Jeff Powell Tells the Story of The World's Most Expensive Record
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- Опубліковано 23 кві 2024
- Jeff Powell, a Memphis-based mastering engineer, was recommended by Gavin Lurssen for a project with T-Bone Burnett aimed at preserving the sound of fresh-cut lacquer records. Despite initial challenges, including noise issues, they successfully recorded Bob Dylan performing classic songs and auctioned off the unique record for $1.78 million at Christie's, marking it as the most expensive record ever sold.
In the early 80s I worked for KM records in Burbank and later IAM in Irvine. I actually was a record press operator, and my good friend did the metal work for the masters and mothers. We were chasing the dream of audiophile vinyl records. We put out many titles for Nautilus, Saraband, CBS Mastersound, several using some half speed mastering techniques. I believe we were putting out a pretty great product, but as in all things timing is everything, and with the introduction of CDs we were doomed. So very fun to hear this story and know there are people out there still chasing the dream. Thank you!
Thank you for the half-speed masters (from several mentioned companies)
I tried to collect as many of these sonic masterpieces (only one at a time as I could afford).
I only collected a few before CDs showed up & killed my vinyl collection.
May you never hear Amanda McBroom in this lifetime again!
@shotgun
Thank you.
I own a few pieces of your handiwork, Nautilus test pressings and such.
Sounds amazing and thank you!
How many TP would you make if an album?
Just noticed your name on my remastered copy of Big Star's #1 Record. Well done.
loved hearing this story. My dad owned a studio back in the ‘60s and cut vinyl records on a lathe. In fact, the studio was my first home as I lived there for the first 2 weeks of my life until my parents bought their first house. I’ve always loved audio production and was thrilled to hear this fantastic story. I will send to my Dad who will love it as well. Thanks so much for sharing, Jeff. I could listen to your stories all day, sir.
Jeff is an amazing engineer and producer, his skills go way beyond mastering vinyl, he's part of the great Memphis pedigree that extends all the way back.
If you don't know, Jeff has some of the very best ears and best heart of anybody in the business!
This is a very subjective statement and subject matter.
Hey Jeff! 34 years have come and gone, great to see (or hear) that you're doing awesome!
Outstanding video. Always great to hear this kind of behind the scenes technical processes.
I had heard about that when it sold. Love knowing the back story. Thank you for sharing
I enjoyed this very much. I used to work at Wakefield MFG in PHX AZ in the early 80's,.It is still the best job I ever had. Grinder/Labels/Automatic Press Operator
Fascinating story. Thank you so much for sharing. That was fifteen minutes of my time very well spent. I'll watch that again at least once more, likely twice. Thanks.
Wonderful story sir! Thank you for putting this up for viewing!
So cool Jeff! Man, I envy you being at Sam's place. So much history and vibe. Thanks for sharing the background on this!
This is amazing. I have several records cut by Jeff and they all sound terrific.
Great story - thanks for keeping music alive.
Interesting,well told story.Thanks for your time and for making the record and the video.
Wow. That is dedication to hard work, perfectionism and the power of that song.
Very great show. Thanks...
Jeff Powell, you make us proud.
I am fascinated by the vinyl record manufacting process. I grew up on 45's and albums, and my Dad's 78's.
awesome video glad I found your channel
Incredibly good dude, questionable project.
Money laundering.
I agree. I'm not a fan of that project at all.
can you elaborate? I heard that some art auctions are related to money shenanigans but was this project set up that way from the start? It sure seems strange to have a budget for 3 years of dicking around to make one pressing of one disc, like who would spend that kind of money and why.
Yeah. A bunch of very bright, well-connected people spending a lot of time on a completely wrong-headed project. The Dylan recording was, according to my research, done digitally by Mike Piersante. Anyone who was "merely" interested in hearing the recording as perfectly as possible could just listen to that first generation file. The goal, though, was this esoteric, antiquarian project of making a one off, durable 33-1/3 RPM disk, which could be sold to the highest bidder through Christie's, the famous auction house, a process that finally yielded a 1.8 million dollar sale. Bizarre.
