious about in the sound quality of the phono preamp itself and digital to analog conversion. Kudos to Furutech for introducing such a forward-looking product. This is exactly the kind of component audio manufacturers should be creating if they wish to survive in our constantly evolving media environment.
Have you heard the news? The Compact Cassette is making a comeback. The revival of interest in the lowly cassette tape documented by August Brown in the LA Times appears to be a modest, fringe phenomenon, but a real one nonetheless. Pitchfork noted the same trend in more detail back in February. I have been known to wax nostalgic on the topic of the mixtape on occasion myself.
We've been reading stories about resurgent interest in vinyl records for years now, so it was probably only a matter of time before the cassette started making a comeback as well. People tend to think of the CD as replacing the LP, but the picture is more complicated than that when you consider the often forgotten fact that from the early-80s through the early-90s the cassette was actually the dominant music format for both home recording and pre-recorded music. Pre-recorded cassette sales passed up LP sales sometime in the early 80s, and it was not until 1993 that CDs outsold cassette tapes in the United States. The compact cassette had about a decade of extremely robust sales, so it is not surprising that there would be a revival of interest in the format approximately 20 years after its decline began.
The good news is that my boss (evidently unaware of the cassette's impending resurgence) recently gave me his Nakamichi RX-202 cassette deck, so I will have something really nice on which to play the "outré noise-rock" currently being released exclusively on cassette.
I'll try to post some thoughts about what this resurgence might be about later.
It's been a while since I posted any waveforms here, but with the controversy over the mastering of the 25th Anniversary Edition of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction, I thought I'd give it another crack.
The first waveform is a screen shot of the track "Cant Get There From Here" taken from my needledrop of the original 1985 LP. (For technical details, see comments).
"Cant Get There From Here" (1985 LP Needledrop)
The next waveform represents the same song taken from the original 1985 IRS/MCA CD.
Some have criticized me in the past for comparing waveforms taken from LP needledrops to those taken from CDs. The argument against doing so is that the manifold noise and distortions inherent to LP playback make any such waveform comparisons invalid. But as you can see below, the needledrop and CD waveforms look remarkably similar. In terms of dynamic range, I found less than 0.5 dB difference between these two tracks, so whatever distortion LP playback adds to the picture here, it is of a low enough order not to have a tremendous impact on the track's dynamic range.
"Cant Get There From Here" (1985 IRS/MCA CD)
That is not to say the two tracks sounded identical. While similar in terms of dynamic range, to my ears the CD track sounded somewhat thin and bright compared to the LP sourced track. This is not to say that the CD sounded bad, but to my ears it lacked the depth and fullness of the needledroped track.
Finally, we come to the remastered 2010 version of "Cant Get There From Here." As expected, the remastered version is louder than the other versions, around 8 dB louder on average. With an average RMS value of approximately -12 dB, this is hardly the most compressed remaster I have seen (that distinction belongs to Iggy Pop's remixed Raw Power, which averages around -4 dB). For a more reasonable point of comparison most tracks on the recent Deluxe Edition of Exile On Main St. average around -10 dB.
"Cant Get There From Here" (2010 Capitol Remaster)
So, how did the remaster sound in comparison to the other tracks? Well, most obviously it was louder. A lot louder. I had to turn my stereo way down when switching to the new remaster. In order to precisely match sound levels I needed the help of my computer. Once I matched levels and compared tracks it seemed the remaster had a slightly hollow sound compared to the other tracks, and tonally I thought it was brighter than either the older CD or the LP. I also noticed that Michael Stipe's vocals seemed to be boosted slightly in relation to the instruments. The remaster did not sound bad, but I did prefer the two earlier versions.
It's been my experience in listening to compressed remasters that the most regrettable consequences of compression only reveal themselves over time, not in quick back-and-forth comparisons. As I have noted before, heavy compression tends to take a sense of excitement out of the music, resulting in albums that do not hold up to repeated listening.
So while the remastering of Fables could have been worse, it also could have been better. A lot better. Ironically, in 2010 if you want to hear a really good sounding digital version of Fables Of The Reconstruction, you'll have to digitize your old LP.
