Some interesting experiences regarding production of The Night Fly from Donald Fagan digital an analog mixups difference in quality an how it is produced by Roger Nichols early 80ties. An a Spoiler alert at the end. Source:
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/the-best-version-of/the-best-version-of-donald-fagen’s-the-nightfly-r1006/
The first is the analog tape-sourced version of
The Nightfly, referenced by
High Fidelity’s Sutherland above, that was pulled from stores. Nichols
recounted the saga in 2001 web post:
When we mixed
Nightfly in the summer of 1982 there was no such thing as CD. We recorded on the 3M digital 32-track and mixed to the 3M 4-track. We mastered at Bob Ludwig’s. The record company asked for a 30ips 1/2 inch analog copy to use for advance cassettes for promotion guys.
I also printed the mixes to a Sony PCM-F1. I had the first one in the US in 1982. I gave a copy of it to Stevie Wonder.
When CDs came out in 1984, Warner Bros pressed CDs of
Nightfly. So far nothing I had done was out on CD. Stevie called me up and said that he just got a copy of the
Nightfly CD and it didn’t sound as good as the F1 tape. I thought “%$(&*%$# CDs are not any good, I’m a dead man!”
I went to Warner Bros and got a copy of the CD. I want home and listened. The CD sounded like it had a blanket over the vocals and horns and... well everything. I called Bob Ludwig and asked what tape he sent to Warner Bros for the CD mastering. He said “What tape? Warner Bros never ordered anything for CD production.” Uh- Oh.
Upon further investigation I found out that Warner Bros had someone make a copy of the 30ips 1/2 inch tape and sent it to the CD plant instead of ordering a digital tape from the digital original.
No wonder the vinyl sounded better. The vinyl was made from the digital original, but the CDs were made from a second-generation analog copy. It happened to a lot of artists including Blondie, Diana Ross, Billy Joel, and many others.
Bob Ludwig made a digital master and sent it to the CD plant. The CD was pressed, and the old CDs were supposed to be destroyed. Instead Warner Bros sent them to Europe to sell thinking we would not find out. Somehow they also leaked into the chain in the US and were consumed by consumers….
The bad CD was made from 30ips analog tape and the good one was made from a digital 1610 master. All of the pressings after the first one are good.
The analog tape-sourced CD of
The Nightfly is extremely hard to find. They can be spotted by checking out the CD’s matrix number. If it
ends in “021 02,” it was made from the analog tape.
Spoiler alert:
Ok for the die-hard Fagan Night Fly fan who really would get this Iconic Original 1610 Digital Master it can be found on the
DVD-A EDITION (2002) 2.0, 48kHz/24-bit
Marketed by Rhino but with glass manufacturing handled by Warner’s facility in Germany [8122781289], this plays only on DVD players (DVD-Audio 5.1 and 2.0, 48kHz/24-bit; Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0, DTS 5.1),
Tip: If i can recall extraction could be done in Windows with Audacity.
An yes it sounds quite slic.
