⌈ DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING - method of preserving sound in which audio signals are transformed into a series of pulses that correspond to patterns of binary digits (i.e., 0’s and 1’s) and are recorded as such on the surface of a magnetic tape or optical disc. „ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA”, → www.BRITANNICA.com, accessed: 04.04.2025. ⌋

THE WORLD'S FIRST LP with a digitally recorded signal is Something by Steve Marcus and Jiro Inagaki, recorded in 1970 and released in 1971 by Nippon Columbia, the publishing division of the company that outside this country is known as Denon (some sources say the album was released in February 1972). That’s when the story that shaped the technology of this record label, as well as Denon's audio division, began. This recording was made on a prototype reel-to-reel digital tape recorder developed by the research department of NHK - Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, the state-owned television broadcaster.

Just two years later, in 1972, the first tape recorder signed by Denon, DN-023R, was ready. It was smaller, allowed editing of material and offered up to eight channels (8/4/2). The sampling frequency was 47.25 kHz, and the bit depth increased from 12 to 13 (without preemphasis). The DN-023R was a 400 kg tape recorder, and one hour reel of tape weighed 10 kg and cost more than $500, or $3890 today (according to CPI Inflation Calculator). It was therefore suitable only for stationary recording in Japan. Denon, however, had much bigger ambitions.

⸜ The world's first album of digitally recorded material: STEVE MARCUS + J. INAGAKI & SOUL MEDIA Something, released in January 1971. On top, the original release, and below, the 2020 reissue

So the company developed the DN-23RA tape recorder, treated as a “portable”. The new machine was ready in 1974. Its parameters were identical to the DN-23R, and it differed from the “R” model only in weight. Japanese engineers took it to Europe and in the same year recorded the Bach: Musical Offering, BWV 1079, performed by the Orchestre De Chambre Jean-François Paillard. The material for it was recorded on December 2nd. And 3rd. 1974 at the Église Notre-Dame Des Roses, located outside Paris at Grisy-Suisnes. It was the first album released in Europe with digitally recorded material.

In November 1977, Nippon Columbia producer Yoshio Ozawa, along with Anazawa and Denon engineer Kaoru Yamamoto, brought a new tape recorder, the DN-034R, to the Sound Ideas recording studio in New York for a series of jazz sessions prepared by sound engineer Jim McCurdy. Tape recorder, they brought DN-034R tape recorder. Like the DN-23RA, it used videotape and a four-head video recorder, and offered the same sampling rate as the DN-23R, a resolution of 13 bits, but the presence of pre-emphasis improved it to 14.5 bits. What's more, two tape recorders could be connected together, yielding sixteen, digitally editable channels.

The first album from this session to be released was, recorded on November 28th. 1977, On Green Dolphin Street by saxophonist Archie Shepp. Released by Nippon Columbia with catalog number YX-7524 in May 1978, it was the first digitally recorded jazz album in the US to be released commercially. As early as 1979, Denon engineers had a cassette recorder ready, using U-matic cassettes. With its next version, they definitively ended the era of the company's reel-to-reel tape recorders, sealing their fate.

⸜ STEVE MARCUS + J. INAGAKI & SOUL MEDIA Something, 1971 – front of the cover

All these systems are known ultimately under the common name Denon Digital PCM. And they are much less well-known than their later counterparts, tape recorders from Soundstream, 3M, Decca, Mitsubishi (ProDigi) or Sony (DASH). And that's because Denon did not produce them for sale, but - like Decca - exclusively for its own use. As a result, it didn't have to compromise and but work on exactly what seemed right and necessary to its engineers. That's why its recordings made on the recorders cited above are still among the best on the market. And it all started with the NHK prototype and the Something album. That's what this story is about.

▌ Technology and music

MUSIC BEFORE ALL - it's clear, without it even the best technology would be just a pointless gadget. In the popular consciousness, it seems, it is something autonomous. In reality, this is not the case. Well, in the study of music for decades the influence of technology on art was not taken into account. And even if the argument was allowed to enter consciousness, it was minimized, putting it in a box labeled - just that - “technology”, making it something that should disappear from sight.

