WAX/Los Angeles Record Fair, 24-25 October

Discussion in 'The Meeting Place' started by burnspbesq, Sep 30, 2015.

  1. burnspbesq

    burnspbesq Friend

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    This looks like it might be interesting.

    http://www.waxrecordfair.com

    If anyone from OC is interested in carpooling (I'm more likely to go on Saturday than Sunday), PM me

    Oh, wait ...:D
     
  2. audiofrk

    audiofrk Guest

    I'd be in let me know. though don't have a set up now it'd be nice to check it out.
     
  3. abernardi

    abernardi Friend

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    Thanks for the headsup! I'll be there. We should have some kind of pyrate super secret sticker, something unobtrusive, that we stick on the middle of our foreheads. ;)
     
  4. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    I have a concert in Santa Barbara that night (Sufjan Stevens), so count on me being there :)
     
  5. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    This is coming up! I'll be there tomorrow. Anyone else?
     
  6. abernardi

    abernardi Friend

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    I'll be there.
     
  7. abernardi

    abernardi Friend

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    WAX_Flier.jpg

    Mmmm, it wasn't exactly what I expected. The ad above really oversold it. There were not "hundreds of vendors", there were about 25 IMG_1113.jpg


    It was more like a swap meet and it was out in the parking lot on a pretty hot day. For some reason I thought it would be in the building.
    Mostly used and new record sellers, some supplies, Affordable Audio was there!
    IMG_1104.jpg

    I didn't catch the name of the guy selling the ultrasonic cleaner and dryer, show special $1,995 - $300 off regular price
    IMG_1110.jpg IMG_1112.jpg

    The highlight of the day was a great panel discussion with some greats in the vinyl mastering community, well hosted by Michael Fremer:
    Bernie Grundman
    Kevin Gray
    Chris Bellman and
    Rob Tame (from DTS - not sure why he was there as he had nothing to say about vinyl mastering, but a pleasant presence nonetheless....)
    IMG_1115.jpg

    The general take aways from the panel for me were:
    - It takes great attention, constant tweaking of equipment and a good measure of luck to get a great sounding record.
    - Record pressings have gotten A LOT better recently.
    - If all things go well, analogue is still king, but so many factors go into it, it can differ widely from title to title. To paraphrase Michael Fremer, it may be impossible to fix a bad recording, but it's easy to ruin a good one in the mastering and manufacturing.
    - Digital's biggest drawback is that once laid down, any changes made, even a slight volume change, degrades the quality noticeably, though if done right, digital can
    work as a storage method.
    - They all also acknowledged the value of high quality wiring and reminisced on the difficulties of getting the industry to believe it made a difference.

    IMG_1105.jpg IMG_1107.jpg


    And I did score a few sweet disks!
    IMG_1118.jpg IMG_1119.jpg
     
  8. shaizada

    shaizada Friend

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    I couldn't go but thanks for sharing!
     
  9. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    This was an awesome swap/meet at a rather awesome location: Capitol Records in Hollywood
    IMG_9120.JPG

    It was kinda unreal to be digging in deep for vinyl next to Capitol Records. Pretty historic building, lots of our favorites were cut there.
    IMG_9111.JPG

    For a little extra money you could do a tour of the first floor and watch them cut a 10":
    IMG_9095.JPG IMG_9090.JPG IMG_9096.JPG

    This was pretty cool. There was another one of these lathes (one that cut Dark Side of the Moon no less!) decommissioned in the 80s. They were going to just get rid of it, but someone said, "don't, vinyl is coming back." So they took great care and put it in storage. 3 years ago a tech heard about it and asked to have it pulled out of storage. They no longer had the same room for it, but he said "Put it in a closet, I don't care, let's just get thing out!" So they pulled it out and he got it back up and working. The two lathes have been working non-stop since.

    I got to see a Coltrane 10" get cut. The crazy thing I learned is vinyl gets EQ'd in a couple of ways to deal with physical limitations. Below 200hz (I believe that's the cut off), there's a crossover where the bass is mixed in mono to prevent the needle from jumping out and in do to a sudden deep groove and then lack of one. The other thing is the cutter machine overheats if there's too much high treble and it they'll EQ it down if it'll cause an issue cutting the record. Analog is never without physical limitations trade offs.


