Gabriel Mervine's Say Something the latest Octave Records release

Oh well…If the sound of your wheels drive you crazy…
perhaps better wheels…?

All for the fun of it…

Best wishes

Exactly! I always thought it was a mistake. I always sat ready with the remote, ready to turn it down.

Yep.

A plumber’s plunger is a good size for trombone, a bit awkward for trumpet. There are, of course, many plunger mutes available which work a lot better.

We also use our left hand, especially when there is insufficient time to grab a mute.

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I always had (and probably still have) a fascination for musical instruments made from everyday objects - hence using a sink/loo plunger (preferably newly bought!) is cool, and so are the folks who play hosepipes and the like, but best of all is making instruments from plastic waste pipe :slight_smile:

I have great respect for a good hosaphone player.

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This recording has become very high cholesterol and for that reason alone it should have a health warning. I think in the USA they call Worcestershire Sauce “spirits”, as I suspect “Worcestershire” could cause difficulties. People could choke to death before they’ve actually drunk the stuff.

Spirits, biscuits, sausage gravy, chips that are crisps, what a strange country.

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…and don’t get me started on their kooky power systems :wink:

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I had a friend from Huddersfield who got a job at Disneyland and when he started talking people started giving him money. They thought he was a novelty act. Talk about money for nothing (literally). He also introduced me to Theolonius Monk.

I had to get past the “bang on a can” drums on a few tracks, but otherwise dig this music.

LOVE THIS ALBUM!

Great job PS AUDIO! Sounds amazing!

Me Listening to Say Somethin

This is currently my favorite Octave release to date.

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Got this today in the mail and am listening now. Haven’t gotten to any tracks with brushes yet.

Nice sounding disc with pleasant jazz. Probably not the most popular thing to say but Mervine reminds me most of Wynton Marsalis.

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Ah I hear the first of the tracks with brushes now. Nice playing, nice sound, but perhaps too loudly in the mix for many.

Overall the disc is mastered a bit more densely and “heavily” than I would have imagined. I’ll play with the system and it a bit next week.

I agree with Lon that the playing is good.
But the way the sound comes thru, the brushes don’t have the “stirring” sound that can sound so good.
I can easily understand someone, not knowing what it is, hearing noise instead.

I just received mine today. I’m in Canada and it was ordered within minutes of release. Shipped on on the 11th and at my door on the 22nd. I like the fact that the disks include a data disk. I’ve already copied it to my NAS. this feature saves me the trouble of ripping. I’ll list a review after I can listen later today.

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Hey RonP…might want to have your ears checked…
the stirring brushwork is clear and change in brush
stirring work across the skin yields a small but noticeable
change in the tone as the brush moves around…

Best wishes friend

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oh yeah, thanks, David. I was wearing earmuffs in the house again! Silly me.

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No Ron…not earmuffs…but a check up may be in order…
Us guys don’t like check ups…but might be a good idea…

Not picking on you…

As a self test…

Check this part of the “But Not For Me” track

At about 1:06 into the Not For Me track you hear a faint cue of a couple of touches on the cymbal
then 2 swishes of “stirring the gravy” and picks up more fully at about 1:12 into the track.

It is a quiet cue at 1:06 in then becomes very evident at about 1:12 or so in…

Best wishes Ron

You’re The Best!!!

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Played the LP today and put in a bit of effort to cross compare to other digitally sourced vinyl.

First: I really like the music, it’s fun to repeatedly listen to, supported by the sound quality, happy to have bought this DLP!

Just as a side note: the tracks on the back cover have a different sequence than on the labels. I guess the cutting sequence was altered for vinyl, but the track list came from the digital media. Another side note is the slight pre echo in the left channel (certainly not coming from tape through print but groove echo). Nothing to bother about.

The direct, dynamic sound of the flat and quiet vinyl first reminded me on direct disc recordings. Very nice tonal balance, very energetic and with a bass that’s not vibrant and open sounding, but damn tight and powerful, it’s really fun! The general recording character is rather dry than charming, but this direct and to nicely transparent sound has its own live character charm, matches the music and is the reason why I further below compared it to a tonality and ambiance wise also rather dry sounding direct to disc recording of a modern Jazz combo with somehow comparable music.

The general Mervine recording has a good quality of openness and air and cymbals never sound digital. Even if not extremely open, still open enough for a great overall sound experience. Soundstage is nice and transparent, front/back not overwhelming compared to what’s possible, but also good.

Comparisons:

For me - besides the aforementioned strengths - “magic”…the air between instruments, expansion of the soundstage, front/back imaging and especially enveloping sound (except of the track “A foggy day”, which has it to a certain extent) was not on the high level that’s possible to experience even from digitally sourced vinyl. That’s why I at first didn’t start to compare with AAA recordings, but two very good DDA recordings.

MA Recording’s Landaeus album, mastered from DSD by Bernie Grundman on a Westrex cutting lathe shows how much magic in terms of air between instruments, soundstaging/imaging and top end openness is possible from a digital source file. It’s not as dynamic sounding as the Octave recording, but Landaeus’ music isn’t as dynamic as well. MA Recordings’ world jazz albums (all digitally sourced, too) are even better in that magic ambiance retrieval, if still not on AAA level.

Then Ozella’s Inwardness album, mastered from a hires PCM source, as well shows another level of magic/air/ambiance/soundstage separation. It also doesn’t sound as dry, direct and dynamic as the Mervine recording, but that’s depending on the mastering choices and the music style imo.

I then remembered another very good, dry (I don’t understand this as a disadvantage but a recording/mastering choice) and only little “magic” sounding recording of a similar music style as Mervine’s album, so I compared it to the Quentin Collins D2D. Dynamics and overall character were quite comparable, but the D2D had a more organic tonality and room ambiance and especially a more open top end in comparison (but also a completely different recording certainly)

It’s important to note that I compared the non comparable, different music and masterings. But what I wanted to do is, just compare what’s possible from digitally sourced vinyl (with the one exception of an analog D2D album of similar style).

So finally and as far as my personal comparisons (with limited relevance) showed, this Octave LP has first of all great music and also a fascinating direct and dynamic sound with nice transparency and a very good mastering choice in terms of tonality, but also still has room to improve in some room ambiance characteristics. E.g. MA Recordings, Chesky and Stockfisch still show (I guess mainly with their recording techniques, partly maybe also with the Westrex choice) how close digital can approach analog there.

A great Mervine LP anyway and really great sound, not only compared to average recordings!

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