Nice one Steve. I love the new kitchen, especially all the new appliances. Looking forward to the new bathroom going in on Monday. The Gong People are very happy with the wolf pelts too.
What a cool project to be a part of! I would love to hear that master....
Great story- thanks for sharing
Fascinating video and story!
Just some thoughts on lacquer preparation for any plating and some general thoughts and our observations as based on pressd records which could perhaps apply to lacquers, illustrated below as food for thought...
In our study and in understanding where water droplets are larger than record grooves, and where PVC has the same electrical charge as pvc plastic, repelling water, t would be interesting to try the Kirmuss process on a cut lacquer before any plating. We see water used as a pre rinse. Perhaps our restoration process on a lacquer could be beneficial.
Very interesting all your results. Your detailed and well organized process and discoveries. Really impressive!
In the thought process... food for thought and for investigaion, we have indeed discovered outgassing of records and caught in a record sleeve for weeks or multiple decades, this creates a film as you noted. In our studies, our process removes this film. The needle now discovers the detail hidden by this film.
Having not played a lacquer, just records, known where the heat of the needle can see dust fused into surfaced pressing oil as discovered by the Shure Brothers, creating more pops, pop creation can be avoided by using a 10 micron diameter brush before any play. Of course from a pressed record our process removes approximately 0.9 microns of this release agent. I would assume this practice could perhaps apply to the lacquer as well. No pressing oil per say in a lacquer. More study needed as your lathe is doing the cut. Am very curious as to what if anything as to any film surfaces during the cutting.
This said, I would assume where heat generated at the point of contact with the needle in playing a lacquer could perhaps create a pop perhaps by way of heating of the lacquer at the point of contact. Just hypothesizing at this point.
In combination with the blast of nitrogen air, perhaps our process could help before any plating.
Lots of variables.
FYi;
I picked up some lacquers at the Electric Recording Company in the UK. Hmmm, time permitting it would be interesting to experiment.
In pressed records discovered where records should be played once per day per side. Allowing the plasticizer to do its job and return the groove to its rest or pressed position for best sound reproduction. The needle creates heat at the point of contact with the pressed record's groovened, . As just mentioned, wise to always use a 10 micron brush before play to remove dust. As lacquers are cut and not pressed, something to look at as to repeated same day play of a lacquer. More investigation....
Playing records sees the stylus pick up contaminants. In playing records a needle cleaner is suggested. I am sure where in playing a lacquer where a safe wet needle cleaner was usd before any play, and where 10 micron diameter parastatic felt brush was used.
The above illustrated as common good practice based on our studies of pressed records.
In stacking lacquers for shipping, noted the care. Paper spacers are problematic due to their manufacture. Dusty.
Very impressed with your video!!!!!
Congrats Jeff!! Proud of you Bro!!
I thought for sure The World’s Most Expensive Record (s) had to be the gold plated ones that went on Voyagers 1 & 2. Who would have thought…
My mom's voice is on those records. soundcloud.com/nasa/golden-record-polish-greeting
@@dangerousmusic What an honor! Imagine an alien race finding this disc and figuring it out perhaps millions of years from now. Her voice rings out in eternity.
I had the same thought!
WOWZA!
@@dangerousmusicthat’s amazing!
Fantastic story. Thank you.
Awesome story bro. Thats going to the pub for a story with a beer. Seriously. Mates will love it. 👍
What a great story, thanks for sharing. I wonder what kind of price a Voyager Golden Record would bring today if one was available.
Great, interesting story. I enjoy hearing the type of things that go on BTS.
Thank you
Absolutely fascinating.
Chris makes great stuff ! Hey Marek !! Rock on, 🤘 Brothers !!
Wow! What a great educational story and I just bought a "toy" Milty Zerostat 3 for a friend who has static problems in his listening room and it should work for his needs. Thanks Jeff!
Great video. Great story.,Great to see vinyl tech still pushing the limits. You are definitely doing sacred work. Take care and the necessary precautions to avoid health hazard with the laquer and stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Woah! Cool project! I remember Nelson Pass telling me about how he built the amplifiers for somebody´s lathe but I hadn't thought about how much the lathe influenced the sound -- duh! It would be cool to use the test-tone record to build a digital filter, modeling the characteristics of lathe.