    Here's the shop for fixing things up. Why is it unbearably clean you ask? they just finished remodeling it and haven't really let the techs back in yet.
    IMG_9098.JPG

    Custom box for mastering:
    IMG_9101.JPG
     
  10. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    The chat with the recording engineers was amazing.

    Here are some takeaways:

    * None of them think digital sounds as good as vinyl compared to the master tapes, whether it was DSD/192/redbook.
    * They like digital as a storage medium: ie: if you have 24-track recording, storing all 24 tracks as separates works ok
    * All agreed digital mastering tools kill quality. Best is to use digital to store, analog to mix.
    * Partial theory as to why analog is better: analog has a bunch of minor little delays to it that are pleasing. Also it tends to sustain longer. Digital is too fast. Too sharp of an attack and too quick of a decay.
     
  11. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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  12. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Sick tour.

    Funny how people advocate for vinyl unaware of the limitations of the format and engineers trying to justify euphony. I do like the sound of analog tape but prefer CDs for playback barring better vinyl mastering choices.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2015
  13. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

    Staff Member Pyrate MZR
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    Awesome pics!!! Awesome info!!!
     
  14. JK47

    JK47 Guest

    Thanks drfindley, killer pics and write up :headbang:
     
  15. abernardi

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    Great pic of the building Doc! You got a pic of me in your parking lot pic too, lol! I was the guy in part 4 of the video next to the person with the camera (I didn't notice him or her) asking the panel if it was even possible to get digital to sound good. I tried asking a few different ways, but I wasn't really able to get the gist of my question through to them. I wanted to know (and still want to know) if it's even possible, once a signal has entered the digital domain, to get it out again sounding as good, correct, accurate, as it was going in. Bernie Grundman was apparently saying you could, because he said it worked as a storage medium. But I have yet to hear a CD, or even DSD file sound as good as the best reel to reel or vinyl. Michael Fremer seemed to agree with me, but that's only because I'm right... :D
     
  16. shaizada

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    I'm sure its possible and we will hear it in our lifetime :) I just haven't heard digital deliver THAT sound yet...
     
  17. drfindley

    drfindley Secretly lives in the Analog Room - Friend

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    Yeah, I'm thinking digital can get there, but I think we'll likely have to figure out what's wrong first in order to give it the headroom and quality of analog.
     
  18. abernardi

    abernardi Friend

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    Well, I think I've talked about this before, I just can't remember where!... I'm not an engineer, so this is strictly the perspective of an outsider looking in, but I think it can be compared to a situation I had in my business. I'm a film editor and that's exactly what I used to do, edit with real 35mm film, celluloid, with sprocket holes. In the late 70's we started getting lobbied by a local lab to try cutting on video tape, but for reasons I won't go into here, it was a preposterous suggestion that seemed idiotic to us because it showed a very basic misunderstanding of what we did and the tools we needed to do it.
    A few years later they came back and said, hey, we've solved all your issues and now we've got a computer running a bunch of tape decks and you can do everything you can do on film! It was buggy as hell and inaccurate, which in itself wasn't really a worry, we knew that would get ironed out. But the problem was, these guys who were designing these systems had NO IDEA what we needed. The toolset was impressive, lots of awesome things we couldn't do with film and splicing tape, like instant dissolves that normally we'd have to imagine by drawing lines on the workprint with grease pencil! But it lacked the most basic tools we needed, because they didn't understand what we did.
    Luckily there was one company, Avid, that eventually got it right. They had their own growing pains, and still do to this day, but they got the basics right and now I'm happily doing my thing on the computer with hard drives and, sadly, haven't touched a piece of film in about 10 years. But it took at least 20 years for Avid to come into its own and in my opinion they're still the only editing tool that gets it right, even today.
    I think it's similar with the digital revolution. This might be controversial, but I believe the people who develop digital recording and playback technology lack a basic understanding of what great sound reproduction actually sounds like. I don't think they've developed the ears for it. People who create analogue gear are a different mind-type from those who create digital gear. They're listening for different things. The people who tried to develop computer editing came from a completely different mindset than the "mechanical" editor. So I think, until some genius who can live and create in both worlds comes along, we're not going to get good sound out of digital.
    Or maybe I'm full of shit. |\/|
     

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