Typically, technology has been understood as a “transparent tool,” even in those cases in which it has been an impetus for exploration and a solution to problems, to cite - for example - the groundbreaking albums, such as BEACH BOYS’ Pet Sounds and the BEATLES’ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) modeled on it, for whom the multi-track tape recorder became another instrument. In fact, technology is the scaffolding that supports what is visible from the outside and what music listeners perceive as a “musical work.” Without this support, it simply wouldn't exist.

⸜ STEVE MARCUS + J. INAGAKI & SOUL MEDIA Something, 1971 – the back of the cover

Technology is also a prerequisite for the creation of a recording and is not at all “transparent.” Simon Barber, describing the role of Soundstream's recorder in his dissertation on the connection of these two levels, writes:

The Soundstream case study is a clear example of how the design and use of technology can directly affect how music is recorded, how it sounds and how it is delivered to consumers (all sub. - ed.). Engineers, producers and musicians seeking high-quality recordings have worked with digital technology designers to offer suggestions for improving the suitability of equipment for practical purposes. Recording engineers became proficient in new methodologies for editing, equalization, effects processing and audio storage, gaining new “literacy.”

Just as the limitations of direct-to-disc (direct-to-acetate - ed.) recording show how technology can mediate the relationship with the music user, the Telarc label's groundbreaking classical recordings make it clear that the sound engineer can modify and improve technology as he or she sees fit. Morris (1977: 872) proposes to assume that the evolution of new equipment and techniques is a process of continuous loops.

⸜ SIMON BARBER,Industrial Mediation in Jazz Production: A Case Study of GRP Records, doctoral dissertation, University of Liverpool , March 2009, p. 126.

Mark Katz wrote a musicological and sociological dissertation on the subject, published as a book, entitled Capturing Sound. How Technology Has Changed Music (University of California Press). On the other hand, Suzan Schmidt Horning, professor of history at New York's St. John's University, in her well-known book Chasing Sound, adds that today it is clear that the studio is the place where most music is made (p. 3). The vast majority of modern recordings exist, she adds, solely because of modern technology. Without recording and production, there would be no such techniques and styles of music as samples, rap, hip hop, techno or electronic music.

⸜ The album was given an official catalog number, and the cover bore the logo not of Denon, as on later releases, but of Nippon Columbia

With the “digital revolution” of the 1980s, art spheres related to processing of found music, the use of their fragments or larger wholes, have taken on a whole new meaning, giving new meaning to what is referred to as transformative appropriation. And while the eighth decade of the twentieth century introduced a whole new class of works into the world of music, music, both in its artistic and social dimensions, was influenced primarily by successive ways of recording it.

I mean something that makes up a path for change (I purposely do not call it development), in which the next invention was not always better than the previous one, and which is constantly being questioned. This would be a sequence starting with wax cylinders (later tin cylinders), going through acetates designed for pressing shellac records and then vinyl, magnetic tape in the analog version, magnetic tape in the digital version, recordable optical discs (CD-R/RW, MO and others) up to “permanent” media such as hard drives and FLASH and SSD drives.

Each of these technologies brought something new to the pool of possibilities. Sometimes going back a few steps to jump over the “threshold of the unusual” as a result of subsequent efforts, and to become the dominant recording technique of the time. Because each time had one type of technology around which whole archipelagos of related techniques were built.

When we look at history not linearly, but achronologically, we find that there have been four great revolutions in the history of music with a fifth happening before our eyes and still not quite completed: recording on cylinders and then records, the transition from acoustic to electric recordings, the introduction of magnetic tape recording and the replacement of analog recordings with digital ones.

We are currently witnessing this fifth shift, from physical media to streaming. This appears to be a correction of extremely momentous implications, as it has turned upside down not the means of recording - those were established in the 2000s - but of distribution. And it was all made possible by the development of an encoding system known as Pulse Code Modulation (PCM).

