Desire & discipline are two key elements to succeeding, & Paul has them both.

It’d be wonderful if you recorded Tommy Emmanuel, John Knowles & Steve Wariner (All CGPs) live to really get a magnificent sound stage.

Octave Records caters for a niche within a niche: audiophiles that listen to DSD. I think they would gain more traction outside the audiophile community if they expanded their business model and became a mastering studio rather than a recording label.

@jonathanvanier

11 ай бұрын

You're probably right, and it would be great if they were able to branch into mastering work. However, why not do both? From a consumer perspective, that'd be the best scenario I would think.

@volpedo2000

11 ай бұрын

@@jonathanvanier possibly. I wonder if the offering both would confuse audiences in the long run. Paul seems a talented business guy and I guess he's done his maths.

@joepostle3561

11 ай бұрын

I suppose it’s having control of the entire process from end to end, from the source material (songs) through the recording and mastering process to the quality of the disk / vinyl pressings. In the UK we have two hi-fi companies, Naim and Linn who have / have had record labels associated with them (you may already know this), the results can be stunning but of course the mastering engineer only have the quality which the recording studio masters will allow (obviously!).

Dreams are the fuel of life

There was a time when record labels cared about music and audio fidelity… those who did when tape was the recording medium bought a Stephens machine… and you could definitely hear the difference, even on a CD. However, now with digital technology, a great deal of the industry is more concerned with hooks and the ‘popiness’ of music rather than a song that makes a succinct emotional statement. This is why the music of the 60s thru the 90s is so popular today. Paul… you service a great, but small audience. If you have not yet read it, get Bill Schnee’s memoir, Chairman At The Board. In it he talks about the work he did with direct to disc recording with Lincoln Mayorga… great accounts of the work that it took to do such a task. Great video! (By the way, the Stephens machine had only THREE op amps open the signal path… custom discrete op amps that were powered with -36 volts. The input stage had the head coil in its feedback loop. When you look at the schematics you wonder how John Stephens did it… but it worked and sounded beautiful.

Your great Moog❤

Pop music has never been about maximizing quality (whether audio or musically), but instead about appealing to the largest possible target audience. So I really doubt any global pop star is going to seek out Octave or any other specialty high-end label.

@volpedo2000

11 ай бұрын

There are quite a few examples of well recorded pop album throughout history. If an artist/producer wanted to record properly an album they could, in many studios around the world without the contractual and logistical nightmares of doing it with a small recording label like OR

I whish you that a great artist finishes his or her contract announce there retirement and then go to octave to have the greatest Fun of accomplishing the perfect recording.

@tanlaiseng

11 ай бұрын

By then they'll be over the hill and there 'll be new Top40 darlings taking over. They are popular now because of record labels finance & marketing power to promote. Hot today forgotten in decades to come. Who would buy a 24k gold SACD of, say, the current The Eagles new album?

Too bad I can't buy Uncle Festive at a higher sampling rate. That was more than a generation ago, so the master recordings may not still be around.

Octave Records has got already great artists that might be «mainstream» one day. If I had to think about voices that would push the limits of DSD (nuances, details...), Diana Navarro and Pasión Vega would be great candidates. It would be nice to hear Pastora Soler with full dynamic range , or a different presentation of Ernesto Aurignac album UNO... Adele will sell even more with a very good recording. So many artists are still there...

Unfortunately (and without wishing to be the metaphorical bull-in-a-china-shop) I suspect most of the audience would still expect the loudness war mastering and the highly processed finish, probably at CD resolution as they (the listeners) no nothing better. Luckily we on this channel have seen the light and realise there far better quality but would these artist’s management panda to the audiences expectations? Sad though what I’m suggesting but this is the world we have become in recent decades, luckily there are still pioneers who look for the quality and a job well-done. Apologies for the cynicism.

@benwu7980

11 ай бұрын

The cynicism is valid, but even CD quality is above what is the norm for vast swathes of the audiences for Adele or Taylor Swift. Ain't picking on them, just they were mentioned as 2 of the biggest stars. No idea what bitrates places like KZread music or Spotify even are running at, or sample rate / compression etc, but even 'high' tier like Tidal is funky for a lot of stuff. I'd love to have a high quality version of something like Billie Eilish's performance at the Brits doing No Time To Die,

Here’s the deal…ALL of the major artists started off their careers as unknown artists…and then were discovered…Paul is a minor in search of a gem …we’ll be there in August..looking forward.