kafunis
Well-Known Member
7 ?
Vinyl Me Please Anthology
- Thread starter mdmost
- Start date
TCell
Well-Known Member
This Herbie Anthology has me in a quandary. I like it a lot; I think the album choices show the breadth of his career, and the price point seems reasonable, but...I still haven't pulled the trigger. My dilemma, like many have already voiced, is I already have Headhunters and Takin' Off on vinyl. (And I have Maiden Voyage, 1+1, and The River on CD.) Seems like a lot of duplication to get 3 records I would frequently spin on vinyl (Maiden Voyage, The Piano, and Live Under The Sky).
Interestingly, I feel it also exposes the predicament VMP is in with doing an anthology like this though:
1) Herbie Hancock picked the albums himself! Which sounds awesome, except...could they not have told him that Takin' Off was just reissued? Or that everyone already has an awesome copy of Head Hunters? Or that 1+1 is just a good album and not that artistically interesting? Of course not, it's Herbie freakin' Hancock! I think he had free reign to pick whatever albums he wanted (except maybe not the Warner albums) and these are what he picked to represent his career. Hard to tell the guy he can't pick the albums to represent his own career, just because they're already available on vinyl.
2) The Price. $349. Seems great, except...to get it that cheap they needed to get it pressed at GZ. If you're creating the definitive Herbie box set, that's where we're getting it pressed? If it was $399 and pressed at QRP I would've been way more excited. (I am now a pressing plant snob. smh)
Sorry, I am having an existential crisis about this, and had to rant to people who might understand. When I explained it to my wife, she just raised her eyebrows and said, "Really? You need more fuckin' records?"
Interestingly, I feel it also exposes the predicament VMP is in with doing an anthology like this though:
1) Herbie Hancock picked the albums himself! Which sounds awesome, except...could they not have told him that Takin' Off was just reissued? Or that everyone already has an awesome copy of Head Hunters? Or that 1+1 is just a good album and not that artistically interesting? Of course not, it's Herbie freakin' Hancock! I think he had free reign to pick whatever albums he wanted (except maybe not the Warner albums) and these are what he picked to represent his career. Hard to tell the guy he can't pick the albums to represent his own career, just because they're already available on vinyl.
2) The Price. $349. Seems great, except...to get it that cheap they needed to get it pressed at GZ. If you're creating the definitive Herbie box set, that's where we're getting it pressed? If it was $399 and pressed at QRP I would've been way more excited. (I am now a pressing plant snob. smh)
Sorry, I am having an existential crisis about this, and had to rant to people who might understand. When I explained it to my wife, she just raised her eyebrows and said, "Really? You need more fuckin' records?"
I turned to my wife yesterday and told her that I needed to buy a mannequin. She paused momentarily and then with a deep sigh of resignation asked why. I replied "To put my Stormtrooper armor on." She gazed up at me with a look that I can only describe as pity as she nodded her head slowly and said "Okay honey."
At first I thought the pity was for me, but now I'm starting to think it was actually for her.
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Honestly... on average how many other days in the week would her response have been 'but what am I supposed to wear?'
Tortured Diaper Baby Dept
Well-Known Member
No pity for the mannequin?
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
I am also a pressing plant snob! That’s why I’ve stopped getting the BlueNote80 pressings and only want to focus on the Tone Poet series from Blue Note! Outside of VMP, the only thing I ever want to buy are the current Acoustic Sounds verve reissues, which are pressed at QRP, any future Analogue Productions pressing and any MoFi One-Step pressings! I care a lot about where a record is pressed now, so I’m not really buying any new release vinyl at the moment.
The new Chet Baker VMP exclusives being pressed at RTI, mastered by Kevin Gray and being AAA definitely was a strong reason why I purchased them. The BlueNote80 for the most part are also AAA and mastered by Kevin Gray but the pressing plant they use is bad with QC. So many of my BlueNote80’s are severely warped and I can’t just get replacements for them/a refund easily like I do with VMP!
I am not even purchasing Gorillaz’ new album. I’m going to wait to hear the reviews of all the pressings first. Big mistake purchasing the Phoebe Bridges, Lido Pimienta and Rina Sawayama albums, which all sounded quite flat!
