All 9 Steely Dan albums to be released on Hybrid Stereo SACD courtesy of Analogue Productions

[fizzywiggs41]

I don't know who it was but about a week ago I watched on utube a personal tour of the big Iron Mountain facility.

Lot's of UMG treasures were there and as he traveled through the vault rooms , there are at least 2 , very big ones, he took a quick peak at a few boxes of audio tape.
There was a quick view of a Howard Roberts tape with (Ed Michel) in brackets from The Village Recorder master tape.

He selected a tape to see how their process goes. It was a live LYNYRD SKYNYRD from 76 , and I thought he said quad ?...but it couldn't be as this was an incomplete 16 track master...only 2 songs. It was a Tom Dowd mix at Criterion Studios.

Anyway when the tape was readied , it was rewound , and I believe baked , then played for his enjoyment.
This is a room where they digitize all tapes leaving the facility.
What I found very interesting was there were tapes on a trolley ready to digitize before shipping out to whomever requested said tape.

Well he reached for a tape on the trolley and it was Steely Dan- The Royal Scam...16 track multi....and next to it was AJA , again 16 track multi.
Also there were at least 2 or more, maybe 3 Steely Dan multis , there as well.

At all times he had at least 4 or 5 Iron Mountain officials, in his path , more or less surrounded.

Anyway I recommend to anyone if you see this on utube it's worth a peek.

And boy would I ever love to take a tour or spend a day viewing their tapes.

 

[Tres Discrete]

In view of the AP release of Bernie Grundman's new mastering in digital download form, Josh Mound posted a further update to his TBVO column on Aja a couple of weeks ago. Scroll down to (or a Ctrl+F on) "UPDATE OCTOBER 12, 2023." The upshot: the new Grundman mastering and Eli Brown's 2018 MQA CD are in a near-dead heat for his preferred version, for different reasons--none of them having to do with MQA encoding, which he sees as snake oil. But he still gives the (slight) edge to Brown. Hoffman (or, if you prefer, "Hoffman") is now out of the running. He detects several differences in tonality; for starters, Grundman's mastering foregrounds Fagen's vocals a bit more and gives the kick and toms a little extra "thump"; Brown's has more "air," "mak[ing] it easier for the listener to turn their attention to individual elements in the mix." But he concludes that they're both excellent--and the Grundman mastering has the advantage of being widely available!

Someone wake me up when the AP “Aja” SACD comes out, puh-leeze…

 

[fredblue]

I don't know who it was but about a week ago I watched on utube a personal tour of the big Iron Mountain facility.

Lot's of UMG treasures were there and as he traveled through the vault rooms , there are at least 2 , very big ones, he took a quick peak at a few boxes of audio tape.
There was a quick view of a Howard Roberts tape with (Ed Michel) in brackets from The Village Recorder master tape.

He selected a tape to see how their process goes. It was a live LYNYRD SKYNYRD from 76 , and I thought he said quad ?...but it couldn't be as this was an incomplete 16 track master...only 2 songs. It was a Tom Dowd mix at Criterion Studios.

Anyway when the tape was readied , it was rewound , and I believe baked , then played for his enjoyment.
This is a room where they digitize all tapes leaving the facility.
What I found very interesting was there were tapes on a trolley ready to digitize before shipping out to whomever requested said tape.

Well he reached for a tape on the trolley and it was Steely Dan- The Royal Scam...16 track multi....and next to it was AJA , again 16 track multi.
Also there were at least 2 or more, maybe 3 Steely Dan multis , there as well.

At all times he had at least 4 or 5 Iron Mountain officials, in his path , more or less surrounded.

Anyway I recommend to anyone if you see this on utube it's worth a peek.

And boy would I ever love to take a tour or spend a day viewing their tapes.

it was Michael Fremer who was given a tour of the facility, fizzy, posted it a while back

 

[DuncanS]

What I found very interesting was there were tapes on a trolley ready to digitize before shipping out to whomever requested said tape.

Well he reached for a tape on the trolley and it was Steely Dan- The Royal Scam...16 track multi....and next to it was AJA , again 16 track multi.
Also there were at least 2 or more, maybe 3 Steely Dan multis , there as well.

The Royal Scam is synonymous with my first year at Uni, I bought it when it came out, so lots of associated memories. I would be over the moon if it got the surround treatment

 

[eirepaul2]

Just imo but disc sounds better then a download.

Well, it depends on how you are listening, doesn't it. I play the recent AIFF 24/96 download of CBAT into an OPPO 105D and also play the SACD in the same machine. From there, into a Sennheiser HDV820 and HD800S with balanced cables all the way through. A pretty resolving system, and I prefer the AIFF file (completely lossless) - it seems to have a little more dynamic range and fuller bass. To each their own, right. I was planning on buying all the SACDs, but I am now just downloading the AIFF files as they are released. What I really want is everything in Atmos.

