A Decade of Soul Blue Note Yelp Review

Last Updated: January xix, 2021

Updated: Blue Note Audio-Quality Graphic

My current assessment of audio quality based on effectually 600 pressings of Bluish Note recordings, of which effectually 250 are original pre-1966 issues, and around 20 modern audiophile issues,  and everything else in between. Your mileage may of course vary. This updates the earlier graphic, which dated back to around 2012 and was based on a more express sample listening on much less revealing equipment.

These are  generalisations and signposts. There can be significant difference betwixt ii  copies of the same tape and the exact same edition, between first to concluding off the stampers, and everywhere in between. The only way to know is to try, to compare..

What has changed?

United Artists have moved upwardly a league, Freedom ranking now reflects the departure between East And West Coast reissues, earliest Toshiba Liberty gets recognition. Toshiba are ranked college in the period before digital influence, and Music Matters 33 appear for the starting time fourth dimension on the upper floors. Mosaic now included.

These are generalised rankings – "taken equally a whole". Individual titles may differ, better or worse.

Summary: quality signposts

For an individual championship, examination pressing and promo will usually be stronger than commercial release, especially those towards the end of the pressing run.

Always give preference to edition with direct lineage to Van Gelder principal metallic (RVG/ VAN GELDER stamp).

Exist wary of stereo editions mastered from original  ii-track tapes which tracks were not intended for stereo – Van Gelder recordings betwixt 1957 to around 1960. Mono was the intended and is the  preferred format.

Be wary of any alive recording which claims to exist mono just recorded in the era of stereo. It usually means someone was sitting in the audience with a portable record recorder and ane microphone, bootlegging.

Avoid any  indication of "pseudo-stereo" (electronically generated from single-track mono record, early 1500 serial)

Made in Usa preferred – overseas reissues are by and large  inferior quality. Blue Notation had no international licencing agreements, which only slowly emerged in the Liberty years, and were non widely plant until under United Artists stewardship. Invariably overseas bug were from copy tape, mastered by a jobbing house technician with a gustatory modality for rock.

Reissues manufactured during 80s/90s can prove digital/solid state artefacts and filtering, with loss of loftier frequencies. Those from early on 2000s may exist only 44kHz/16-bit CD transfers to vinyl, as simply very select manufacturers have had access to original source tapes.

Modern audiophile reissues often boast 180gm vinyl, which was the 1950s gilt standard. Whilst the weight and thickness of vinyl does provide stability in handling, it does not make whatsoever difference to sound quality The lower threshold is effectually 120gm. Less than this – I have had records as little as 90gm, the cut is probable shallow, and at risk of scuffing/surface noise or warping.

Treat sceptically the claim "from the original tapes", which applies to every recording. Even an MP3 download has a concatenation of sources dating back somewhere to original tapes. . Only "re-mastered from the original tapes" counts. A 1/2inch copy tape at 15fps should be effectively identical to the original, but at that place are many other factors during playback and mastering which degrade transfer.

If an original source recording is not mentioned, or it is  "from the best available",  be doubly sceptical, even if officially licensed. Beingness licensed does not mean given access to original tapes.

Of the most contempo anniversary editions, I have read Blue Note hired superlative United states audio  engineer Bernie Grundman to create a corporate archive of Bluish Note original tapes, in the form of high resolution digital transfers at  24-bit/192 kHz.  Digital source runs into digital to counterpart conversion quality issues irrespective of file-size/ resolution, and does not assure improved quality in vinyl transfers. Audio engineers are notorious for filtering out very high frequencies "because they can not be heard", oblivious to their impact on harmonics in lower frequencies that can be heard.

The all-time hope of sound quality remains "analog-to-analog", mastering direct from original source tapes, supported by quality pressing, all of which is difficult to achieve at less than $30 per LP.  And it can simply be every bit good as the original recording – not everything was well-recorded.

Original commentary (written a few years ago)

Many great jazz musicians recorded for Blue Note, simply the man responsible for the quality of label'south recordings – their high dynamic and tonal range and lifelike presence – was sound engineer, Rudy Van Gelder. Information technology was his recording equipment, option and placement of microphones, the work at the mixing desk,  the selection and rejection of takes, and the active supervision of the whole recording process from monitoring the dials through to cutting of the principal lacquer, that created the "Blue Annotation sound".

Van Gelder always sought to be at the forefront of recording engineering – the Scully lathe he used for cutting lacquer masters was the first to feature variable pitch/depth control to optimise groove-width and loudness. He deployed the newest Neumann/ Telefunken U-47 condenser microphone, which he had peculiarly modified for use very shut to instruments.  His recordings were made on the latest Ampex tape recorders. Van Gelder's  initials or stamp in the "deadwax" is the best guarantee of audio quality

(More on RVG recording secrets here)

In that location were ii crucial steps in the concatenation from artist performance to replay in the domicile that Van Gelder had no control over: the tape pressing process  itself, and how other engineers would re-master those recordings in the future.