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Tortured Diaper Baby Dept
Well-Known Member
Only MOFI's one steps? Not their regular fare?
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
Yeah, only MoFi One-Steps because outside of Bob Dylan and Miles Davis MoFi reissues, nothing MoFi release on vinyl interests me much. I don’t like the range they have unfortunately, and getting MoFi’s are expensive to purchase in Australia. A single LP is AUD$85 and a 2LP is AUD$125. MoFi’s shipping is too expensive whereas Acoustic Sounds shipping is good. I’ve purchased some MoFi’s on Acoustic Sounds, but yeah...overall I’m not interested in MoFi’s general catalogue. I’d rather pay AUD$289 for a One-Step I really like!
I’m interested in the T-Rex “Electric Warrior” 45RPM pressing that MoFi recently did, especially as I love the song “Get It On”, but it’s AUD$125 and I dunno, it’s too expensive. If it was AUD$100, I’d purchase it!
All of my BN80s have been impeccable. Every single one.
Tortured Diaper Baby Dept
Well-Known Member
Oh, okay so what you mean is that current selections available from MOFI do not interest you.
Because, surely, if MOFI did a release you liked in the future then you'd pick it. When MOFI presses some Britney, you'd be all over it.
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
Most of mine have been badly warped, I’ve had to get them professionally flattened
I sent a message to Blue Note and showed them videos and told them I’m not happy and that I’ve had to spend a lot of money flattening the records. Waiting to see how they will respond to me!
23/25 of the Tone Poets have been impeccable though! The Lee Morgan Tone Poet I got was severely warped so I got that flattened and the recent Joe Henderson pressing was faulty as it had pops and my copy skipped too!
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
Yeah, if MoFi did Britney, I’d be all over Blackout, In The Zone and Circus!
Most of mine have been badly warped, I’ve had to get them professionally flattened
I sent a message to Blue Note and showed them videos and told them I’m not happy and that I’ve had to spend a lot of money flattening the records. Waiting to see how they will respond to me!
23/25 of the Tone Poets have been impeccable though! The Lee Morgan Tone Poet I got was severely warped so I got that flattened and the recent Joe Henderson pressing was faulty as it had pops and my copy skipped too!
I know this has come up before but it has to be something to do with the distance travelled to consistently get so many warped records. The one thing about the BN80s is the less substantial nature of their packaging (no big fat, chunky, rigid, thick gatefolds) so they're possibly a bit more susceptible to the impact from a postal service not storing in the right condition, leaving in overheated (or underheated) sorting houses, being chucked in vans etc. I'm convinced that part of the reason my VMP pick ups are generally the most knackered is because they're left to the whims of Yodel once the hit the UK. I've had boxes arrive with big chunks out of the side or covered in dust and muck from (I'm assuming) a delivery sorting office floor. You just need to scope out a tracking history to see how many stops a package takes on it's journey and how many hands it passes through before it get in to yours.
Tortured Diaper Baby Dept
Well-Known Member
Another thing you can get w/ all those savings....a vinyl flat w/ heat pouchMost of mine have been badly warped, I’ve had to get them professionally flattened
I sent a message to Blue Note and showed them videos and told them I’m not happy and that I’ve had to spend a lot of money flattening the records. Waiting to see how they will respond to me!
23/25 of the Tone Poets have been impeccable though! The Lee Morgan Tone Poet I got was severely warped so I got that flattened and the recent Joe Henderson pressing was faulty as it had pops and my copy skipped too!
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
Hmmmmmm maybe, but 24 out of 25 of my Tone Poets were flat, so I think it’s a pressing plant issue. I’ve been getting a lot of stuff from Acoustic Sounds too; a lot of Analogue Productions pressings and a lot of them are 2xLP’s too and I’ve only had 1 of my 30+ records warped. It’s definitely where the Blue Note 80 records get pressed; their QC would be like GZ and other pressing plants that aren’t QRP or RTI.
