Mobile Fidelity scandal

Bradrock

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#1
I'm surprised no talk here about the biggest scandal in LP pressing history.
 

Bob Boyer

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#3
Boy, did you yank my chain with this one, Brad. :iconbiggrin: Sorry for the rant but here goes:

Sitting here listening to this and I'm like, "So? This is a scandal"? LPs have been pressed from digital masters for years. Has this guy been living under a rock? I'm sorry, but the cost is in the licensing and the pressing, at least if it's a decent pressing since these are mostly remasters of existing content. Having recorded (not at any extremely high end level) using both digital and analog I can say that to my ears, working from the 24/192 copy of an analog capture and mix is no different than working with the analog mix other than that no analog has been harmed in the making of the master. In fact, the master from the digital mix is cleaner by one layer since we're not building tape hiss making the pass from the mix file of the analog recording to the master file of the analog recording. Personally, I prefer less tape hiss. And less surface noise on a pressing, which brings me to point number two:

Having purchased several remastered vinyl albums and box sets, I can say I've never heard a bad record from Mo-Fi. For one, the pressings are quiet. Which is more than I can say for that crap foisted off on me by Mercury/Phonogram when they ruined a wonderful remastering job by Bob Ludwig of Dire Strait's studio albums with noisy as hell pressings. And this isn't the only example of over-priced POS badly-pressed vinyl in my collection.

If the original is recorded analog, give me a 4X DSD master and a clean pressing any day over AAA vinyl where no one in the pressing plant gives a shit. And while I'm very interested to hear other perspectives, I'd really love to get Miles' take on this as his recording rig is light years better than mine ever was and he's also worked in both analog and digital domains.
 

J!m

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#4
I mean, how delusional are people?

Digital tracking (even before the master is done) goes back to, what, 1980? 82 maybe? Due to lower cost, pretty much all the major labels were dumping their big Studer and MCI decks for the new Sony digital multitrack tape machines.

Anything recorded after 1980, on a major labor, is likely digital right up front.

We tracked out EP in 2001 on a Studer 24-track 2” machine. But it was really unusual (and expensive for tape!) then as compared to digital.

They never said it was an all analogue chain. Because the entitled “assumed” that, it is somehow MoFi’s problem? They were directly asked and directly answered. That’s about as good as it gets.

Move the fuk ON already.
 

Bradrock

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#6
As George T say's on One bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer; It don't confront me none.
But I remember guy's on AK using family & friends to scoop up as many copies as possible for investment. Some of these sell for thousand's. I do think the value may go down just from the negativity going on.
I like what I've bought so far. Other than Layla. I thought it was awful. I traded with Ron & I believe he was trying to get rid of it soon after.
I have a few older ' Direct to Disc ' Lp's that are very nice. Glenn Miller is a real treat. Drummers rim shots threaten to tear my speaker cones.
 

J!m

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#12
Just saw something recently- 3M digital tape machine was in use in 1979 already. Probably the first machine (I thought the big Sony was first).
 

mr_rye89

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#13
I know that Herb Alpert’s Rise was digitally recorded, likely with a Soundstream or one of those 3M machines
 

Bob Boyer

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#14
Just saw something recently- 3M digital tape machine was in use in 1979 already. Probably the first machine (I thought the big Sony was first).
I know the first digital deck I ever saw was a Sony. They were using a beta recorder with a PCM encoder/decoder - if that's the right word - and recording to videotape. Forerunner of the hi-fi videorecorders, I know, and not the full 2" tape versions that 3M and Sony had out for studio use. I can't rememebr how many tracks this thing could record but it was more than 2, IIRC.
 

J!m

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#15
I wasn’t aware of that, but it’s basically ADAT which was eight tracks per deck; several could be daisy chained to create a max of 40 synced tracks I think.

I almost went down that hole but at the time you could still get SVHS tapes by the case…

Im happy with the decision to go with the HD24, even though I haven’t used it yet. Hard drives are the new tape. Hot swap and keep tracking…
 

8991XJ

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#16
Not to worry, Music Direct, parent company of Mobile Fidelity is building a new pressing plant and will be able to supply the demand for the redone records.
 
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