It’s Turntable Tuesday…because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV OFF and listen to some music on your local speaker!
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I wanted to share a few thoughts about a special album this week from Donald Fagen who is the living partner of one of the bands at the top of my listening list everyone knows as Steely Dan. There are many versions of this vinyl pressed and I will get into some of those details on my podcast this week. The version I am going to play on this weekly holiday is a very special one I have had for a while in a big box. This vinyl record is an Ultradisc one-step Original Master Recording that is now sold out and unavailable. I am going to play it through once on my Rega turntable which has the best stylus in the room here and really “see what I can hear.”
Here is some of the techno-stuff that I will provide a link to if you really want to dig into what these discs are. The following excerpt is copied from the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab site so they get the rights to yell at me and have me delete it but in the spirit of promotion I am guessing they want me to give them the free shout-out to help sell product as this is a non-profit blog. Profit is not why I stay up late writing things about music and sound reproduction.
MoFi Ultradisc One-Step
Instead of utilizing the industry-standard three-step lacquer process, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab’s new Ultradisc One-Step (UD1S) uses only one step, bypassing two processes of generational loss. While three-step processing is designed for optimum yield and efficiency, UD1S is created for the ultimate in sound quality. Just as Mobile Fidelity pioneered the Ultra High-Quality Record (UHQR) with JVC in the 1980s, UD1S again represents another state-of-the-art advance in the record-manufacturing process. MFSL engineers begin with the original master tapes and meticulously cut a set of lacquers. These lacquers are used to create a very fragile, pristine UD1S stamper called a “convert.” Delicate “converts” are then formed into the actual record stampers, producing a final product that literally and figuratively brings you closer to the music. By skipping the additional steps of pulling another positive and an additional negative, as done in the three-step process used in standard pressings, UD1S produces a final LP with the lowest noise floor possible today. The removal of the additional two steps of generational loss in the plating process reveals tremendous amounts of extra musical detail and dynamics, which are otherwise lost due to the standard copying process. The exclusive nature of these very limited pressings guarantees that every UD1S pressing serves as an immaculate replica of the lacquer sourced directly from the original master tape. Every conceivable aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the most perfect record album available today.
Here is the link to all things Mobile Sound Fidelity with even more detail on these processes: https://www.mofi.com/Articles.asp?ID=254
Back to the album. Being the fossil I am I have lived through years of listening to Steely Dan albums in intricate detail. Walter and Donald were the perfectionists that made the records I could use to judge how good my audio equipment was whether it was something I was using or something I wanted to buy. I had listened to so much of this music that I could walk in with several benchmark Steely Dan tracks and tell an audio sales person what I thought of the newest speakers or amps on the showroom floor. This week I am going to play this album and report back on my podcast what I think after I hear it. I know these tracks very well. I want to give it the test and talk it through.
A couple of weeks ago I was on the phone to Florida talking to my musicologist brother Steve Huntington about all things music. He is the brains behind Sirius XM’s Radiomargaritaville as he and Jimmy Buffett basically started the concept of a streaming radio channel back before the turn of the century. Anyway Steve is now doing an “on-demand” show on Sirius XM for Radiomargaritaville that is pretty cool. I love the interviews and the music. Go check that out…All that said Steve and I somehow got on the topic of this album while talking about what we had seen in live music lately. Steve starts dragging out several copies of Original Master Recordings from Donald Fagen while we are on the phone and produces one version I had never seen. I am going to include one (below) of several of the photos from my cell phone that we were texting back and forth while talking.
Let’s get to the album story. “The Nightfly” was recorded between 1981-1982 and immediately followed the analog recording of Steely Dan’s “Gaucho.” “Gaucho” according to things in the media had worn down Becker and Fagen from the relentless perfectionist work that went into that recording. “Gaucho” is one fabulous recording and it was not long until “The Nightfly” followed which proved Donald could do a great solo record. “The Nightfly” is an awesome recording but there is still nothing like the Walter Becker and Donald Fagen partnership to make music that will last through time like an Egyptian pyramid. OK I will say it. This solo record is a bit of a masterpiece in many ways.