Tip: look up 'vinyl simulators'.
fantastic story and very interesting.
Fascinating.
Such a cool story.
Jeff, this is a great new development. Did it still retain full frequency bandwidth?
Great story Jeff, I remember you well from the TapeOP conferences. I sold loads of 2" tape to T-Bone over the years. I hope this one was tracked to tape. Hope all is well with you.
Love this story!!!!
Jeff is a real gentleman and one of the funniest guys I ever met. Amazing ears, too!
Some people just like the sound of vinyl, i luv the sound, i like all the imperfections 😊i luv the aesthetics of all the ole equipment 😁
Hi Jeff - We met at ARDENT many years ago when I worked with the great John Fry (RIP) in getting them an SSL console. This was a fabulous story and it was great to hear it from you! Cheers - Don
I had a really great conversation with Jeff about mastering from digital cutting vinyl a couple of years back, it was very illuminating! He was in the middle of remastering Blonde on Blonde and other Dylan gems. He’s a very knowledgeable guy and really really nice. For all you people getting vinyl mastered from your digital files bring the volume down 20:db. And don’t brick wall it!
Thanks for the video keeps me inspired I listen to records everyday I've been collecting since I was little kid I'm 69 years old back in the late '70s my friend found a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon album it was in a box a wooden box with a sliding drawer sort of like the one in your on the video it was a Pink Floyd Master disc I've never seen another one I was told it was only a dozen made have you heard of this he sold it at record show for $400 I was back in 1981 I've never seen another one and I can't find any information online very interesting it sounded fantastic we played it it had a pamphlet about how it was made and who made it I don't remember that details but he bought it from a guy in New York have a great day
I'm so jealous of his job. So interesting and you can see the knowledge oozing out of him. This guy is a problem solver.
Curious is the coating took off and is widely used? Your mother was my music teacher in BG, btw.
Hell of a story! Somehow I knew Bob wasn't coming to the studio though. Lol. 1.8 Million for one disc of one song? Bananas.
Video also can be packaged with the 10" now and prove provenance of the piece.
Burnett has excellent explication of what the intention of this project is.
VERY interesting story! And I learned several things I didn’t know. What I could do without is the inserted stock footage of things like an auction or signing: it’s kind of unnecessary for your audience who are serious enough to listen to a long and, by the standards of today’s short attention spans, intricate story. We’re not children needing constant entertainment to stay engaged.
Unbelievable story for a recording of a song on vinyl. I toured Sun studio back in the 70's and it was quite the classic studio where Elvis got started!
My vote for best reproduction of sound is a master played at 15ips on a reel to reel like the one behind him. Maybe that’s why it
is there.
I just watched producer/recording engineer Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Recordings raving about the sound of analog tape. She (and others) is a big fan of DSD (Direct Stream Digital) as the best-sounding format for distribution. I wanted to ask her if she's ever considered releasing reel-to-reels of albums for rich audiophiles who buy hor-rodded tape decks to play a few dozen expensive vintage and modern tapes.
Very interesting!
when did this happen?? sorry if i missed it... what year??
Touching the record with greasy fingers is a big no no.
So this entire process was to see how much one they can squeeze out of people who consider themselves audio nerds?
Correction. "... squeeze out of one person..."
Great story!
An interesting and entertaining story, told by a smart and obviously talented guy!
I'm curious as to when this all went down?
very cool!
I'd love to know more about specific equipment choices for the recording process as well as was it recorded direct to disc? Also what was the playback system, cartridge, preamp the entire system?
Hey Chris; I don't have that intel, but I can tell you what Jeff's signal chain consists of. That is an up and coming video. (Whenever we can get'r done between designing gear!)
Did you make a copy for yourself?
Jeff cut my record back in 2018 for Rhygin Records. What is the industry doing about the lacquer manufacturing only being done by one producer in Japan?
Whoa.
