Tag Archives: vinyl

Mastering Audio for Vinyl: The Gospel According to SoundOnSound

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Stumbled across an interesting piece written for SoundOnSound about the process of mastering your recordings for vinyl. I am by no means an expert on the subject, but one thing that rings loud and clear in this article–pay strict attention to distortion due to overmodulation in the mix. Never a good thing, anytime you start exceeding the tolerances you are begging for trouble, especially with digital.

I am eagerly collecting a small archive of these kinds of articles so expect more links to relevant writing on mastering for vinyl in the future. Most of the vinyl junkies I know are also musicians of varying degrees of experience, so there’s plenty of relevance there. If you aren’t a musician but have a massive collection of vinyl records, my guess is you are either a frustrated musician or a DJ. I’m BOTH.

Boy Eats Drum Machine: Booomboxxx

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Tender Loving Empire recently announced Boy Eats Drum Machine‘s next album, Booomboxxx, due out on vinyl and disc on 10/28. I got an advance copy in the post today and I am happy to report this album is full of sonic treats–especially for those who love their headphone candy. Sure, you could listen to this on the speakers (or studio monitors like I do), but I strongly suggest using a nice pair of headphones to enjoy this one as here is much fun to be had with those sounds up close and personal. Horns, nice soulful vox (without sounding like some kind of Sam Cooke knockoff I might add), plenty of sonic goodness.

Boy Eats Drum Machine is Portland’s Jon Ragel with some kickass guest drummers including Danny Seim from Menomena and several others. Ragel really grabbed my ears with the track “I’m Alive Don’t Bury Me” which instantly made me think of Serpent And The Rainbow, the creepy Wes Craven movie. This album is packed with great, herky-jerky beats and scratches and a nice deep dark analogue synth groove that, on proper equipment, can be felt in your STERNUM. Nice one, BEDM.

Enjoy an advance sampling of five tracks from this hand-crafted vinyl record and CD package (what an undertaking!) at the Boy Eats Drum Machine Downloads page. Free tunes to tease you for the full-blown (and nicely done) package hitting stores on 10/28.

Tender Loving Empire has scored with this album. Click on that link above and fill your weekend with beats. YES.

Fun Used Vinyl Finds

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While out shopping for vinyl tonight I ran across these two delicious finds.I have a huge weakness for anything so wonderfully perverse as Switched-On Rock/The Moog Machine’s old hippie classics re-worked into Moog-synthesized mini-masterpieces. You thought your stereo was broken when you listened to Nine Inch Nails The Fragile, try the super-freaked out synth patches on “You Just Keep Me Hangin’ On”. I actually checked the monitors to make sure I hadn’t lost the tweeters. Hah!

With stuff like this, first you listen cuz it’s cheesy fun. After a few go rounds with it, you actually start hearing how it…could…be…good somehow. This stuff is brilliant. Like eating a brick of jalapeno Velveeta. You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t stop yourself. My favorite part of this two-dollar purchase is actually the liner notes, by “Album conceiver and macrobopper” Russ Barnard. Check out this hilariously dated bit:

“One thing must be stressed: This album is virtually 100% Moog–only two instruments are live. One is the drum set; Moog drums are possible, but in this stage of the art, sound kind of mechanical and ricky-tick.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! That’s 1967 thinking for you…

The Isaac Hayes Juicy Fruit (Disco Freak) is just as great in its own way. This is a long way from Shaft, folks–a disco-infected album (hence the name) that starts off with Isaac Hayes singing about picking up hotties at his favorite disco-teria, and wrapping up the album lamenting about a woman who must “love me…or lose me” My man Isaac is either picking up strict Catholic girls who also love to boogie down but not GET down, or Hayes was just at the end of his lyrical rope by the end of this 1976 coke-n-amyl nitrate soaked leisure suit fest.

I love this cheesy shit. Hayes ain’t phoning this in–he’s going for it on every single track, so there’s this great vibe running through the record. While it’s spinning, you can just see the ABC Records exec snorting coke off the mixing desk, nodding to the beat thinking it was going to be HUGE. “We can shift a million units and get Isaac down to 54 to say hi to Steve Rubell and give Andy Warhol his Polaroids. Then we’ll hit the big time…AMERICAN BANDSTAND.”

Favorite part of this album–the “Solid Gold Dancers” chorus on Thank You Love where the ladies are sing/shrieking “Makin Loooooove” and “Girl, I thank you”.

I ain’t NEVER head Isaac Hayes THANKING a woman for having sex, but it sure sounds like that’s what’s going on here…great stuff. It’s just too wrong NOT to enjoy. “We’ll make love every day…and weeeeeeeellll buh-loowww each other’s MINNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS”

Chasing Lions Presents The Soft Drugs

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Chasing Lions (formerly Puddlegum) has launched as the first blog label. There will, no doubt, be differences of opinion on who the actual “first” blog/label combo is or was–Dave Allen ran Pampelmoose.com for a time with an indie label section by the same name, but Pampelmoose the label seems to have disappeared from P-Moose the blog at present (unless I am just a sightless doink). But I digress…it doesn’t really matter.

Forget labels, the proof is in the music. Chasing Lions has partnered with The Soft Drugs, who offer Side A of their forthcoming vinly/CD release Get Back as a free download.

After having a go at Side A (four times in a row, back to back) I see good things for both the Chasing Lions and The Soft Drugs. I was a bit doubtful of the obvious Beatles tie-in (which are usually dreadful), but fortunately the Let It Be track has nothing whatsoever to do with the Fab Four’s song–except as a lyrical reference. “It could be your Hey Jude. . . It could be your Let It Be…”

The best of this mid-tempo, laid back four-song download is also the most energetic of the bunch. Comparisons are odious, but I Need Space manages to somehow channel GBV in the vocal department, but not in a derivative way…it just sounds –at first listen, anyway– like these two bands belong together on a mix disc in spite of the fact that The Soft Drugs aren’t into the minimal, lo-fi vibe. There’s a healthy energy running through this that holds up well on repeated listens. My only gripe with I Need Space is that the track feels truncated…it’s begging for another round at the end instead of trailing off the way it does. Still, that’s showbiz–always leave ’em wanting more. In this case gents, mission accomplished.

 This Boston outfit features former Pedro the Lion member T.W. Walsh. The sounds are described in the press kit as being a cross between indie rock and trad rock…but you won’t hear any of those Jurassic rockers singing about feeling like a “baby on speed”. Nice! Grab the freebie while you can, and we’ll see how that full-length vinyl sounds when it drops this fall. Click below to hear the great I Need Space cut off the freebie Side A download of Let It Be.

 

I Need Space – The Soft Drugs