Ron, I don’t have Fumbling on LP. Sounds like a future purchase!
I asked you a loaded question, because I think Sarah's digital voice on Surfacing is significantly inferior to the naturalness of Sarah's analog voice on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.
Ron, I don’t have Fumbling on LP. Sounds like a future purchase!
Busted ! We had Radar in my studio in Miami, it was very good.Mr. Marchand very kindly replied:
Hi Ron
It was recorded on a digital multitrack, a radar , not sure now, the mixes might have been transfered to half inch tape for mastering. It was mastered by Bernie in 2008, its been a while! Those analog half inch tapes might be what they are referencing to.
I am not involved in these reprints , so I can't really answer for them.
Cheers
Pierre
This is with the AS-2000 TT, Ron?Tonight I did a direct, level-matched (Reed R8050) comparison of Witness and Angel on Classic Records 180g LP on Denon DP62L/Hana SL/Octave Eq.2 versus CD on Pioneer DV-47Ai/Baltic 4.
I think the CD is slightly more resolving and detailed and slightly more transparent than the LP, but a touch drier.
I think I am losing resolution with the LP playback set-up versus a higher level set-up. The LP was slightly warmer and slightly more human-sounding. In this case the vinyl did warm the sound up a bit.
My very general view is that digital recordings should be played back in their native format. There are many exceptions to this starting view.
This was a very close comparison. The Baltic 4 definitely was pulling its weight. Overall, I still preferred the slightly warmer, slightly less dry presentation of the vinyl.
This is with the AS-2000 TT, Ron?
Ok, nearly the same…“Denon DP62L/Hana SL/Octave Eq.2”
All joking aside, at least compare your Baltic to a really good Japanese direct drive. The DP62L was right in the middle of its overall mediocre lineup (not counting their broadcast decks). A Kenwood KD 990 with something like a ZYX R-100 would probably already have a clear advantage with a bottom end Allnic phono.“Denon DP62L/Hana SL/Octave Eq.2”
I am a big fan of Sarah McLachlan’s vocal performances and lyrics. I like several of the songs on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and I think they are pretty well-recorded.
I like several of the songs on Surfacing, but I think they sound like typically bad-sounding digital. I can never just listen to those songs and relax and enjoy them. (As Kedar famously observed, I appear not to relax when listening to digital recordings. And he is correct.)
Pierre Marchand, a musical collaborator with, and the recording engineer for, Sarah McLachlan, said in an interview that he recorded “Fumbling on a Studer 827, and Surfacing was all done on a RADAR.”
The Studer 827 is a multi-track analog tape recorder. The Otari RADAR is a multi-track digital recorder.
I think the vocals on Surfacing (1997) sound dry, menthol and typically digital. I think the vocals on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (1993) sound better — less dry and more organic and natural.
I think the songs on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy may have digital sampling mixed into them, but they are not totally digital recordings like the songs on Surfacing.
What do you think?
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