Pete Hutchison is passionate about his Electric Recording
Company project, in a touchingly loving and sincere way. Despite charging large
amounts of money for each release, the quality is absolutely superlative. This
is just as it should be, he thinks, because he’s yet to hear any other format
that comes close sonically. “I like the older vinyl for its sound, but I am
disappointed with newer vinyl, because generally if it is analogue it’s done
through Pro Tools and then it’s mastered from CD or computer; the vinyl’s cut
from a computer. I’d still buy it over a Compact Disc because of the jacket and
I’ll play it on my turntable; I haven’t got any digital player at home. But I
am disappointed that contemporary artists aren’t recording pure analogue. Then
they should be coming in and mastering off tape straight to disc!”
Pete acquired this
ex-Abbey Road solid-state mixing desk from Nigeria!
He likens an analogue waveform to a smooth sine wave,
whereas digital is, “Like a photograph of that waveform that is made up of
numbers. And it can only go up to a fixed amount of detail. It’s like any scan
when you blow it up, you see all the pixels, so when you play it on a big
system you hear all the problems and you don’t get the details, the nuance, the
textures, the real sound of the instruments.” Pete proclaims that, “Vinyl’s a
better format”, but adds that, “If people who argue against that are happy with
that, then that’s great. You know, they should stick with it.” “Let them eat
Pot Noodles!” I say jokingly. And Pete adds, “Exactly. You know they tried to
get rid of it, but I don’t think there’s any alternative.”
The vinyl reissue issue
Why do so many vinyl reissues disappoint? It’s something
that Pete has thought long and hard about, and he’s of the opinion that one key
problem is the tapes themselves that the new vinyl is cut from. “The original
LP at its time of release will have been taken from the first-generation tape,
and they would have done copies and sent the copies out for foreign versions of
the record. And if they didn’t do that then the first set of stampers would
have been from the original country of recording and they would have sent four
or five others and sent them out to different countries, so the original
release done in the country of origin will sound best. “There’s also another
key factor, which is the type of cutting lathes used. Pete, having tried a few,
is clear how different they sound – and how this can influence the finished
product. “In fact, I have acquired and am installing in the next few months an
American valve system, which is a Scully with Westrex and the Westrex cutter
heads have a much more punchy sound than, say, a German Neumann or Danish
Ortofon. So when you hear a van Gelder Blue Note they are cut on that system I
am putting in, and it’s a very different sound to others.” he says.
Heavyweight vinyl
can sound better, but it only works on certain machines
On the deck
The Electric Recording Company has four titles out, to date.
Firstly, there are three limited-edition repressing’s of sought-after Bach
Unaccompanied Violin Sonatas (Volumes 1 to 3), played by the Hungarian
violinist Johanna Martzy. These have been on sale for nearly a year and cost
$482.25 each – far cheaper than the originals sell for. Then there’s Mozart’s
Complete Parisian Compositions (1763 and 1778), directed by Fernand Oubradous,
on seven LPs. Also limited to 300 copies, it sells for a cool $4,010.73. Coming
soon is a re-release of the 1965 Beethoven Violin Concerto, with Leonid Kogan.
This is one of the most sought-after classical records around, with original
copies going for upwards of $10,000; The Electric Recording Company’s reissue
should cost $482.25. Sonically, all the current releases are superb, although
‘perfectionist’ audiophiles looking for immaculate, shiny black silences will
be disappointed. Move beyond the fact that the recording doesn’t come close to
modern hi-res digital in superficial hi-fi terms, and you soon find yourself
immersed in one of the most breathtaking musical experiences. With the Bach
Sonatas, for example, you get the eerie sense of the violinists being there in
the room, playing for you. The music is so natural, so effortless, so fluid and
fluent that all considerations of noise and bandwidth fall away, and you fast
become engrossed. While there’s a lovely textural quality to the sound of the
violins – it is rich with harmonics – it’s the emotion of the music that takes
you away. The same goes for all the Electric Recording Company releases, they
take you to a state of blissed contemplation, as the music melts its way into
your very soul. More than just another shiny new re-release, then!
