would 'imagination' sound better on vinyl?

[bringahorseinhere?]

i was noticing how people were saying how much they enjoyed the vinyl 'TWGMTR' over the Cd version..

There are some who don't like it for it's 'digital'ness or whatever you wanna call it.

Do you think a vinyl re-release would change that view?

I personally love it....... I only bring it up, cos I was recently playing the album through some older analog gear..... and it sounded somewhat better...

thoughts?  :smoking

Rick Bartlett

[MBE]

The 45 of the title tracks does sound good.

[bringahorseinhere?]

ahhh yeah!  the 45!  forgot about that one! it's got the accapella version on the flip if my memory serves me right...
I've got it here somewhere.......i'll have to have a hunt....
thanks for the refresher!

RickB

[Micha]

I'd buy it instantly on LP.

I only have it on cassette - got it from the library back in its day and transferred it.

My feelings on it vary. I liked it when it came out, found it boring later on and now think "hey, not bad!"

[?]

A well produced album can be a revelation on vinyl (BWPS for example), but Imagination's problem is the production.  A nice vinyl mastering isn't going to fix that embarrassing AC sound unfortunately.

[Gabo]

was the album recorded analog? 1997-1998 was around the time when digital recording became common (or maybe it was later).

[The Heartical Don]

was the album recorded analog? 1997-1998 was around the time when digital recording became common (or maybe it was later).

IIRC digital recording happened much, much earlier. CDs with the 'DDD' label appeared immediately when the medium was launched. LPs that were recorded digitally were available earlier on - I seem to recall that Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop (1978) was recorded digitally, but it may be that I am confused with the then-fashionable DMM process (direct metal mastering). Will do some Googlarizing ASAP.

*disclaimer: The Heartical Don was not, is not, and never will be associated in anyway with the Hoffmanites in Tuvalu.

[bringahorseinhere?]

i would doubt it was recorded analog, which if it was, they sucked the 'soul' of the sound right out of it ....still, with a remix using analog gear
would improve it me thinks......amazing what they can do!...... not that it is likely to happen, for an anniversary like its '50th' birthday, what that's....2048? hehe

I wonder is 'TWGMTR' used analog tape at all?......some artists still choose to work on pro-tools or digital medium, then mix the stereo master
down to tape to give it 'that sound'.....

Rick Bartlett

[The Heartical Don]

Hi Rick -

despite my predilection for beer, I have retained a pretty good memory; and the problems you are referring to were there as early as 1979. I give you the review for Bop Till You Drop, taken, without permission, from Allmusic.com (not that they mind; anything that leads to more visitors they are pleased with):

Following his conceptual 1978 release, Jazz, Ry Cooder returned the next year with the R&B/soul-based Bop Till You Drop. The first major-label, digitally recorded album, Bop is a nice set of moderately known to obscure tunes from the '50s and '60s (along with a Cooder/Tim Drummond original) that doesn't always live up to its promise. Cooder and his excellent band, which includes the rhythm section of Tim Drummond and Jim Keltner along with guitarist David Lindley, understand the material and are more than capable of laying down a decent groove, but something must have gotten lost in translation from what was played to what came across on the recording. There's a thinness to the tracks that undermines the performances, which according to Cooder is due to the digital recording. If you check out the live version of Bop Till You Drop's opener, "Little Sister," from the No Nukes record (using the same band), you can see what surely could have been. Still, Bop is worthwhile given Cooder's penchant for choosing great tunes, as well as the tight performances, brilliant guitar work, and a handful of great guest vocalists (including Chaka Khan). A few of the highlights include his arrangement of the early-'60s Elvis hit "Little Sister," the soulful "The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor)," an instrumental take on Ike & Tina Turner's "I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine," and "I Can't Win," featuring Cooder's longtime cohort Bobby King on lead vocal.

[bringahorseinhere?]

Hi Don, thanks for the info.......good stuff.
got to thinking about remixes.......look what a little polish did with Pet Sounds with the stereo remixes....and how sweet they came out...even the stereo Smiley Smile is charming......among others.....
I know its a different era and whole other can of worms....
but, I don't know, I just had a vision of how 'imagination', and even some others, 'BB85' could sparkle with an update....
and dare I say it.....'summer in paradise'.......
now if I only had those multitracks!
hehe

Rick Bartlett

[The Heartical Don]

Hi Don, thanks for the info.......good stuff.
got to thinking about remixes.......look what a little polish did with Pet Sounds with the stereo remixes....and how sweet they came out...even the stereo Smiley Smile is charming......among others.....
I know its a different era and whole other can of worms....
but, I don't know, I just had a vision of how 'imagination', and even some others, 'BB85' could sparkle with an update....
and dare I say it.....'summer in paradise'.......
now if I only had those multitracks!
hehe

Rick Bartlett

Good points, Rick. I adore the PS and SS stereo versions. And I guess a more analogue Imagination would simply sound better.

[guitarfool2002]

It's my understanding that the issues with many of the earlier digital recordings were due to the equipment and technology being used. Simply put, in the rush to be cutting-edge from a technological angle and "go digital" to exploit a new medium, some of the flaws which were inherent in the designs and operation of the gear itself were either ignored or sacrificed in order to be cutting-edge.

