Doctor's Orders-Part Two-The New Listening Room Of Steve Williams
- Thread starter Steve williams
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Not sure if this remaster of Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session has been mentioned anywhere here at WBF but this is an album with which I am quite familiar and own several CD's of this record. It was recorded in Toronto (where I grew up) at the Church of the Holy Trinity and I have included information below about this remaster. It is remastered from the original "digital" master
The sonics are simply superb and with the special microphone which was used creates an up close and personal effect and the ambience from the church is spectacular. This is one for everyone's vinyl collection. Highly recommended even though it comes from a digital master. It is too good not to have
Recorded originally at 44.1kHz/16-bit
Remastered by original recording engineer Peter Moore, and Cowboy Junkies
Lacquers cut by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
Expanded gatefold edition with additional photos, new cover design as the musicians/artist intended
New liner notes written by author and music editor Jason Schneider
Stoughton Printing old-style tip-on gatefold jacket
Plated and pressed on 200g vinyl at Quality Record Pressings
Read about the making of this spectacular album in Tom Doyle's October 2015 article for Sound On Sound magazine here.
"Regardless, sonics are first-rate, as is Analogue Productions' knockout reissue. The sound is exceptionally ambient and airy, with a remarkable sense of depth and a seemingly endless stage. Instruments are creamy-rich in texture, as is Timmins' come-hither vocal style. If you love Trinity Sessions, you'll want this edition." — Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound, February 2017
Cowboy Junkies recorded this spectacular LP as a "live" event Nov. 27, 1987 at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. It was recorded with a digital R-Dat and using only a Calrec Ambisonic Microphone. What this means is the record sounds like the band was playing right in front of you with the perfect ambiance.
Yes, this is a digital recording. True to our company principles, Analogue Productions in almost all cases reissues recordings only where the analog master tape is available. However, there are rare exceptions that whether digitally recorded or otherwise, a recording is so outstanding it's worthy of the highest quality vinyl reissue.
Featuring the sultry voice of Margo Timmins, the precise musicianship of her brothers Peter (on drums) and Michael (on guitar), and bassist Alan Anton, The Trinity Session is a spare, evocative, countrified-rock classic. First released in late 1988, The Trinity Session was named "Album of the Year" by The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times described it as "a quiet, special record that challenges traditional music." Rolling Stone declared the album to be "as important as it its inspiring."
Today, it remains much more than a snapshot of a single day's work captured on tape. So for this deluxe Analogue Productions reissue, we pulled out all the stops. Starting with new mastering from the original session digital tapes by the original recording engineer, Peter Moore. And lacquer cutting by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound. The church where the album was recorded was selected on the basis of work Moore had done there with other jazz and classical artists. Using a single Calrec Ambisonic microphone, the results are stunning.
Next, we kicked up the packaging and content several notches. You're holding a heavyweight old-style tip-on Stoughton Printing jacket, and it has brand-new liner notes by author and music editor Jason Schneider. Schneider is the author of Whispering Pines: the Northern Roots of American Music from Hank Snow to The Band. He's also the roots music editor at Exclaim! and his work has been published in Paste, The Word, The Toronto Star and other publications. The liner notes share space with additional recording session photos, inside and on the back cover. Additionally, the cover has been redesigned to remove the lettering and photo distortion originally applied and make it appear as the musicians/artist originally intended. Lastly, this sonic treasure has been pressed on 200g vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, maker of the world's finest LPs, with stampers plated by master plating technician Gary Salstrom.
The inspired reworking of both "Blue Moon" and "Working On A Building" reveal the Timmins family to be talented interpreters and insightful neo-traditionalists. Mixing the ambitious songwriting of Margo and Michael Timmins with subdued covers of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane" and Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," The Trinity Session is an exquisite collection that holds up quite well under repeated listenings.