▌ Denon

DIGITAL PULSE CODE MODULATION SYSTEM was invented in the 1930s at the US Bell Labs. During World War II, it was used to encode transmissions going by cable across the Atlantic seabed connecting Britain and the US. The system, developed at Bell Labs, was called SYGSALY and was put into use in 1943. This work was translated into music, only in 1957, by Max Mathews, also a Bell Labs engineer. He then recorded, for the first time, computer-generated music. It was the 17-second piece The Silver Scale composed by his collaborator Newman Guttman.

You will also find several sources claiming that there were digital recordings made in the mid-1960s by the BBC, but they were never made public, and the technical solutions behind them were sold to the American company 3M, which prepared its own multi-track digital tape recorder in the late 1970s. But that's a story for another time....

⸜ All versions of this album that I know of feature the white label. Thomas Fine shows a variation of it with printed titles, here we show the Test Press version with the stamp

We had to wait another ten years for the commercial and practical translation of these achievements into the language of music. From the US we thus move to Japan. The first company to make and publish a digital recording was Nippon Columbia, outside Japan known as Denon. This came about in cooperation with NHK, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, Japan's public radio and television broadcaster, with which it collaborated regularly for years, the most famous example today being the DL-103 phono cartridge (1964).

Denon is a brand owned by Nippon Columbia Co. Ltd. Nippon Koromubia Kabushiki gaista (English: Japan Electric Sound Company, Japanese: 日本ココロムビア株株式会社) is a Japanese music label established in 1910. The name Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. was adopted by the company in 1946. It remained in use until 2002 when the label adopted the name Columbia Music Entertainment, Inc. In 2010, the company reverted to the Nippon Columbia name.

In 1968, Denon Publishing House was founded as its daughter company (we're not talking now about a brand associated with electronics manufacturing) . As we read in the encyclopedia of Continuum publishing, in the first volume on music, media and publishing, it aimed to record and publish native performers performing contemporary folk, pop, jazz and classical music. It achieved success in the domestic market with the albums such as Francine-no Baai by Noriko Shintai and Chiroi Cho-no Samba by Kayoko Moriyama, whose album topped the Japanese charts in March 1970. However, the label was to make history with its digital recordings.

⸜ STEVE MARCUS + J. INAGAKI & SOUL MEDIA Something, 2020 – front of the cover; please note the OBI, an element that I didn’t know from the original release

Japan Broadcasting Corporation, known by its acronym NHK, has worked with Denon for many years. Ryo Okazeri, the engineer in charge of turntables at Denon, says in an interview on the occasion of the company's 110th anniversary that Japan Electric Sound Company had been producing equipment for NHK since its inception, that is, since 1939. At the time, most of the microphones and record cutters used in Japan came from Neumann, and their prices were prohibitive. The later Denon was therefore asked to design this type of equipment for broadcast studios:

With a desire to make domestic products, Japan Electric Sound Company was asked to develop and manufacture a domestic disk recorder. That technology was also used in recording and replaying the recorded discs of the Imperial acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration (capitulation, ed.), which is related to the historical moment that determined the fate of Japan.

⸜ 110TH Anniversary of Denon Vol.2 Interview With Ryo Okazeri, the Record Player Engineer, → www.DENON.com, accessed: 7.04.2025.

However, the cooperation worked the other way as well. Indeed, what became the basis of Denon's recordings for the next twenty-odd years had its origins at NHK's research center. Its engineers as early as 1967 had a ready prototype of a mono recorder that operated at a sampling rate of 30 kHz (Fine says 32 kHz) and word length of 12 bits, in which they used an analog compander to improve dynamics, resulting in a resolution of 13 bits (!).

The development of the device came about thanks to tremendous pressure from the Japanese government, which - along with private investors - invested huge amounts of money in research to help make the best possible broadcast of the 1964 Olympic Games, held in Tokyo. With the money, the state-run research centers quickly expanded into other fields related to image and sound, including “digital” sound. Based on this experience, NHK developed its own converter to record PCM signals on video tape (in the areas responsible for black and white).