Just as professionals had a preference for various brands and types of analog tape over others for their characteristics and response, the way the sound is actually captured and reproduced owes a lot to whatever is being used to capture it. And with the early digital stuff, a lot of it does have what some call a "harsh" or brittle sound that imparts itself into the music, and which perhaps in 1982 wasn't an issue but when compared to analog recordings or even A/B'ed with more advanced digital, it can sound bad. Those albums can be remastered, and fed through analog signal chains or whatever, but what they used originally in the studio to record it will be how it sounds unless you call back the original musicians to re-record the whole thing on analog tape.

Having said all that, it still stands that the quality or medium used to record a song cannot reverse or change the actual music that was performed and recorded on the track.

I don't want to repeat myself, because last week I went into a long diatribe about my feelings on "Imagination" and why it falls short of being a memorable album...but ultimately the production decisions made for the songs doomed it to being a time capsule rather than a timeless album. Joe, working with Irving Azoff among others, went specifically for the Adult Contemporary market, and went so far as to veto or overrule arranging and orchestration ideas Brian had for certain songs in favor of using sounds like keyboards and certain guitar textures designed *solely* to give the songs an aural sheen that would fit into that specific niche format of AC. There are keyboard textures, etc, which date the album and pigeonhole it into not only a small timeframe but a small market.

That is the issue fans have with it, at least those who like me think some of the songs are top-notch but are sunk by layers of AC orchestration.

This is Brian Wilson - arguably one of the most influential arrangers and orchestrators in all of pop music whose sonic textures never really fit into any format yet manage to remain timeless. The decision to layer sounds outside of his own ideas to the point where some tracks could be anything but a Brian song if it weren't for the name on the album misses the point entirely of a Brian Wilson album.

You can try to remaster Imagination any way you'd want to try - run it through any analog gear imaginable, mix it to tape, whatever - and those keyboards will sound exactly the same way in that context. As will the drum sounds and all the various gates and triggers and whatever else of the 90's technology they used...you cannot remaster that out of the original tracks that went down in the studio.

I'd also suggest the album is what it was: It didn't do that well, and apart from a few memorable songs that Brian and his band made more memorable on the various tours by playing them live (Your Imagination, Lay Down Burden...the cream of the crop), the album is past history. Remastering it may be a novel idea, but I doubt anyone hearing it anew in 2014 or whatever will hear it any different unless you do a radical reshaping of the record, and I doubt anyone has the energy or budget to do that.

I don't mean to come off as being too harsh on this, but at some point an album like Imagination should remain what it is, it's relative lack of success put into the history books, and rather than try to rework an unsuccessful album in the name of re-evaluating it, those parties involved should look ahead and make more "Brian" songs rather than trying to turn Brian's grooves into Sade or Brian McKnight...or Jimmy Buffett.

[guitarfool2002]

For another comparison of an early all-digital (100% digital, DDD) recording, there's Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly" to consider. I think that's a great album, a lot of people do, and it was successful both as an album and for several radio hit singles that spun off it like "New Frontier", "Ruby Baby", and "IGY". As good as people think it is, there is still an ongoing debate about the sounds the all-digital process created, and how good or not-so-good it ultimately sounds, apart from the music itself. Even the people involved in the recording have interviews both pro and con the digital technology used on the album.

[rn57]

For another comparison of an early all-digital (100% digital, DDD) recording, there's Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly" to consider. I think that's a great album, a lot of people do, and it was successful both as an album and for several radio hit singles that spun off it like "New Frontier", "Ruby Baby", and "IGY". As good as people think it is, there is still an ongoing debate about the sounds the all-digital process created, and how good or not-so-good it ultimately sounds, apart from the music itself. Even the people involved in the recording have interviews both pro and con the digital technology used on the album.

I can remember listening to a radio interview Fagen did when The Nightfly came out, which had some call-in questions. One caller specifically raised the point of the over-dry, clinical digital sound.  Fagen acknowledged this was something of a drawback, and said that he thought over the next few years further progress in the digital-recording field would get it straightened out.  It's interesting that a decade later his follow-up album Kamakiriad had a sound with a distinctly warmer touch than usual in the recordings of the early '90s, as if he had kept the criticism in mind all that time.

As it happens, I have The Nightfly in its MFSL audiophile cassette version.  Audiophile cassettes may seem like a contradiction in terms, but this tape does sound a heck of a lot better than your run-of-the-mill cassette anyway.

Come to think of it, my copy of Imagination is the cassette release - that was about four or five years before the major labels gave up on that format completely.

[guitarfool2002]

For another comparison of an early all-digital (100% digital, DDD) recording, there's Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly" to consider. I think that's a great album, a lot of people do, and it was successful both as an album and for several radio hit singles that spun off it like "New Frontier", "Ruby Baby", and "IGY". As good as people think it is, there is still an ongoing debate about the sounds the all-digital process created, and how good or not-so-good it ultimately sounds, apart from the music itself. Even the people involved in the recording have interviews both pro and con the digital technology used on the album.