 

[eirepaul2]

"Surround Sound From The End of the World to Your Town"
942 SACD's (788 in MultiCh), 377 DVD-Audio's, 306 SQ Quad LPs, 189 Blu-ray Audio's, 181 Audio-DVD's, 150 CD-4 Quad LPs, 131 DualDiscs, 124 Q8 Quad Tapes, 85 DTS CDs, 38 Dolby Surround CDs, 35 QS Quad LPs, 7 MultiCh DLs, 1 Quad Book

Wow fredblue! I thought I had a pretty good collection. Do you have everything ever released in surround?

 

[ssully]

Well, it depends on how you are listening, doesn't it.

No. Assuming it's a lossless download, it depends on the mastering of the audio.

The rest is just superstition.

 

[eirepaul2]

Agreed. A great mastering job is a given desire with any recording. But, you want to be able to listen to it as best you can.

 

[fredblue]

"Surround Sound From The End of the World to Your Town"
942 SACD's (788 in MultiCh), 377 DVD-Audio's, 306 SQ Quad LPs, 189 Blu-ray Audio's, 181 Audio-DVD's, 150 CD-4 Quad LPs, 131 DualDiscs, 124 Q8 Quad Tapes, 85 DTS CDs, 38 Dolby Surround CDs, 35 QS Quad LPs, 7 MultiCh DLs, 1 Quad Book

Wow fredblue! I thought I had a pretty good collection. Do you have everything ever released in surround?

heya sadly not! there's still lots of titles i'm looking for across the various formats! the fun never ends!

 

[JediJoker]

He selected a tape to see how their process goes. It was a live LYNYRD SKYNYRD from 76 , and I thought he said quad ?...but it couldn't be as this was an incomplete 16 track master...only 2 songs. It was a Tom Dowd mix at Criterion Studios.

Multitrack tapes don't contain "mixes," just raw, unbalanced individual tracks from recording sessions. The result of a mix from 1976 would be a mixdown master tape, stereo 2-track or quad 4-track (or matrix-encoded 2-track).

 

[eirepaul2]

heya sadly not! there's still lots of titles i'm looking for across the various formats! the fun never ends!

Indeed, I am always scouring Discogs, etc. for the right release at the right price. I just recently expanded my system to Atmos and this will cost me more again, as classic albums are remixed now in Atmos. They sound great though - Atmos really opens up the music even more (for me). BTW, I was born in Hammersmith and used to live in Islington (Arsenal country!). Been in Wisconsin for 40+ years.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Multitrack tapes don't contain "mixes," just raw, unbalanced individual tracks from recording sessions. The result of a mix from 1976 would be a mixdown master tape, stereo 2-track or quad 4-track (or matrix-encoded 2-track).

Ok, then. Thanks......it was a Tom Dowd engineered recording----16 track.


FWIW they also had an older Neve mixing board as well as a 4 Track recorder , an 8 track recorder, a 2 track recorder , a 16 track and a 32 track .....so they were well equipped for any tapes they handled, outgoing .

 

[fizzywiggs41]

it was Michael Fremer who was given a tour of the facility, fizzy, posted it a while back

Good man...you are....
Frederico , did you catch that Village Recorder tape ?
It was a quick view of a Howard Robert's recording.

 

[Blackwood]

Just got a credit card notice from Acoustic Sounds. Looks like the Pretzel Logic SACD is ready to ship, and the listing does now say In Stock.

https://store.acousticsounds.com/d/171040/Steely_Dan-Pretzel_Logic-Hybrid_Stereo_SACD

 

[humprof]

Donald Fagen just posted all of the new liner notes for the AP series (included in the hyper-expensive UHQR boxes only, not the garden-variety LPs or SACDs) on the official SD website:
https://www.steelydan.com/news/liner-notes-for-chad-kassem-s-reissue-series

 

[shokhead]

I wish there wasn't such a lack of bass on the ones they have done so far.

 

[Eclectic]

Donald Fagen just posted all of the new liner notes for the AP series (included in the hyper-expensive UHQR boxes only, not the garden-variety LPs or SACDs) on the official SD website:
https://www.steelydan.com/news/liner-notes-for-chad-kassem-s-reissue-series

Wow, those are some damn fine liner notes. I don't need anymore stereo Dan (Where the hell is Elliot Scheiner's 5.1 mix of Pretzel Logic?) but these liner notes shine a light on the entire SD corpus.

 

[Tres Discrete]

Donald Fagen just posted all of the new liner notes for the AP series (included in the hyper-expensive UHQR boxes only, not the garden-variety LPs or SACDs) on the official SD website:
https://www.steelydan.com/news/liner-notes-for-chad-kassem-s-reissue-series

Have they released The Royal Scam yet?
I’ve gotten tired of checking…the schedule (or lack thereof!) is ridiculous…

 

[fredblue]

Have they released The Royal Scam yet?
I’ve gotten tired of checking…the schedule (or lack thereof!) is ridiculous…

not yet The Royal Scam and Katy Lied are the remasters i'm most keen to hear at this point

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Feldman, sweetening up that Flapamba; has it ever sounded better?