"The main appeal of The Trinity Session, the Cowboy Junkies' second album, remains its lo-fi sound. The ambient buzz of Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity, where the Junkies recorded the album around one microphone, colors every song, reinforcing the live setting and generating vinyl intimacy even on CD. It's as if the church itself was an instrument, one that Junkies could play pretty well. It allows Margo Timmins' voice to fill your field of vision, simultaneously soothing and unsettling, while her brother Michael's guitar rumbles through the songs, a little louder and sharper than anticipated." — Pitchfork
I don't David. I only have the CD
This record really sounds great and worth the $55 to put in a library.
This record really sounds great and worth the $55 to put in a library.
I have the Classic Records 4 disc 45 rpm mastering from the late 90's.
it is a really great sounding record, a frequent demo quality part of my playlist, and very atmospheric despite it's digital DAT origins.
it is a really great sounding record, a frequent demo quality part of my playlist, and very atmospheric despite it's digital DAT origins.
Thanks to you Steve and a comment you had made a couple of years back, I also have the CD. It has gotten regular rotation along with some other albums I have acquired by them, this one being my favorite. Would love to get this album now that the vinyl rig is set up again!
Tom
Tom
Question was out of curiosity I don't really care for their music and the original pressing in audiophile enough for my tastes :b...
david
it's folk, not rock.
but as a late night mellow 'single malt' record it works....'Sweet Jane' is sweet.
I greatly prefer the original version. The new version could certainly be many people's preference. The new version is less ambient, more pumped up to make it sound like a regular album. It just isn't beautiful like the earlier version. It sounds more like what a musician would try to force an album to sound like.
I wish I could hear the one Mike has because in all honesty I loved listening to this and I don't drink.
Peter Moore used two Calrec mics, one in the main room for the instruments, and a second for Timmins who was 30 feet away. Her mic was then sent to a heavily-modified Klipsch Heresy which is aimed at one of the capsules of the main mic. Her "voice" on the album is actually amplified for entire album, which gives it such an unusual presence. "Mining for Gold" is the only exception, in which Timmins sings into the same mic, but the Klipsch isn't used, as they ran out of time to capture everything on the same day, hence the different vocal sound on that track.
http://www.soundonsound.com/people/cowboy-junkies-sweet-jane
From the above link:
On Whites Off Earth Now!!, Moore used a proto–digital recording setup comprising a Sony SL–2000 Betamax–tape–based recorder and a Sony PCMF1 Digital Audio Processor. “That was the actual A to D to V, let’s call it,” he says. “The Beta machine is merely a data storage device, so the processor is the A to D, as in the D is converted to black-and-white video. You see black and white squares, a million of them going by you.”
When it came to the recording of The Trinity Session a year later, although DAT machines were in use by this point, their sale in North America had been banned by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), who feared that their domestic use would kill off sales of the burgeoning CD format. “I used to go down to New York City,” Moore recalls, “and you could go grey-market in the appliance stores. Under the table they were selling, illegally, grey-market DAT machines.”
Instead, however, Moore stuck with the Betamax format having upgraded his setup with a Nakamichi DMP100 digital processor. “I modify everything I own,” he points out. “Nothing I own is stock. I’d ripped out the electrolytics and put in high-quality audio capacitors. Plus, Apogee — who were a very new company at that time — were making these little purple A-to-D discrete circuit modules. So I actually had to cut holes in my Nakamichi to install them. It looked like a hot-rod car with fins sticking out of it. ’Cause I’d taken it to the nth degree and wanted it to sound better and better. So, contrary to the myth, none of the masters that you hear with the Cowboy Junkies stuff come from DAT.”
The DMP100 was essentially a Sony PCM-F1, which recorded 16-bit, 44.056, though if modded with the Apogee's, it's possible it was 48K.
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You can spin me the original instead when I make the trek to the barn sometime
anytime Keith.
Sweet Jane is sweet. Lou Reed is one of those musicians (like Dylan) who's writing is excellent but performance is terrible. He actually preferred this performance to his own in a Rolling Stone interview.
I suppose terrible is in the eyes/ears of the beholder. I worked a Lou Reed show at The Warfield in San Francisco on Halloween some 30+ years ago. He killed it.
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