The electronics occupied two cabinets the size of a massive refrigerator each, and the signal was recorded on 1” wide video reel-to-reel tape, recorded on a modified video recorder with a Hitachi mechanism with four, rotating heads. The mechanism was extremely robust, as it was developed for long-term operation in television studios. Using contemporary terms, it could be said to have been a sort of “transport”. The A/D and D/A converter sections, as well as the circuit converting the PCM signal to a signal recorded in black-and-white video tape sections, were prepared by NHK engineers and occupied a large cabinet set up next to the reel-to-reel transport.

⸜ STEVE MARCUS + J. INAGAKI & SOUL MEDIA Something, 2020 – the back of the cover

As early as 1969, a stereo version of the NHK prototype was ready. Invited for demonstrations and test recordings, Denon engineers saw the possibilities opening up for audio and borrowed one tape recorder for their recording studio. As we read, they used it to test various methods of PCM signal encoding. Some twenty recordings were then made. And further:

These test recordings confirmed the theoretical value of PCM as a recording method and the excellence of this method. From this early experience, it was clear that the sound quality was sufficient enough to encourage them to continue their work. Of the twenty PCM test albums recorded by Denon, two were commercially available: Something by Steve Marcus and Tsutomu Yamashita on Recital. These two releases shared the honor of the world's first commercially released music albums.

⸜ TAKEAKI ANAZAWA i in., An historical overview of the development of PCM/digital Recordings technology at Denon, AES 7th International Conference, 1989.

▌ The first, meaning when?

FOR YEARS WE BELIEVED that the first commercially released recording of digitally recorded material was made a little later, on January 25th 1971. Researchers and journalists have relied on the most important publication on reel-to-reel digital tape recorders, Thomas Fine's 2008 paper published by the Association of Engineers AES entitled The Down Of Commercial Digital Recording. It says that the first record was released in January 1971. Hence the hypothesis was put forward that it was recorded in the same year. However, this was not the case, as Fine himself corrected in a power point version of his speech, which has been available since 2010, but remained almost unknown to the general public.

⸜ The cover, and in this version also the obi, carried information about the MasterSonic technique, developed by Nippon Columbia and designed to reduce noise and distortion when the phono needle reads information

A much lesser known AES publication, the already referenced, published in 1989 study An historical overview of the development of PCM/digital recordings technology at Denon, signed by Nippon Columbia engineers, speaks to this. Also, the 2013 reissue of Something on CD brought more accurate information about where and when the recording was made, generally missed, however, including by yours truly. The booklet for that release reads:

So far, when talking about the world's first digital recording on LP, the one cited was Tsutomu Yamashi-ta's concert held at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Small Hall on January 11th. 1971, which was recorded using the NHK Technical Research Institute's PCM recorder. The World of Tsutomu Yamashita, re-leased in April of the same year, was supposed to be the world's first digital recording, but it turned out that another album recorded in this way had been made earlier (...) Something [+1] by Steve Marcus + Jiro Inagaki (COCB-54056 2).

This album was recorded on September 14th 1970 at Nippon Columbia studios, also on a tape recorder on loan from the NHK Technical Research Institute. However, since there is no device that can reproduce a digital master, an analog tape master was used for this reissue, which was recorded at the same time.

⸜ source: → www.VINYLGOURMET.com, accessed: 7.04.2025.

It was a half experimental recording and certainly a pioneering one, a bit like the first moon landing. No one knew anything for sure and everything was done “for the first time.” It was made on a reel-to-reel digital tape recorder with moving heads, a prototype that did not even belong to the first generation of such devices. As we wrote, after recording several titles, the digital section was reconstructed, making the digital “master” tapes unreadable today. The only evidence of their existence are LPs.

As it seems, this is one of the fundamental problems with digital technology, and this type of experience is repeated with alarming regularity. The point is that through rapid development and lack of standardization, many solutions soon become museum curiosities, with no chance of revival. This is why the first digital recordings of Nippon Columbia were never later revived in their original form.

In audio, exactly the same problem as with Denon's first recordings was faced by Minneapolis-based Sound 80 studio and label, led by Tom Jung. In mid-1978, he agreed to beta-test prototype 3M stereo tape recorders, using them as a backup system during direct-to-disc recording sessions. The machines had a sampling frequency of 50.4 kHz, two channels and 16-bit signal depth. The machines were nicknamed “Herbie” in honor of Sound 80 co-owner Herb Pilhfer.