But at the same time, I have received records where the packaging was good and the jacket looked great but the records were warped. Like my Amy Winehouse Frank Abbey Road vinyl I got yesterday was warped, both discs. I asked for a replacement because I paid nearly AUD$80 for that! But from the same place, all my PJ Harvey reissues, including the demos, have all been flat!
So I think overall it’s still the pressing plant. Urban Outfitters pack my records really well and 35% of the time the records are warped! I just got my Gwen Stefani and it only has a minor warp so I got lucky! But @wynn72 who lives in the U.S. said he got a badly warped copy!
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
I’ve got it! But I don’t really like it because like the Spin Clean, I think I misuse it. Most records I’ve flattened, have a lot of surface noise after I’ve flattened them. But when my local does it, it’s perfectly flat and doesn’t have any surface noise. I’ve ruined some really cherished records just from using that vinyl flat. What I’m going to do is wait until I get a high quality record cleaning machine, clean the warped records well, including vacuuming them, then I’ll put them in the vinyl flat, only for 2 hours maximum with the lowest heat applied!
A lot of the time times using the vinyl flat, my record still remains warped, so I have to put it back in and leave it on for 3 hours! But I’ve got mostly bad results with surface noise/noisy pressings afterwards, probably because I don’t clean my records properly - which is why I’m gonna wait until I get a Record Cleaning Machine before I got back to using itI want to get a professional vinyl flattening machine, but I think they cost a fortune!
Where as I've 6 BN80s all flat. There is more movement in my copies of Chant and The Cooker than all of them combined. I've 5 of the Abbey Road Stones albums, Dusty In Memphis, Scott 4 and Solid Air - all flat. If you're getting consistently warped records and its a pressing issue then by the law of averages at least one of the 14 albums I've had from those series/ plants should be warped too. But they aren't.
The internet is full of forums talking about warps, off centre presses and surface noise on QRP recordings. It isn't the impeccable haven of perfection full of pixies, elves and Minotaurs shitting out great times and perfectly pressed records that everyone make it out to be. If you've a product that is formed by heat and subsequently further impacted by heat it's going to be susceptible to getting fucked with... irregardless of where it comes from.
Tortured Diaper Baby Dept
Well-Known Member
True. There is a halo effect happening. I've had warps on RTI and QRP pressings.
Your high fantasy playground has me concerned. Pixies? Definitely. Elves? For the most part. But MINOTAURS? Don't get me wrong, minotaurs are nice to have at a party; but eventually, they'll fuck shit up. Perhaps you meant centaurs, their urbane half man/half livestock bretheren.
Give me a halfsharkalligatorhalfman any day, though.
NathanRicaud
Well-Known Member
mmmmm that's so true! I think you're right that it is a heat issue! So frustrating the vinyl gets warped! Imagine if warps never were a thing with vinyl to start off with, it would make the hobby so much more relaxed! I love vinyl but severe warps are so annoying and are so much more common than I ever anticipated them to be!
Yeah, I remember nearly all the records in my Blue Note Anthology Boxset were badly warped and they were pressed at QRP. But all the records in my Stax Boxset were all flat and they were pressed at QRP too! It's all so unpredictable!
I am praying that the discs in my Sade boxset are flat! I do not want to contact Customer Service if I have a problem with my Sade Boxset! They already didn't let me cancel my pre-order from Sade's store even though I found the boxset AUD$70 cheaper in Australia at a retailer near my house! I have a feeling they might want me to send the defected record back to the UK if it's severely warped but I won't let that happen; I'll make sure they send me a replacement as they didn't allow me to cancel my pre-order!
After the Sade boxset and trying to get an Amy Winehouse Frank replacement and Run The Jewels' RTJ4 replacement, I will feel like I'm free because I'll only mainly have Amazon and VMP to deal with - my local is good with flattening any records I received warped from them so that's great too!
Im thinking about it now. Is it minotaurs or should it be singular. My Greek mythology is shakey as shit but there were Gorgans (plural) but I can only recall a single minotaur - and that poor dude ended up meeting a fairly poor fate.
But you need something a bit more substantial if you're going to be popping out all those 45s. Otherwise magicland'll just degenerate in to a uber chafed elven anus bloodbath. And that'll just lead to more surface noise