... Of all my old albums, the only badly recorded ones are all of U2's and Born to Run, they all have a closed in sound. Not enjoyable, CD's of these are the same.
Oz
There was a gentleman ( John Dent I think ) of the Sound Clinic, London, who was responsible, among many other things, for some of the U2 vinyl pressings. The Unforgettable Fire is one, not sure about Joshua Tree ( my all-time most 'lettuce' like pressing btw, awful ) John was a serious technician. I recall he would use a different lacquer on the vinyl for different bands unique 'sound', figuring that ( in his words ) it could make the difference between just another record and one that "the whole country would want to rush out and buy". He did alright for U2 in that respect of course, though I suspect he's wary of taking *all* the credit
Its interesting ( for me anyway .. ) to hear a technicians view on this analogue 'tweaking' at the pressing stage. It may account for some of the divergent views of the same album on vinyl - especially on bands such as U2 whose records have been pressed at many plants around the world. I dont know if there is a 'digital' equivalent to this kind of last-minute and quite personal engineering. It perhaps shows the subtleties the vinyl medium reached over its decades of development. Or the madness it invoked in its practitioners..
/nostalgic musings