⸜ Comparison of the interior of the fold-out cover of the 1971 and 2020 versions, they are almost identical

The recording session, which took place in June, according to several participants, included the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, performing Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and Charles Ives' Three Places in New England. Digital session tapes were judged superior to direct-to-disc lacquers, and in December 1978 the first commercial albums recorded on this digital system were released: Flim & The BB's, by the jazz group Flim & The BB's, and - mentioned above - Appalachian Spring. After some time, the tape recorders were taken apart and the “master” tapes became useless. These recordings exist only on LPs.

▌ Something

Something, I'll remind you, is the world's first release of digitally recorded music. It was recorded at Japan's Nippon Columbia studios in Tokyo by STEVE MARCUS and JIRO INAGAKI with his SOUL MEDIA team. The recording was made by Takeaki Anazawa.

Born in 1939, Steve Marcus was an American jazz saxophonist. He gained experience playing in the bands of Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann and Larry Coryell from 1963 to 1973. His first album as a leader included an arrangement of the Beatles song Tomorrow Never Knows. And we already know where the Liverpool Four cover came from on the album in question. Miller, then just a budding tenor, first came to Japan in September 1970, and returned two months later to take part in the Newport Jazz Festival in Tokyo. So it can be said that Japan was meant for him.

The publisher of the latest version of the album wrote:

This historic recording was made when saxophonist Steve Marcus, visiting Japan alongside Herbie Mann and Woody Herman, accepted an invitation from Inagaki Jiro. This is an important histori-cal event not only for Japanese jazz, but also for the art of recording in general, as it was the first piece of music recorded in a digital PCM system.

Joining him for this monumental session were Inagaki and his jazz-rock band Soul Media, featuring Masahiko Sato (p, elec. p), Ryo Kawasaki (g), Yasuo Arakawa (b), Hajime Ishimatsu (ds) and Seiji Tanaka (ds). Fairy Rings, an original piece by Sato, boasts a precise interpretation that makes it a highlight of the album. Included as a bonus track is a lengthy 13-minute alternative jazz/rock/free-jazz rendition of Something, which was discovered during work on the 2013 CD reissue.

By then, Jiro Inagaki was already a veteran of the jazz scene, having been playing since the 1950s, the moment when jazz appeared in the wider consciousness of the people of the Japanese Islands. He was the founder and leader of Soul Media, a band performing avant-garde, jazz music, as well as combining elements of jazz and rock (fusion). The Soul Media quintet plays here in its first incarnation with Ryo Kawasaki (g) Yasuo Arakawa (b) Masaru Imada (org) Sadakazu Tabata (ds) with Tetsuo Fushimi & Shunzo Ohno on trumpet.

⸜ The spine of the 2020 edition is much thicker, making the title and performers more visible; it bears a different catalog number and adds the name of the label that issued the reissue

Recording sessions looked exactly the same as direct-to-disc recording, with no interruptions and overdubs of subsequent tracks. The prototype tape recorder did not, as we said, allow editing of the material. The record was cut using a Nippon Columbia-developed technique called Master Sonic. It included two techniques, the first of which, Non-Distortion Cutting, was mandatory. It involved reducing the size of the groove so that the cutting head's stylus moved in the groove in the same way as the needle of a phono cartridge. This was to prevent the needle from moving in the lower part of the groove, where there is no information, only noise. Some of the Non-Distortion Cutting records were additionally recorded using Half-Speed technique.

The album was released with a gatefold cover. Some photos suggest the presence of an obi, but I have never encountered one myself. So the obi in the latest LP reissue seems to have been created from scratch. A large Master Sonic logo has been applied to the label. Every now and then, you can also buy a Test Press version, with a white sticker stamped with the publisher's catalog number and the words “Sample” in Japanese - this is the version we'll be listening to. I've also seen a version with a white sticker on which the track titles and the release date - January 1971 - are stamped. The colorful sticker of the reissue thus appears to have been made from scratch, as so was the obi.