“The Nightfly” was a record that blazed some trails in that it was recorded digitally vs using the analog processes of the past at that point. I could write a book on this topic but I wanted to make a point of the ground-breaking engineering that went into this record. People even went to a 3M school to learn how to align machines to record parts of this record. New electronics were being developed at the time to make this and other projects go forward in the digital era. It is interesting now to think this was all not quite 40 years ago and now there are digital recorders and drum machines all around me as I write this that are products of work like this to move forward with technology. I smile as I write this and think of how some of the few things like a rare Rupert Neve analog console is thought of as something people do back-flips to record on these days. I will write some stories about those consoles one day from first-hand experiences.
Certified platinum. “The Nightfly” was on MTV back then. The album cover has Donald posing in his New York City apartment as a late night DJ. I think the whole concept caught me quickly as I was into late night FM radio listening back then. Donald was capturing the the mid 1950’s era which was before my birth date but I got the concept as a child of the 1970’s. I would stay up real late at night to hear my favorite music on FM and listen to the DJ’s talk all about music. I will get into the record track details on my podcast as there are some very cool details about these cuts.
The one thing I remember about this time period was my audio equipment being barely adequate. I do remember having a pair of Bose 301s which lasted decades before I talked the Bose Corporation into trading them for a new set of Bose 301s. That is my testimonial for Bose. I have been a long time customer and they sent me a box to ship my very old 301s back to them for the trade. They gave me a very good price for the old ones and replaced them with some cool new ones. They even sent me a box to ship them back in! I was wondering if they were going to put them in a museum or something. I still use those new 301s in a room in my house. No they are not in my listening room but they sound very nice. Why did I mention all of this? I used a Steely Dan album to audition these speakers and the mid-range and highs come right on through on these speakers. I remember playing “The Nightfly” on these speakers and at the time they were the best I could afford.
Even now sound engineers use this record to judge systems and recordings. Clive Young of Pro Sound News called Fagen’s “I.G.Y.” the “Free Bird” of pro audio claiming that almost every live sound engineer uses the song to test the front-of-house system’s sound response. I have to agree with that thought. Not only are many of the Steely Dan records best in class audio but “The Nightfly” is one of the greats up there with the best in audiophile recordings. It has been mentioned as one of the top ten best recorded albums of all time by some sources.
I would tell you to go get a copy of this album and listen to it. There is so much to say about it I need more space and I feel like I just got started writing about it. There is tons of reference material out there on the internet so I won’t waste your time reciting all of that. Skip the cd version. Many of the initial cd releases were produced using third or fourth generation masters. This was determined after “Nightfly” engineer Roger Nichols received a call from Stevie Wonder saying that the cd “sounded funny.” Later the manufacturing companies were blasted in writings in some of the musical engineering publications for this happening. Go for the vinyl where you can really hear what this record is all about.
Listen to your favorite album this week. Go shine up your record player. Better yet go buy some media from your favorite musician. Keep them sustained and inspired to make some new art for your ears as we are all in this world together.
Until next time, I’ll see you, down the road.
“New Frontier”
Yes, we’re gonna have a wingding
A summer smoker underground
It’s just a dugout that my dad built
In case the reds decide to push the button down
We’ve got provisions and lots of beer
The key word is survival on the new frontier
Introduce me to that big blonde
She’s got a touch of Tuesday Weld
She’s wearing Ambush and a French twist
She’s got us wild and she can tell
She loves to limbo, that much is clear
She’s got the right dynamic for the new frontier
Well, I can’t wait till I move to the city
Till I finally make up my mind
To learn design and study overseas
Do you have a steady boyfriend
‘Cause honey I’ve been watching you
I hear you’re mad about Brubeck
I like your eyes, I like him too
He’s an artist, a pioneer
We’ve got to have some music on the new frontier
Well, I can’t wait till I move to the city
Till I finally make up my mind
To learn design and study overseas
Let’s pretend that it’s the real thing
And stay together all night long
And when I really get to know you
We’ll open up the doors and climb into the dawn
Confess your passion, your secret fear
Prepare to meet the challenge of the new frontier