I can remember listening to a radio interview Fagen did when The Nightfly came out, which had some call-in questions. One caller specifically raised the point of the over-dry, clinical digital sound.  Fagen acknowledged this was something of a drawback, and said that he thought over the next few years further progress in the digital-recording field would get it straightened out.  It's interesting that a decade later his follow-up album Kamakiriad had a sound with a distinctly warmer touch than usual in the recordings of the early '90s, as if he had kept the criticism in mind all that time.

As it happens, I have The Nightfly in its MFSL audiophile cassette version.  Audiophile cassettes may seem like a contradiction in terms, but this tape does sound a heck of a lot better than your run-of-the-mill cassette anyway.

Come to think of it, my copy of Imagination is the cassette release - that was about four or five years before the major labels gave up on that format completely.

Very interesting! I could go on and on talking about The Nightfly, but at the risk of derailing the Imagination discussion too much I'll save it for another topic. 

Something to consider is how The Nightfly is regarded as a classic, beloved among Steely Dan and Fagen fans, and held in pretty high regard as an album full of great music, performances, and stories. The digital sound issues are there, always will be, but at the same time you don't see as much of the sentiment being hinted at in this thread that a more "warm" analog mix or remix would improve it somehow.

The album stands on it's own merits, again the performances and the music itself outshines the digital debates around it. Fagen poured himself into it, he put himself out there and put everything he knew and wanted to do into making that album, including what was according to reports a huge sum of money into the project. And I think that came through in the album, all qualms about digital aside.

Are there fans out there saying it would be improved with an analog process of some kind? Realizing that is impossible because there entire process from the first track to the final master was done digitally, is it holding back any appreciation for the music? If so, I don't see that as much as I do with some of the thoughts about Imagination. I just don't know how much a remix or anything of the sort would do to improve Imagination's music and production, because all of that is locked into the music...short of taking the better songs and remaking them entirely under a totally different production mindset. The closest we got to that was again in those live Brian shows where the band played a few choice cuts and left the rest back home, on the album and that PBS special.

With digital in general, I'll say again I think the music will rule the day, and supersede the methods used to record it.

One of my biggest wake-up calls in listening and evaluating music in general came via Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" album. When that album came out, I would go on endlessly about how cool it was to hear someone returning to the Revolver-era sounds and techniques, about how 'warm' and 'real' it all felt, how cool it was to hear a production using backwards tape and all of those trappings of what I thought at the time were "real" recording techniques to get a specific production vibe.

Then later with a lot of egg on my face and a big slice of humble pie on my plate, I learned that the "Girlfriend" album, with a lot of those organic and pure analog sounds I thought were a terrific return to honesty in recording analog-flavored music, had been recorded using a very early version of the Pro Tools digital recording program.

Ultimately I realized it was the songs and the performances of them that appealed to me so much, and my own misguided notions of what sounded like analog music versus digital music were thrown out the window. And learning how much of "Girlfriend" was made using Pro Tools did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of or influence from that album. It just shattered my perspective.

[The Heartical Don]

It's become a very, very interesting thread. Thanks to Rick B. and the others who participated.

[bringahorseinhere?]

Yes Don, I agree....... I enjoy hearing the perspectives of everyone....

and I think 'guitarfool' has a point..... if things were tracked digitally with 'limiters, gates, compressors etc, improving the sound
would be near impossible, and remixing would be a waste of time unless they are producing it for a complete reworking like say an
'imagination - unplugged' for example... like what they did with the beatles 'let it be' naked...... completely different project

I wouldn't mind seeking out a copy of the MFSL audiophile cassette version though.....that sounds interesting...

Thanks everyone, and keep the posts coming!

Cheers, RickB

[hypehat]

Guitarfool is correct, you could listen to Imagination through £500,000 speakers on 250g gram virgin vinyl in the ballroom of Valhalla, sitting on an obscenely vast pile of £50 notes whilst being fanned with palm fronds by buxom women/muscular men and drinking and eating that thing you really like, but it'd still sound like Imagination - the album sounds like sh*t. t's crappily recorded and produced. It's thin, all treble, and the sound is lifeless.

What's weird is that BW88 sounds better on OGish vinyl, but that record had a bunch of highly skilled producers to balance out the incompetence of Brian's New Best Friend. That's Why... has this to a certain extent, although I don't think it sounds remarkably 'better' on vinyl.

[absinthe_boy]

Digital recording has been around since the late 70's with the SoundStream system used initially on some famous Telarc orchestral releases and then with pop/rock artists from 1978 onwards.

However I believe Imagination was released on vinyl in 1998. I asked for it as a present that year but didn't get it.

I have the 5.1 DVD-Audio version and it's quite pleasing but doesn't give the impression of being BW in the hot seat. I always put it down to him not having the confidence at that point to voice his opinions.

[Micha]

However I believe Imagination was released on vinyl in 1998. I asked for it as a present that year but didn't get it.

Had it been, I'd have bought it.

[Bean Bag]

I have the 5.1 DVD-Audio version and it's quite pleasing....

That's a DTS release, right?  I passed on it... wish I didn't.  I love this album.  Easily his best/most commercial solo effort.