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Know there's a few Spirit fans on the board that might be interested in this! 
Four original albums by SPIRIT coming on Audio Fidelity SACD mastered by me [Steve Hoffman] & Stephen Marsh. We are working on the first two now.
SPIRIT, going back to the olden days when my friend convinced me to see them at the Valley Music Theatre in Woodland Hills after Dr. S. was released. They were amazing.
I was quite surprised when I started working for Marshall Blonstein at DCC (and now Audio Fidelity) of his intimacy with the band. His cousin Lou Adler produced them and Marshall was there with them, a lot. In fact, he IS Silky Sam, you can hear him on the song, dealing cards. My boss!
Marshall has some really funny stories about those guys which I can't really go into. They were a trip, that's for sure.
So, I'm working right now with Stephen Marsh on the first two SPIRIT albums, from ODE Records back in 1968. The first thing to get "clear" (coming later) about is this:
The Audio Fidelity SACDs of these two albums use the original stereo 1968 mixes for each and every song. Sony really helped us, they came through and we are grateful for it.
Mastering these two albums was fun and also a bit frustrating at the same time. The first album is straightforward for the most part but the second album, yikes, fragile tape and the songs that are segued together pose a problem. The issue is the azimuth is different for each song on the album so we had to really get those dialed in just right for good mastering.
I think you'll appreciate the fact (at least I hope so) that we didn't add a bunch of treble to the songs or compress or limit any of the songs to make them pop or sound up to date. We trust that you will just turn up your system a bit to get the full impact of the songs.
Stephen Marsh was impressed when he heard Marshall's voice on SILKY SAM. I don't think he half believed me when I told him.
Now, moving on to an area of interest. Our versions will include bonus tracks. I'm not a fan of this usually, but this is SPIRIT and whatever we can get, we will take.
So, the information on the Spirit bonus tracks. Here ya go:
The bonus track were of course unearthed by our musical hero on the east coast BOB IRWIN. He is a big fan and he found all of these on the original multi-tracks and stereo reductions.
The tracks that are 1996 mixes were never mixed in the 1960s. Credit for the 1996 mixes goes to our good buddy Vic Anesini at Sony Music Studios. The two bonus tracks for The Family That Plays Together that weren't done in 1996 ("Fog" and "Now Or Anywhere") were done at the time of the original album sessions. These are original 1968 mixes.
Four original albums by SPIRIT coming on Audio Fidelity SACD mastered by me [Steve Hoffman] & Stephen Marsh. We are working on the first two now.
SPIRIT, going back to the olden days when my friend convinced me to see them at the Valley Music Theatre in Woodland Hills after Dr. S. was released. They were amazing.
I was quite surprised when I started working for Marshall Blonstein at DCC (and now Audio Fidelity) of his intimacy with the band. His cousin Lou Adler produced them and Marshall was there with them, a lot. In fact, he IS Silky Sam, you can hear him on the song, dealing cards. My boss!
Marshall has some really funny stories about those guys which I can't really go into. They were a trip, that's for sure.
So, I'm working right now with Stephen Marsh on the first two SPIRIT albums, from ODE Records back in 1968. The first thing to get "clear" (coming later) about is this:
The Audio Fidelity SACDs of these two albums use the original stereo 1968 mixes for each and every song. Sony really helped us, they came through and we are grateful for it.
Mastering these two albums was fun and also a bit frustrating at the same time. The first album is straightforward for the most part but the second album, yikes, fragile tape and the songs that are segued together pose a problem. The issue is the azimuth is different for each song on the album so we had to really get those dialed in just right for good mastering.
I think you'll appreciate the fact (at least I hope so) that we didn't add a bunch of treble to the songs or compress or limit any of the songs to make them pop or sound up to date. We trust that you will just turn up your system a bit to get the full impact of the songs.
Stephen Marsh was impressed when he heard Marshall's voice on SILKY SAM. I don't think he half believed me when I told him.
Now, moving on to an area of interest. Our versions will include bonus tracks. I'm not a fan of this usually, but this is SPIRIT and whatever we can get, we will take.
So, the information on the Spirit bonus tracks. Here ya go:
The bonus track were of course unearthed by our musical hero on the east coast BOB IRWIN. He is a big fan and he found all of these on the original multi-tracks and stereo reductions.
The tracks that are 1996 mixes were never mixed in the 1960s. Credit for the 1996 mixes goes to our good buddy Vic Anesini at Sony Music Studios. The two bonus tracks for The Family That Plays Together that weren't done in 1996 ("Fog" and "Now Or Anywhere") were done at the time of the original album sessions. These are original 1968 mixes.
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