Remember how I talked about the fact that the tape recorder on which the first PCM Digital albums were recorded had been dismantled and that the “master” tapes were unreadable? - Well, in 2013 the reissue of Something on CD, part of the “Dig Deep Columbia” series, is released. It was a big surprise, but it was pointed out quite quickly that the sound was a bit noisier on it than on the LP (!). The other feature standing out was the addition, on the B-side, of an alternate version of the track Something, with one rather than two drums. The situation was explained in the booklet, but was only confirmed by the reissue of the album on vinyl.

This is because in 2022, unexpectedly, the first-ever reissue of this title on vinyl was released. It was prepared by Cobrarose Records, a South Korea-based publisher (CR69055). Lee Sin Ae was responsible for the reissue. This release is in replica form, with the exact same cover. It differs from the original with a thicker spine and a different weight of cardboard used. A different catalog number was applied to the spine and the name of the label was added. Other than that, the artwork is perfectly the same.

⸜ 2020 release was given a label derived from other Denon releases from that time

Responsible for the mastering and lacquer cutting for this version is, well known to us, Kevin Gray. A well-known mastering engineer, at one time working with artists such as The Grateful Dead, Billy Joel, The Who, The Beach Boys and Joan Baez, and later preparing CD reissues for audiophile labels. He is responsible for hundreds of top jazz titles. He prepared most of them while still working for AcousTech Mastering, the mastering studio of pressing plant Record Technology Incorporated (RTI), and since 2010 at his own Cohearent Studio, where, for example, all Audio Fidelity label titles were made.

The explanation for the origin of the masters used for these reissues turns out to be quite simple: they come from an analog “backup” tape, onto which the signal was recorded in parallel with the digital tape recorder. This is an insanely interesting twist, since, as I recall, when the Soundstream digital tape recorder was ready in 1976, it was the “backup” for the direct-to-disc sessions. As it seems, double backup is a common measure for “difficult” projects.

Of the well-known recordings of this type, long known only from digital versions, let me recall Glen Gould's 1981 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. This is a digital recording, made on a Sony PCM-1600 recorder, or U-matic tape. In 2002, both versions, from 1955 and 1981, were released with an additional third disc, which included an analog recording of the 1981 recording - from the “backup” tape.

So we will listen to both the original 1971 Test Press pressing of Something and the 2022 reissue of this title. These are recordings of the same material, made in parallel using the same microphones, cables and mixing console, not to mention additional equipment, but with the help of different tape recorders: digital and analog.

▌ Sound

I CAN TELL YOU ONE THING about the 1971 version right away: it's an incredible recording! I've heard it many times on joint trips with Pylon Audio as part of the Tour The Pologne listening series, I once presented it to the Krakow Sonic Society, and nowhere did it leave anyone indifferent. And this indifference, even agitation, had two sources. One was simply excellent music served in a sonically superb way. And the other was in the fact that sooner or later everyone realized that this was a recording with a resolution of twelve bits and a frequency response reaching only up to 15 kHz.

⸜ The second side of the Cobrarose Records release features an alternate version of the Something track, with one percussion

And the sound I'm talking about is founded on the incredibly resolving (!) sound of the cymbals, positioned widely in the left and right channels (without center), reflecting the studio setup of two drum kits. Yes, it's not one drum set, but two. Marcus's saxophone, in the left channel, has a slightly light timbre, but in this storm of sound you can't hear it that much. All the more so because it is boosted by the sound of an electric piano.

The electric guitar, located in the second channel, also sounds open. In the second part it is joined by the saxophone, played by Inagaki, placed in the same channel. And it is strong, but it was given more reverb. It's dynamic playing and ˻ 1 ˺ Something in this version sounds great to say the least. That's why it's the piece I played during my presentations.

But then again, the second track on the A side, written by Soul Media’s pianist Masahiko Satoh ˻ 2 ˺ Fairy Rings, is an equally interesting example of how, in the right hands, even imperfect tools become the tools of a master. It's a quiet piece, but also dense with meaning. Here, too, the most important thing seems to be the percussion, almost leaping out of the left channel with cymbals sound and with the right channel with a perfectly clear snare drum.

