Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now
One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing he purchased recently:
Hi Tom,
Just a note. I forgot I had Red Rain/Sledgehammer on a 45 rpm clarity vinyl from Classic.
So I compared them. What the fuck! It was absolutely, completely lifeless. I was amazed at how lifeless it was.
It’s crazy that once upon a time I thought it sounded really great.
The journey continues to amaze.
Take Care,
Michel
Michel,
Thanks for your letter. You are not the first person to notice that Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered records do not hold up well when played head to head with the Hot Stamper pressings we offer.
Bernie Grundman has a fairly spotty record in the modern era. Starting with the work he did for Classic Records in the 90s, it’s hard to think of too many BG-mastered titles that sounded all that good to us. If pressed, I might be able to name five, but please don’t press me, coming up with five would be more work than I’d want to do.
The record you played probably sounded a lot like the pressing of So he remastered for Classic in 2002. We didn’t like it then and we doubt it has gotten better with age. Flat as a pancake and dead as a doornail are our go-to descriptions for the mostly irritating records that the various audiophile labels were putting out in those days, and not too surprisingly, the records they are making now are no better.
(To be honest, we were fooled plenty of times ourselves and have the embarrassing catalog entries to prove it.)
You were amazed by how lifeless it was, yet you used to like it.
Aren’t other audiophiles in exactly the same boat you were in until just a few days ago? Until you paid all that money to us for a copy that blew your Classic right out of the water?
Without knowing it, what you actually bought was a copy that sounded the way the Classic should have.
You thought you were getting top quality sound with Classic’s releases, especially when it has the advantage of being one song on a 12″ disc mastered at 45RPM. That record should have been killer, a Demo Disc of a great song guaranteed to blow your own as well as your audiophile friends’ minds.
Maybe it would have. Maybe, like you, they would think the Classic sounds amazing.
What’s amazing most of the time is just how relative “amazing” can be.
So, now you own the record that is a true Demo Disc, and one that can demonstrate not just top quality sound, but how inferior these modern-mastered titles really are up against the real deal — the real deal being a plain old mass-produced record that everybody and his uncle could have bought for relatively cheap in 1986. No fancy packaging, no high price tag, no virgin vinyl, just a record properly-pressed and properly-mastered. The world is full of them.
Audiophiles may be incredulous at the thought, but all it would take to show them how wrong their approach to collecting better pressings has been is the right pressing. Those are the ones we sell.
Another Classic Bites the Dust
As a general rule, So, like most Heavy Vinyl pressings, will fall short in some or all of the following areas when played against the vintage pressings we offer:
- It will tend to lack ambience, size and space.
- It will tend to have more compression.
- It will tend to lack energy.
- It will tend to have more smear.
- It will tend to lack transparency.
Some notes from a recent shootout for the album can be found below. Please to enjoy, especially our comments for the song Sledgehammer and Peter’s joy at the Otis Redding connection.
Here is a copy of So with the big and bold Peter Gabriel sound we love.
If you want your art rock to actually rock as well as be arty, this is the copy for you.
It’s not a perfect recording by any means, but when it sounds this good you can just forget its shortcomings and marvel at how consistently good the material and the production are.
We did a shootout years ago that taught us a few things. The most surprising finding? The Brit copy I had in my own collection sucked — how about that! As a rule, I like the Brit pressings best for PG, but that rule got broken after playing all the domestic copies, some of which really sound good, clearly better than the Brits we had on hand.
Rules were made to be broken? Tell me about it.
Recording Issues
This is a digital recording, and most of the time it is BRIGHT, SPITTY and GRAINY like most digital recordings, which plays right into the all-too-common analog-is-the-only-way biases we record-playing types tend to have.
After hearing a bad copy, what audiophile wouldn’t conclude that all copies will have these bad qualities?
After all, it’s digital. It can’t be fixed simply by putting it on vinyl.
Ah, but that’s where logic breaks down. Proper mastering can ameliorate many if not most of a recording’s shortcomings. When we say Hot Stampers, we are talking about high-quality mastering doing exactly that.
Mass Produced Plastic Problems
But of course the mastering is only one part of the puzzle. I have multiple copies with the same stampers. Some of them are terrible, some of them are wonderful — you just can’t rely on the numbers to guide you with a piece of mass-produced plastic like this. You have no choice but to play the record to know what it sounds like. (And that’s a good thing. Keeps you honest. There’s no “cheating” when you have nothing to go by but the sound.)
This album sold in the millions. They stamped it out until the metalwork was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Those badly pressed copies are not going to have any high-frequency extension, which leaves them with all the harsh upper mids sticking out of the mix to peel the paint in your living room and make your ears bleed.
Sledgehammer
Not unlike “Red Rain,” the flute intro here is a solid test for transparency and texture. But this moment passes quickly to make room for the huge horns that fire up the biggest hit on this album. The trumpets should have weight, dynamics, and texture. If they are smeary, blary or lifeless, you probably are listening to a typical compressed, low-resolution copy. (Side note: listen for the chatter before the singing begins – is someone talking on the phone? Last minute instructions from Peter? If you can figure out what they are saying we’ll give you this record for free!)
Don’t be alarmed at the veiled sound of the first two bars of vocals – it’s just the recording talking. When the verse comes in full swing, you’ll probably notice a little bit of spit, which is unavoidable here, especially on the super-sibilant “steam train” or “blue sky back.” However, the good copies make this problem non-offensive, and actually beneficial to the life of the music. The spit should not sound gritty or grainy; if it has a somewhat silky quality that’s a very good sign. But it has to be there if your copy is to have any life or presence in the midrange.
The backup singers that come in at the end of the first chorus should be subtle yet still present and clear. Also, pay attention to the reintroduction of the horns at the beginning of the second verse. The dynamic here is extremely important. The last note of their phrases should really swell up and make you appreciate what those guys are doing. (Maybe it’s Peter talking in the background, reminding the horn players not to forget to do that little dynamic trick.)
petergabriel.com
I think part of the reason So worked so well was that the band was really firing off each other. We had a great sound and production team, and it was sort of compact in the way it was put together. Red Rain is one of my favourite tracks from this record and is a good example of a band playing together with a lot of energy.
Sledgehammer was obviously a big track from that record and was in part an homage to the music I grew up with. I loved soul music and this was a chance to work with some of the brass players who worked with Otis Redding. He was my all-time favourite singer. It was a fun thing to do around a great groove.
Peter Gabriel
Below you will find our reviews and commentaries for the hundreds of Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years.
We confess that even as recently as the early 2000s we were fairly impressed with what we considered to be the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles are impressed by.
We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.
Some audiophile records sound so bad, I was pissed off enough to create a special list for them.
Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see — and hear — things the same way.