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The Alan Parsons Project Pyramid

I just digitised Pyramid and been busy with Audacity. If anything it suffers from excess dynamic range. Very quiet parts with surface noise and just a couple of places the cartridge lost its grip on transients and you can see the mistrack
 
I have uk and jap pressings and both play absolutely fine.

first track i heard by APP was title track on turn of a friendly card. On holiday in france and they kept playing it around the bar/pool (15 at time). Loved the mix of old/new, Elizabethan + rock, down to andrew powell's arrangements fthe orchestra. But he has a formula that becomes repetitive- see the film 'Ladyhawke' .. bit like Zimmer's scores for Pirates of the Caribbean...

enjoy all their albums though.
 
I just digitised Pyramid and been busy with Audacity. If anything it suffers from excess dynamic range. Very quiet parts with surface noise and just a couple of places the cartridge lost its grip on transients and you can see the mistrack
I have never noticed any obvious compression here.
 
It's not really deliberate compression as such, just the features of 70's transistor equipment. No decent big drum or bass transients and when it gets a bit busy it also seems to get a bit confused. A very great deal of 70's material sounds like it to some extent. Also when you get a big swing in level it sort of goes "whumph" rather than clean transients on the individual instruments.
 
I remember using that record to show off my hi-fi!
I had DIY valve equipment and DIY speakers I built with Focal drive units – 1981 I think. That church organ sounded great!
 
Must give Pyramid another listen as I wasn't immediately struck by it. Tales of Mystery is really pretty good and I like Stereotomy, particularly the title track, Limelght and Walrus, an epic instrumental. Not too struck by Vulture Culture either but maybe needs another listen or 2.
 
Vulture culture is very well recorded but the material is a bit meh (IMHO of course).

They were just past their creative best by then. That was the last album I bought of theirs.

This thread has put me on a '70's nostalgia vinyl trip.

Today been through

Changes 0ne Bowie -1st pressing on RCA orange label - has some spectacular material which has some benefits over the later remasters, but with equally obvious faults. Stunning example of why 80's ADRM was a bad idea.

Pink Floyd, "wish you were here". Give up, go home and put on the CD!

And currently on Space "Magic Fly", original PYE pressing. Bit of a lost classic perhaps?
 
TBH always wondered about analogue to digital mastering of original recordings. Deep Purple Machine Head sounds great on vinyl but enamel etching on CD. Were masters recorded 'bright' to allow for (I'm presuming) cutting head losses at high freqs? Namely to cut a master, the forces involved to cut high freqs at high amplitude compared to bass required some 'extra oomph' due to the forces involved?
 
TBH always wondered about analogue to digital mastering of original recordings. Deep Purple Machine Head sounds great on vinyl but enamel etching on CD. Were masters recorded 'bright' to allow for (I'm presuming) cutting head losses at high freqs? Namely to cut a master, the forces involved to cut high freqs at high amplitude compared to bass required some 'extra oomph' due to the forces involved?
The early ADCs were poor, especially at higher frequencies. Also the engineer cutting the record would turn down hot treble to avoid the cutter burning out
 
The worst thing about 80's digital was that the importance of super accurate timing wasn't properly understood which resulted in the loss of a lot of "texture" from the original recording. With Bowie the loss is considerable and obvious to the extent that you wonder how the "professionals" ever accepted the remaster.

I've often wondered if that was really the thing that made Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" a bit of a flop.
 
Interesting stuff. Must admit that some stuff I have is as you describe (hot treble), whilst some of it (including some of the above APP stuff) can be 'mushy' sounding, particularly in the mid-range
 


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