It's clear that the producers wanted to show the band the way fusion music was presented on records in the US. This is the aftermath of the 1960s, when stereophony for many meant as much as “left-right” and not stereoscopy. But there is a certain charm to it, a vintage flavor. It helps that in the sound itself we are dealing with a very precise, clear and clean presentation. But neither too bright nor too light. The mistake that future implementers using 3M, Mitsubishi (ProDigi) and Sony (DASH) digital tape recorders will make, of slimming down the sound, does not apply to this album.

The bass guitar set on the axis may not have the body and mass familiar from many modern recordings, where it is saturated and deep. However, it is within the limits of what was being prepared at the time - and it was done so that the record could also be played on inexpensive turntables. And those with stronger groove modulation tended to throw the needle out of the groove and skip. In comparison, Something is a balanced and saturated album. Which comes out best in Masahiko-san's second track on this album ˻ 3 ˺ Serenity from the B side. There, the bass plays almost solo parts, hence there is more of it there.

⸜ In 1972, Denon's first digital tape recorder, DN-23R, was ready; on the photo: Earl “Fath” Hines' Solo Walk in Tokyo recorded in 1972 and released a year later; this album was recorded in half-speed

Let's circle back to the treble. A sampling frequency of 30 kHz means that the theoretical frequency response, derived from Nyquist theory, is 15 kHz. In reality, it is somewhat lower, because above that the signal has to be cut half of that value in the output filters. In the Denon tape recorder, almost certainly, these were analog filters. And this means that their droop was not as fast as that of modern, digital ones. So I assume that the real bandwidth on this disc reaches about 13-14 kHz. Which you can’t really tell when listening to it.

Indeed, the cymbals’ sound is much more open than on most recordings from this period and earlier ones, and those recorded with analog tape recorders. But they also differ in the way the sound is formed. Here, on the Something, they are faster and have a clearer leading edge. But they are also shorter in sustain, less filled. The recording is excellent, it's top-notch, although this is not emphasized in any clear way. However, when you listen carefully, you'll find that while the storm of sounds is real, its density is lesser than in other fusion and avant-garde recordings from this period, recorded on analog tape recorders.

It is interesting to note, however, that the last thing that can be said about this recording is that it is “digital”. Played without commentary, it sounds absolutely “analog”, except that in a clean and clear way. But not bright or light. After some hundred listens, I know that there is indeed a lack of deep sonic saturation here, and that this is a problem that will only be solved by mixing digital multi-track tape to analog stereo tape, as in Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms (DASH) or Patricia Barber's Companion (ADAT). And yet, in the here and now, the album in question is an incredibly good recording.

The sound of the 2022 version, which is recorded on an analog tape recorder, is similar in concept on the one hand, and completely different on the other. Marcus' alto saxophone in Something has a similar timbre to that of the 1971 version, but Saito, who is already playing with him, sounds fuller. This is also true regarding the bass, drums and guitar. All these elements are stronger, denser and lower in terms of pitch. The drums also seem clearer in dynamic shifts.

⸜ Long Live The Chief was a tribute album prepared for its then-deceased leader by The Count Basie Orchestra. It was digitally recorded in 1988 on a 5th generation tape recorder, using a U-matic cassette

But it seems to me that it is more a result of a decision of the contemporary mastering engineer than of the recording itself. After all, let's remember that this engineer may have corrected something that seemed to him worthy of correction on the digital version. That's why the sound of the analog version is fatter, there's more fill and something that can be called “dirt” in it. Except that it's dirt that's positive, because it's part of the sound of the instruments, which on the digital version was corrected for clarity.

Yes, it's generally a better balanced sound. But at the same time less exciting, somehow ordinary. How is that possible? I'm not sure, but I think it's about the purity and incredible dynamics of the cymbals that we get in the original 1971 version, that's not present in the Korean release. It's supposedly deeper, it's supposedly more enjoyable, but some part of the madness that made the sound of the original almost press you into your seat has slipped away. The nice thing is that the bass has been turned up more strongly, this has come in handy. However, this is not enough to set off the excitement that with the “digital” version we have right away.

