SGU Prem #98 - Ethan Winer Interview
Added 2018-05-04 20:23:03 +0000 UTCExtended interview with audio expert, Ethan Winer, recorded May 2, 2018.
Comments
I agree with you about the act of dropping a needle onto a record, but unfortunately I have one of those Technics Direct Drive turntables where you close the lid and push a button to play. Still works great, but I would prefer the manual needle dropping. :-) Since you mentioned mastering, mastering is still a process that occurs for all major album releases. In fact, a couple of years ago, I had the honor of having my band's debut EP mastered by Grammy award winning mastering engineer Adam Ayan of Gateway Mastering Studios (shameless plug: the band is called "Now Playing", and should you choose to check it out, I recommend you start with a song called "What You Do"). I even flew up to Maine to be present for the session. Adam was a super-great guy, and the whole experience made me feel like a rock star, if just for a day. I considered releasing the EP on vinyl which would have required some extra processing during the mastering phase, but it was cost prohibitive. Oh well. There are two more things about vinyl that I'd like to mention. Picture discs is one of them - I have a picture disc of Rush's Hemisphere's that I cherish. After typing this I think I'll go stare at it (while listening to the music in iTunes lol). And then how about the concept of the 3-sided album? Goofy, for sure, but I have a copy of Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief which is just brilliant. Here's a quote the Wikipedia entry: "To further confuse the listener, both sides of the record label were labeled "FREE RECORD Given away with the Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief - Side 2" - only the matrix numbers identify which are the first and second sides. The album did not have a track listing, so that this feature would come as a complete surprise to listeners, who might on a subsequent listening hear material they had never heard before, creating genuine confusion." Oh how I love this!
Paul Bienick
2018-05-08 21:23:01 +0000 UTCI agree Paul, nostalgia's definitely part of the appeal, so is the artwork and physical size of vinyl as mentioned in the interview. There's more to it though. I find the act of manually selecting a record and dropping the needle on a song you may have spent months or years searching for is one of life's great sensual pleasures. Picking a track on spotify is merely a process. Another part of it is the vinyl mastering that ensures the needle doesn't skip out of the groove - limiting, compression and EQ that flatters certain kinds of music where clarity, separation and extended bass response are not necessarily top of the list of concerns. Those things can actually be grating, distracting, and overbearing in your living room, even if they sounded awesome on the studio monitors. I suppose I'm saying that choosing hi-fi gear is often about subtley imposing a personalised characteristic on your music, not simply about perfecting it's reproduction. Just as an artist might choose to use the tape saturation in your example or the pleasing harmonic distortion that vacuum tubes impart. So for me it all depends on what kind of music you enjoy and how invested you are in the act of listening (I don't mean financially!). (Full disclosure: I listen on a very basic stereo system, mostly well reviewed 70's gear that still works great. I did buy my kids one of those cheap retro turntables and it sounds terrible. I'd say you do need to spend a modest amount of money and a good stylus is important)
Jonathan Shacklock
2018-05-08 11:28:34 +0000 UTCVery interesting interview. Just goes to show how little we know and how that's being taken advantage of.
James Joyce
2018-05-05 19:09:48 +0000 UTCI think you guys were spot on with your assessment of why people like vinyl these days: nostalgia. I've got several hundred examples in my closet so I get it. :-) But one additional factor might be that records that were originally published on vinyl, at least the ones recorded prior to the 80s, were recorded to analog tape. Most likely 2" tape on expensive machines that required expert calibration. Tape, like vinyl, is a flawed medium, but it does offer some audible artifacts that many humans find pleasing: most notably "warmth" and "punch", the latter being achieved by saturating the tape which results in the signal being somewhat compressed. What's great about the world we live in today is that we can now emulate the sound of high-end analog tape machines in our home studios. Here are just 2 examples: <a href="https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/special-processing/studer-a800-tape-recorder.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/special-processing/studer-a800-tape-recorder.html</a> <a href="http://slatedigital.com/virtual-tape-machines/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://slatedigital.com/virtual-tape-machines/</a> As a drummer, I prefer drums that are warm and punchy as opposed to brittle and bland, so a tape emulation plugin is always the first plugin I insert on each of my drum tracks. When you insert multiple instances of the plugin across many tracks like this, you can really hear the difference when you switch the emulation on and off. It's subtle, but noticeable, and puts a smile on my face every time. Now don't even get me started about virtual consoles! Oh man! It's truly amazing what can be done in the home studio today (but we should never forget Ethan's point about the importance of room acoustics!).
Paul Bienick
2018-05-05 13:37:05 +0000 UTC