Variation in sound quality over time

The collector will hear variation in the audio quality of Blue Note recordings, from one decade to the next, from Van Gelder's loud and dazzling "musicians in the room" presence and room-filling mono, equally institute on many original Lexington and 47 West 63rd editions, to primitive stereo (Van Gelder was a late-adopter), and poorer quality re-mastering  decades later in the easily of other engineers. Thankfully, the quality of the original  recordings with Van Gelder at the dials often still smooth through, though sometimes he ran the dials hot, cutting loud, sometimes with passing baloney.

Records from the era of original  Blue Note are miracles of dynamic audio sound – all the more remarkable because portable tape players and radiograms of the day were entirely incapable of reproducing that quality, unlike todays vinyl systems. Home hi-fi systems went on to improve dramatically, but solid state electronics  spread to all stages of technology, and finally digital processing, adversely affecting sound quality.

Reissues from the late '70s to the mid-'90s  often  do non compare well to the sound quality of records manufactured in the '50s and '60s. Sadly for the audiophile jazz lover, l years on, many of the original tapes have deteriorated, many and so-called audiophile reissues offer a wooden or "botoxed" presentation, and the mono format has all but disappeared. Original pressings control a collector premium, with the very rarest far out of reach of any ordinary collector's budget. Hence the jazz-audiophile must grapple with the variable quality of reissues, in social club to seek out those that audio  all-time at the well-nigh affordable cost.

Opinions about audio quality

Typically, collectors will say " I've got a woteva pressing of summink-oruvvah and it sounds bang-up!" "Sounds great" and its nutrient-equivalent "tastes great"has trivial meaning across "I like information technology". Non to dispute someone's liking, merely our likes are often dissimilar, few of us have the same quality audio systems, latitude of listening history, or taste. What sounds cracking to yous may not sound so great to me. For an insight, cheque "writer-near-thinking", Eduard de Bono and his"Village Venus" effect.  "She's the most beautiful girl I have ever seen" Yes, but you take never travelled beyond your ain village. If you had, y'all would know she is nothing out of the ordinary. At present Italian girls…Mama Mia!

The  journey beyond "likes" is toexplicit comparing, something compared with something else.  Try to compare alternative editions with original pressings, and make that comparing on a adequately revealing high-end audio system , and brand a point of listening to a number of different high-stop systems of friends. (Information technology'due south ofttimes surprising how different a tape can sound on some other system, tuned to different priorities). Some systems are warm , friendly and very forgiving. Others are highly belittling and revealing. Mine is at this latter cease, and  forgives nada. The all-time are absolutely neutral, transparent, with no hifi attributes, and simply return what the engineer recorded, closest to what the instruments sounded like in the studio.

Different bug of the same recording  ofttimes have differences in dynamic and tonal range,  rhythm and timing, and may exhibit unlike gain or feature instrument distortion. Records fabricated at different times, past unlike people, from different generation copy tapes, sound different. Comparing two unlike issues, sometimes some instruments all simply disappear, others stand well forward, like a different record.  Superior applied science  can reveal hitherto unappreciated artist intent and inter-musician interaction – the holy grail of musical coherence, while bad engineering can obliterate it.

Some collectors have yet to hear what an original outset pressing sounds like because their resources don't stretch to those high prices. Others who own kickoff pressings have never really heard them, because they are not listening on a revealing audio system.

I ask: "compared with the all-time sounding issues of these titles that I have heard, how does this re-issue sound on my organization"? I'm looking for which sounds more fresh, engages the  emotions,  compels listening, whose rhythm and timing swings and gets your feet tapping, in which the music "makes sense"

Comparative sentence is essential to the record upgrading procedure. If y'all don't upgrade, you will never know if there are better sounding copies.  When someone says their audiophile reissue sounds bang-up, ask if they have the original vintage press for comparing. Yes, I know, no need, what y'all've got sounds neat.

Inevitably there will be individual titles that practice not suit to the expected quality, for whatever reason. Call back: only you know what you hear, no-one else does. If something sounds good or bad  to yous, your opinion is all that matters, though you should e'er take the opportunity to "educate your listening palate".

The LJC Bluish Note sound quality bureaucracy – o verall rating (this needs updating!)