The difference between the two is also contained in the imaging method. The “analog” version shows the instruments a little closer. They have better defined shapes because of this and are more tangible. And Saito's saxophone in Serenity is clearer, more powerful. But it is thus a more “compact” sound. That is, it no longer has the fantastic breath it had before. There is more tangibility, but less perspective.

I was very curious to hear how the alternative version of the title Something, originally rejected by the album's producers, would sound like. The bass is even stronger in it than in the approach that made it onto the album, and in turn the drummer sounds in a less unmistakable way. More important, however, is the fact that - note - there is only one - and that in this version it's placed near center stage, rather than in the left channel. The saxophone sounds clearer and cleaner because of this. This change in perspective also affects the intensity of the sound, usually lesser.

⸜ MasterSonic technology and 20-bit digital recording come form the 90s. Here a box with great recordings made with two microphones, with albums released in the “One Point Recording” series

Nevertheless, it is a very nice version, even more interesting in some part. So much so that as a whole it has some understatement in it, “holes” that have not been filled. It's cool that it is there, really cool. Still, I understand perfectly well, or so it seems to me, the decisions behind the choice of the previous approach. Here, Fender's guitar and electric piano were more clearly brought to the front. But the most important difference, however, is in the drums - a single set sounds more conservative than two, even if it is clearer and more natural.

▌ Summary

COMMENTS CONCERNING the reissue of the Something album note the higher noise heard in this version. This is a clear indication of the fact that we are talking about an analog tape that was used for recording as a so-called “backup”, or “safety” recording. In truth, the noise is somehow not very audible, and only in the quieter parts of Fairy Rings does it come out stronger. But it does come out.

I don't know if it's because of this or because of something else, but the “digital” version of this album is more frantic, avant-garde and twisted. Its sound is clean and selective, sometimes even striking in its immediacy. The bass could be stronger, but this remark applies to all digital recordings from the 1970s and 1980s, except perhaps for the ones prepared using the Soundstream system.

Be that as it may, the world's first LP with digitally recorded sound is excellent, and it's a shame that other labels did not follow this quality with their digital recordings - as this does not apply just to Denon but also the aforementioned Soundstream company (for Telarc or GRP, for example). They didn’t come close for the next few decades, with few exceptions. Compared to this recording, early recordings of Pro Tools systems, and that's the world we now live in, seem downright clumsy. ●

» We will tell you how recordings made on successive generations of Denon tape recorders sound like in the next parts of this series.

▌ Bibliography

⸜ Hasło ‘Denon (Japan)’ w: Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 1: Media, Industry, Society, red. John Shepherd, David Horn, Dave Laing, Paul Oliver, Peter Wicke, Nowy Jork 2003.
⸜ SIMON BARBER,Industrial Mediation in Jazz Production: A Case Study of GRP Records, praca doktorancka, University of Liverpool , marzec 2009, s. 126.
⸜ SAMANTHA BENNETT, Modern Records, Maverick Methods. Technology and Process in Popular Music Record Production 1978-2000, Nowy Jork 2019.
⸜ THOMAS FINE, The Down Of Commercial Digital Recording, ARSC Journal, Volume 39, No. 1, Spring 2008.
⸜ TONY HIGGINS, MIKE PEDEN, J Jazz Book - Free and Modern Jazz Albums From Japan 1954 – 1988, Barely Breaking Even Music, Londyn 2024, more → HERE.
⸜ MICHAELL JARRETT, Pressed for All Time. Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall, Chapell Hill 2016.
⸜ MARK KATZ, Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, University of Californoa Press, Londyn 2010.
⸜ HOWARD MASSEY, Behind The Glass. Top Record Producers Tell How They Craft the Hits, San Francisco 2000.
⸜ TAKEAKI ANAZAWA i in., An historical overview of the development of PCM/digital Recordings technology at Denon, AES 7th International Conference, 1989.
⸜ MARK WALDREP, Music and Audio: A User Guide To Better Sound, Pacific Palisades 2018.