8:00. A fellow who used to work at a nuclear power plant alerted me of a term called “tramp gases.” Those are gases that get trapped in nitrogen or hydrogen containers that are used and similar processes for security applications at nuclear power plants. If the container containing the gas ever held anything other than nitrogen or hydrogen or whatever current gas it’s holding it can show up as a false positive. Cool fact.
How much of that 1.8 did you get?
Crazy story
Wow. Epic. Kinda makes you step back.. and say "How can we put a price on that? Especially THAT price? ANY price...?" Humbling, I guess is the word I'm searching for.
Talk about being systematic and methodical. ✌️👌✌️
I would think the gold records on the Voyager spacecrafts would cost more, but the weren't offered for sale. Great story!
Apparently those cost $18K a piece in 1977, which would be the equivalent of $89,160.21 in 2024 bucks. On another note, you can audition my mother's greeting from the record here: soundcloud.com/nasa/golden-record-polish-greeting
Who bought it?
WOW, what a story!!! Roknroll
Is a CD version of this Dylan recording available?
Not that I am aware of.
That would make it much harder to sell the LP for most of $2 million!
I wonder how many songs they recorded..?
That was cool.
Wow.
Cool story.
$1.78 million?! Wow, somebody sure has money for blowing in the wind...
Imagine showing the greatest lyricist in human history how to sign his name.
But how much did it cost to make?
Exactly. Felt like clickbait
There's no way the recording session itself cost as much as super producer Trevor Horn's "Slave to the Rhythm" single for Grace jones, which cost £800,000 40 years ago. The mastering cost of cutting the one record is wrapped up with the cost of developing T-Bone Walker's Ionic Original special disc coating. Presumably the cost per record made will decrease now they've made one. I can't find any recent information about it; back in 2022 T-Bone talked about releasing more one-off or limited edition physical records with the magic coating.
Wow
I think he means throw your hat in the ring.
"This is not
the most expensive record
in the world...
This is just a tribute"
Riggs Goo goo
WooTang
Right. When old analog wants to play in the digital space…
Remember making a pretty good recording in 1982 with a cassette recorder and a headphone!
12 year old me understood enough to question if a headphone could also be a microphone, and it did!
I had the headphone right next to the speaker and the band said it was the best live recording they ever heard.
Are those multi kilobuck turntables/arm / cartridges operate at the same tolerances as the primary cutting lathe ?
Ok, I understand your point ..but then why spend more on a record player than a Crosley ..and yet we’re in a world of $50k Linn 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
I confess I have an LP12 ☕️
It's a Trent Reznor's analog alter-ego, Rent Treznor.
Jeez, and here I always thought those UHQR pressings were expensive, lol.
Wonder if Jeff can do 78rpm...?
Cool story, I guess... I was surprised when it was over--so, it must have been pretty good-HaHa - Amazing stuff-- ThankYou for sharing.
The best sounding vinyl, hands down, is DBX Disc.
WOW! 🤟
So maybe a dumb question...but...what happened with the "coating" that was being created?
After all the testing, they finally created a cocktail that worked. Is that your question? You can hit us direct at support@dangerousmusic.com.
@@dangerousmusic Yes. It made me wonder because, there is a company that makes a record cleaning machine...Kirmuss. One of his big things is that his cleaner takes the "coating" off the vinyl so it plays in a purer form (that's my paraphrase). I was wondering if that's the coating he was talking about.
@@dobieprime Unrelated. They are dealing with a vinyl record vs. a lacquer master. Completely different materials.
@@dangerousmusic Understand...I should have caught that...:) Loved the video though. :)
@@dangerousmusic So is this coating now being used regularly or was this only for the one-off ?
but the main question is: how did it sounds?
T-BONE!!!
Why don't they just digitally record the fresh cut lacquer record and sell it? Even if I could get my hands on the best pressed record, my cheapish equipment would never reproduce the best representation of that recording. But, I'm sure the equipment used to test and analyze the playback before pressing would be amazing to listen to.... you could give that experience to everyone... the DAC, Amp, and speakers being the only limitation.
Wow, what a gem of a story. And so little views 😭
Views don’t really matter, those that need to see it will at some point
Sounds like you need to get the "bunny suits" they wear in the clean rooms at Intel! LOL