(based on impression of listening to a range of copies – private exceptions may differ)

The reason for seeking out primeval pressing of a title has nothing to do with them being valuable antiques or of sentimental historical interest, which of course they are, just as a full general dominion, the earliest edition is sonically the best edition. "First pressings" are considered the holy grail of audiophile quality, being the closest possible to the studio original tape recording and master acetate before any effect of age, vesture and tear.

The factory test pressing is the ultimate first pressing, being "first off the first stamper" which at that point will exhibit no sign of the progressive groove wearable which follows subsequent pressing repetitions.

A promotional review/preview/audition  copy is as well probable to be among the first batch of records pressed, and sought subsequently for the same reason, though its encompass may be disfigured by stamping.

Blue Note promotional copies – regular commercial consequence stamped on the characterization "REVIEW COPY"

Blueish Note sent promos to radio stations and the music press – oft the record label was stamped "Review Copy", some adding "Not For Sale" to avoid accounting sales tax. Other copies were stamped REVIEW COPY on the back of the jacket, merely not on the label.

Earliest and later pressings

The first pressing of each Blue Note title is the gold standard of sound quality for that recording. However at the start of the 1500 12″ microgroove series  some of the very earliest recordings date back to the late 1940s, were recorded in radio station studios, and show the limitations of  recording equipment at the time, despite remastering by Van Gelder.

In that location may be piffling audible difference between first and later 2d pressings, being manufactured with stampers derived from the same female parent and master. A later pressing on the NY characterization can sound every bit good every bit the start pressing on 47 Due west 63rd, with less habiliment and tear, the main difference being the collector's premium, the price. However the misreckoning factor is stamper wear.

Similar high sound quality is often found in records pressed during the first few years of Liberty Records ownership, which include a number of Van Gelder mastered titles prepared for release before the 1966 watershed, whose first pressing was past Liberty'southward All-Disc, Roselle NJ.  found  in the later half of 1966 or early 1967. Well-nigh of these sonically the equal of Blue Note Plastylite originals.

The same can not be said of those without Van Gelder mastering. In the early on Freedom years, Bluish Note commenced pressing on both w and east coast, through their ain pressing plants, and some 3rd parties. This severed the link with Plastylite, though not with Van Gelder metallic, which remained available for reissues pressed at All-Disc. Reissues manufactured in LA however, past Enquiry Craft, were re-mastered from copy tape by Freedom engineers, whose output was less consistent. Ever cull Freedom copies stamped VAN GELDER. New titles however used Van Gelder mastering on both coasts, until recording sessions started to exist held with increasing frequncy in West Declension studios, by other engineers, in the closing years of the '60s.

Variations in audio quality inside editions

From an audiophile perspective, the most important determinant of audio quality is the recording skill of the original sound engineer.  After that –  more important than characterization or get-go pressing status –  is stamper clothing. In the pressing plant, the ridges of a  stamper are progressively deformed by a hundred tons of pressure level through the ii thousand or more pressing repetitions of a stamper'southward useful life, resulting in increasing loss of allegiance, peculiarly in the higher frequencies. Somewhere in each pressing run were the first few and the last few off the stamper, hence being a commencement pressing is itself not a guarantee of top audio quality, or a second pressing of poor quality: in that location is no way of knowing in advance at what stage in the life of a stamper a record was pressed. At that place is an audible departure in audio quality even between two copies of a first pressing. In extremis, one will exist more inviting, more fresh, more presence, the other more wearisome, congested, leaving you inexplicably unenthusiastic about the music, but nursing an as large hole in the bank business relationship.

1968: the decline in audio quality starts

From 1968 onwards, the Freedom/Transatlantic years,  Blue Annotation quality became increasingly compromised. The signature Van Gelder  sound began to disappear.  Recordings were often re-mastered by staff engineers, without any understanding of the adjustments Van Gelder applied to his own tape recordings during mastering. In the later half of the '60s, demand for record pressing capacity exceeded supply, and Liberty under Transamerica was manufacturing records at multiple plants.

This decline was not sectional to Blueish Note but an manufacture-wide trend throughout the '70s. In the  '80s, there was a last attempt to revive the format and cutting costs – Directly Metal Mastering – before final migration to CD, The Evil Silvery Disc, for music distribution, which more or less killed off vinyl manufacturing know-how, though at that place were a few remaining bright spots.

Now for some good news: from our friends from Japan

A few exceptions to this gloom stand out, the most obvious being the pressing of Blue Note recordings in Japan, by King Records and Toshiba EMI. Dating from the '70s and '80s, the audio standard of these vintage pressings is consistently high, and favoured for almost-silent vinyl. The caveat is that Japanese engineers were much more conservative on loudness and proceeds settings, quieter pressings, that rely on the listener to adjust the volume upwards, which does not deliver equivalent punch of a Van Gelder loud cut.  The presentation is not as forwards as original Blue Note, but more often than not quite adequate, more than available and more affordable, peculiarly for the rarest of titles.

