seqman

i decided to take a break from restoring vinyl and am concentrating on digitizing all 2000 of my CDs….it is not that bad since I am getting to about 20 a night and already had digitized a good portion of the more recent stuff i purchased.  then the whole batch is going up for sale.  it may take a while to find an earnest collector who wants an instant collection, but since i manage to find a taker for all the lp’s i think it is possible.  there is quite a diversity in my collection and lots of rare stuff.  what is helpful is that there is no need for restoration, so once the rip is done, it is done.  for highest quality i am importing the CDs into Samplitude ProX and using their MP3 engine which yields great quality.

getting back to the vinyl and pulling things out of very dark corners.. with a continuation of the Rockchester series.  this is a unique gem that was obscure even back when it was released in 1987.  Charles released this 33.3 7″ on local label Jargon Records.  I got a copy from him with a “check this out”, he played quite a number of instruments and had this really edgy cool sound that was garage on one hand with the crude multitrack but had a darkness with a nod to bands like Joy Division. i kept this is pretty good shape, especially for 7″ singles which typically seem noisier than LPs.  both tracks are standouts, his original Daddy’s Gun, and his very cool and unique rendition of Lou Reed’s All Tomorrow’s Parties….

here the mix was low level and pretty crude, and there was a bit of vinyl crackle but luckily only one “pop” that required “surgery”.  i decided to touch up a number of things beyond the simple restore.  two things that really benefited the mix and his sounds was the addition of a 1500ms hall delay at about 13% with a fairly aggressive stereo enhancement.  since the digital noise subtraction really cleaned up the vinyl artifacts it provided a spaciousness that really drew out more of the nuances of the songs.  there was some work with the parametric eq, especially on All Tomorrow’s Parties where there really was not much low end to work with. i did cut the mids and really tweak the highs to play off the enhanced stereo separation at higher frequencies.

it is great having this rescued now and at my fingertips for listening.  wherever Charles is now, I hope he remembers his great (though small) contribution to the 80′s alternative scene….

lync

wow a post, finally got back to business of restoring some vinyl.  i only have about 20 or so vinyl records to process through cleaning and digitizing, so happy to finally have all that behind me.  now, I just have a huge backlog of directories to get through.  starting back into the process i found this gem of midwestern garage rock, sort of pre-grunge, post New York Dolls, with a shade of Yardbirds tossed in and down and dirty guitar work.  a number of covers on this but a fun album for those late night parties in seedy bars.

i am tired of just repeating myself with the processing steps, but vinyl was in fair condition for this 1987 release, the song transitions were a bit long so i shortened them up, and since the music was coarse it did not require to much work.

linc

while digging back through to collate music from when i was in Rochester NY i came across a number of gems from a place i was at a number of years earlier when i was in college, Ithaca NY.  when i arrived at college fall of 1980 (yes it is frightening realizing how long ago that was) it was truly a beginning of a new era in music, i still remember hearing Depeche Mode’s first album and thinking how cool it was that so many new sounds were coming out.  it was pre-DJ years for me but i was taking in the local music scene (eventually being in a few early bands myself).  at the onset two Ithaca bands left a mark on me, one was  Faculty Party, which i missed a number of shows because who in their right mind would want to go to a “faculty party”, till some helpful person slapped me upside the head and told me they were one of  the “coolest band in the world” (i have a live recording which will get worked on someday).  the other was the band Symbols featuring an electronic based sound and a singer who seemed to be trying to channel Bryan Ferry.  what i really liked was the inclusion of vibes and other percussion over the top of the sterile drum machine beat keeping the music organic.  well, from Greg Taylor i obtained a home made demo tape in late 1981 (thus it is celebrating its 30 year anniversary) and finally this cassette tape, which was in remarkable condition (a tribute to Maxell tapes) has been better preserved in digital format.  before i talk about the restoration, finding this tape prompted some time on Google seeing if i could find any other traces of it’s existence or any info and where the band was now…my trail on Greg Taylor ended in several dead ends, but the singer Keith Raywood has gone on to do great things thus was easier to find, so it was really nice to think on how I was “there at the beginning”.  i may hazard that after 30 years i might actually have the only remaining copy of this tape.  i was thinking if i could track down Keith I would actually send it to him as a memory keepsake….

now to the gritty of restoration.  first off tapes in some ways are easier to restore than records since hiss tends to be a constant noise and easier for digital subtraction, on the other hand once you have tape “drop outs” you are basically hosed, there is no way to get the sound back while with LPs at least you have a fighting chance.  luckily, as mentioned, the tape was in good condition with very minor channel fluctuations.  being a demo tape made on very basic equipment i decided to really work on the mix as much as I could as it was really thin and flat.  first was the digital dehissing, then i took it through multiband stereo enhancement moving lows to mono and increasing the gain, and expanding both the mids and highs aggressively, on top of that brilliance enhancement was applied in transient mode to avoid too much tinniness.  the mix was still a bit flat so addition of some delay (1500ms, small hall) at about 12% really opened things up.  especially on the standout track “A Conversation” (my favorite) which was a more slinky laid back piece.  the delay also gave a bit more presence to the vibes Greg was playing.  parametric eq was used to restore the weak bottom end.  having these three classic rare tracks now in digital is i think a great tribute to their effort, and probably something that all fans of the 80′s electronic era should give a listen too.

lync

Postscript:  i did manage to get back in contact with Keith, and so this copy of the tape will actually make it back to him.  Sadly however, I found out that Greg Taylor (a.k.a DJ LudingtonGT, and keyboardist and percussionist for the Symbols) recently passed away.  So I dedicate my restoration in his memory.

while i was in the beginning of discovering midi (see prior post) there was already a well established electronica band in the city with the name Eleven Pond.  i had a chance to check out a number of their shows (they actually played live, thus a real “band”) and was impressed along with a good number of other people.  it was cool being in a city that was producing this kind of music that was not a BIG city.  i picked up one of their original self made LPs, which were hand silk screened and individually numbered, mine is 122/500, i got it directly from James.  our paths crossing by way my club DJ’ing and some mutual friends (my girlfriend dated Jeff at one point) i had a chance to occasionally sit in James’ apt and hear various works in progress or meet the guys out in clubland.  my work as eVENT gained me a little bit more credibility as it sold really well, but since i never seemed to things together for live shows i stayed more in the shadows of the local scene. (as a side bar, my copy got misplaced and i ended up buying the re-release of this.  luckily my original was found so the remastered went out to Guestroom in a LP shipment, and the original was auctioned since it really was a unique item)

since the remaster was brand new, never played, i started with it as the source, but i also will process the original copy just to see what differences there were in the mixes (if any).  i will say that for a mint first play the re-release vinyl quality was not the greatest (cheap pressing), compared to my Europa pressing of the eVENT single that was 10 years old, so there was some work i did on it.  on top of the digital background noise subtraction i did add additional de-hissing to remove some of the analog master tape noise still present, i also applied some transient brilliance enhancement, a slight tweak to the reduce stereo separation below 500Hz.  parametric eq was used to punch the bass a bit and ramp up the highs to add to the crispness….there was annoying periodic vinyl rumble on the pressing but that was only noticeable between songs which i always damp to 0db after redoing fades and intros.

listening to this all this years later brought back many memories of the time (how many people knew that Tear and Cinnamon in the opening song was referring to two girls? i have been trying to dig through some old photos to find them), and reminded me that this really was a great album

[ remastered lp available from Dark Entries records ]