King Records vintage pressings (1977-83) are generally preferred to Toshiba. Toshiba reissued most of the 1500 serial betwixt 1983-85, and most of the 4000 serial between 1990-95. Beyond these dates however, Toshiba continued  with further reissues through to the present day, however any Toshiba Blue Note manufactured after 1995 should be treated with great scepticism. Often sold on the back of the reputation of before years, more recent Toshiba are not the aforementioned  audio quality as the vintage releases 1983-95. They include digital transfers, and  even supposedly RVG-remastered for CD, cynically pressed on vinyl, and are not audiophile quality.

Other often acceptable reissues

Other brief haven of sound quality include the Blue/blackness Westward Coast Liberty/UA pressings, the early Partitioning of United Artists pressings, and some simply past no means all early on French Pathe Marconi earlier Direct Metal Mastering was introduced. All these editions are a variable experience – some tin be very very adept, others can be quite indifferent, depending on title.

Reissues to avoid

Blue Notation reissues generally to avoid are the 1980's U.s.a. Capitol/Manhattan reissues ("The Finest in Jazz Since 1939" label), and EMI French republic Direct Metal Mastered.  The 304 Park Artery South Scorpios I consider RINOs – Records in Name Merely – a cd transferred onto vinyl. As well to avoid, any edition which has mono electronically rechanneled to simulate stereo, and

I recommend being sceptical of modern "180 gm audiophile" reissues without more substantial show of sources, even where they claimed to be " from the original tapes" and this includes Blue Note 75 anniversary editions.  The event is oftentimes quite disappointing.   The modern (since 1995) use of digital delay lines (digital preview) during mastering effectively made a digital image of the original analogue record, which digital paradigm was then fed to the mastering lathe. Blueish Annotation 75'due south editions are high resolution digital transfers, and accept many reported manufacturing defects originating from the low price-bespeak.

As with all these things, there are exasperating exceptions. Every one time in a while you lot play a Blue/blackness b which sounds great, even a French DMM which sounds fresh and lively.  Sometimes the original recording was and then good it was near impossible to make a bad transfer of it, then I am reluctant to condemn whatsoever edition out of paw. Ultimately but your ears tin decide.

UPDATE December 21, 2020

Blue Note/Capitol/UMG have fabricated some major improvements in engineering and maufacture, most recently pressing at Optimal in Germany. Early results are extremely favourable. Latest Tone Poet and eighty serial has fix new standards in audiophile reproduction. Kevin Gray continues to further improve his outstanding engineering.

Reissues: the all-time and the worst US and European reissues

Putting to one side Blue Note "originals", Liberty and Japanese pressings, in that location are some commonly establish and inexpensive  reissues – and my rule of pollex for the upkeep-conscious vinyl collector as to which to avoid and which may be worth pursuing.

(Above numbers refer to the detailed folio for Blue Note, the United Artists Years)

How practice other US labels compare with Blue Note audio quality?

Blueish Note are by no ways the only audiophile quality vintage vinyl and Van Gelder was non the simply dandy sound engineer. Up there with the Blue Annotation best are US Columbia Vi Eye and Two Eye,Contemporary, Impulse Orange black rim and blackness/red rim, and Prestige fireworks. For Stereo, I rank Columbia, Impulse and Contemporary ofttimes better than Blue Note.

Some labels such equally Riverside, Mercury and Atlantic are variable and inconsistent, dandy recording artists simply dogged by either poor engineering or poor pressing, depending on title and over time. Others I accept non enough to judge, too small a sample, such as Verve, RCA Victor, and Bethlehem, and a host of smaller labels, like Aboveboard.

What virtually sound quality of American recordings licensed for European release?

In UK licensed pressings, the ascendant gene is remastering from copy tape (apart from Esquire, who enjoyed original Usa metalwork).  Different engineer, different taste, unlike judgements. Pressing and technology was to a very high standard, especially by Decca, closely followed past Philips, then EMI.

With Riverside, I detect Uk Interdisc editions (Decca or Philips)  better sonically than original  US Riverside. Impulse recordings released by HMV pressed by EMI are very good but not as good as United states Impulse, where RVG originals are much to be preferred. All Columbia manufactured in United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, whether for Fontana or CBS, are inferior to US Columbia. Your Monk and Miles must be Made in the USA.

LJC

lewinhady1996.blogspot.com

Source: https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/labelography-2/audio-quality-of-blue-note-recordings/

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