Copper


The Latest from Octave Records: Mini Brazilian ...

Issue 166Octave Pitch

The new Octave Records release, Mini Brazilian Beasts by jazz pianist Carmen Sandim, weaves a boundless wave of piano melodies, sophisticated harmonic concepts, and the musical rhythms and moods of Sandim’s native Brazil into...

A Visit to Legendary Jazz Club Arthur’s Tavern

Issue 166Disciples of Sound

Arthur’s Tavern is one of those New York City gems that have always been among the city’s best-kept secrets. It opened in 1937 as a speakeasy just after the end of...

150 Favorite Rock Albums: More Mini-Reviews

Issue 166Frankly Speaking

In Issue 150 I listed my 150 desert island favorite rock albums, and offered a first batch of mini-reviews in Issue 151. I got a range of comments and e-mails, from complements to derision...

A Loudspeaker Company Grows in Brooklyn

Issue 166Speaker Stories

It’s been a while since someone from Copper last visited DeVore Fidelity in New York City. By the time Bill Leebens went out to Brooklyn Navy Yard in 2016, John DeVore had already been...

Five Rhythm Guitarists Who Changed Rock Music

Issue 166Idle Chatter

Rock music and rhythm guitar are inseparable. Oftentimes, rock outfits feature two guitarists, one playing lead guitar and the other specializing in rhythm. Although this is not always the case...

AES Europe Spring 2022, Part Two

Issue 166Show Report

(Copper Issue 165 featured Part One of our coverage of the Audio Engineering Society AES Europe Spring 2022 convention from The Netherlands. Part One covered presentations on the use of analog vs. digital...

Going to the Consumer Electronics Show: The Ear...

Issue 166True-Life Rock Tales

The Cable Doctor Show started modestly as a live TV call-in question and answer show on tech and installation issues. Of the three TV programs I’ve hosted, this one was my longest-running...

Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part 24

Issue 166New Vistas

Many of the renegades gathered again late that afternoon in Chip’s garage. It seemed to be a ritual. Get off work, have a beer at Chip’s, go home to the...

Getting the Most From an A/V Receiver: Yamaha’s...

Issue 166Featured

Yamaha has recently released a slew of A/V receivers in their higher-end AVENTAGE range, with upgraded power transformers, amplifier circuits and many other features. Some of them offer powerful sound-tailoring capabilities, such as...

Seeking Enlightenment

Issue 166Opening Salvo

I’ve noted before that I’m a connoisseur of silly fortune cookie sayings. I read one that said, “To truly find yourself, you should play hide and seek alone.” Maybe finding...

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Back to My Reel-to-Reel Roots, Part 18: Reports...

Issue 166Natural Born Kessler

Open-reel tape devotees are aware of the current state of support for the format, which is now entirely the province of the niche. As far as machines go – leaving...

The History of A&M Records, Part Five

Issue 166Featured

The 1980s proved to be even more successful for A&M Records than previous decades. (Previous articles appeared in Issue 160, Issue 161, Issue 162 and Issue 165.) In the late 1970s Illegal Records, a small independent...

Favorite Venues, Part Three: Madison Square Garden

Issue 166Featured

After completing my relocation back to the East Coast, I was in closer proximity to my brother and we had the opportunity to commiserate more often, usually on the front...

Cataloging a Classical Music Collection

Issue 166Sitting In

Let’s begin by setting the stage. I have a very large collection of digital music, representing the equivalent of well over 4,400 albums, most of it classical. A number of...

Far Above Cayuga's Waters

Issue 166Parting Shot

Photographed at Cornell Botanic Gardens, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. As the website states, “As a living museum, our cultivated gardens, arboretum, and natural areas serve as outdoor classrooms…and host research that seeks...

Marin Marais’s Works for Viola da Gamba

Issue 166Something Old / Something New

Marin Marais (1656-1728) lived in Paris his whole life. That is, except for the many months of the year when he was stationed at Versailles as a musician for the...

Rufus Wainwright: Personal Songs With Universal...

Issue 166Off the Charts

Rufus Wainwright’s childhood must have been wall-to-wall music. Both his parents and most of his aunts and uncles were folk singers. But thanks to an obsession with opera that gripped...

Plug and Play

Issue 166Audio Anthropology

Written by Frank Doris Revox PR 99 Mk II reel-to-reel deck, introduced in 1980. Talk about functional elegance!   Revox made it easy to adjust the left and right channel...

Musical Realism and the Performance of Our (Agi...

Sitting In

It appears my earlier essay on declining hearing (in Issue 160) touched something of a nerve, so to speak. I appreciate the many thoughtful comments it prompted. Perhaps I should not have...

Here Comes the Sun

Issue 165Opening Salvo

As a bandmate likes to say, a day without the Beatles is like a day without sunshine. Saturday, June 25 is Global Beatles Day (yes, it’s a thing) and was founded in...

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She Had a Hat

Issue 165Audio Anthropology

Written by Frank Doris Classic elegance: a circa 1960s KLH Model 24 loudspeaker, from The Audio Classics Collection.   The KLH Model 24 with the grille off. Why bother making...

The Zombies: As Alive as Ever

Issue 165Disciples of Sound

In 2019 when the Zombies took the stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to accept their induction and then perform a few of their biggest hits, they did so with an absolute joy that...

The Lasting Memories of Hit Summer Songs

Issue 165Twisted Systems

Another summer is now here, and I’m reminded about how, growing up, songs that were hits during the summers of my youth helped to define and more importantly remind me...

AES Europe Spring 2022, Part One

Issue 165Show Report

AES Europe Spring 2022 was held at The Hague in The Netherlands from May 16 – 19, 2022. The overall high standard that the Audio Engineering Society has maintained in...

My Favorite Venues, Part Two: Colorado

Issue 165Featured

In my article “My Favorite Venues, Part One” (Issue 164), we explored some of the larger venues on the Front Range of Colorado. While there were occasional jazz acts, these concert locales...

John Cooper Clarke: Bard of the People

Issue 165Featured

Poets are not exactly part of mainstream culture these days. I’m only familiar with a few headliners from the last 3,000 years: Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and...

Cats and Dogs…Well, Mostly Cats (Part One)

Issue 165Featured

(Cat haters might want to hit the “Next” button, but if you do, you’ll miss a photo of Otis, my neighbor’s Golden Retriever puppy, a serious candidate for the world’s...

How Does a Vinyl Record Even Sound Good at All?...

Issue 165The Copper Interview

We began our interview with Lewis Hopkin of Stardelta Audio Mastering in Issue 164. Here, he details the factors which are essential to perfection in mastering a vinyl record, in this second part...

XTC: Steven Wilson Remix/Remasters on CD and Bl...

Issue 165To Be Determined

You probably all realize by now that I’ve been trying to grab as many of the Steven Wilson-remixed/remastered CD/Blu-ray/DVD-A sets as possible. Having come somewhat late to the game, I’ve...

Back to My Reel-to-Reel Roots, Part 17: Stalkin...

Issue 165Natural Born Kessler

In the wake of the AudioJumble – see my article in Issue 164 – there has been a palpable buzz about vintage gear, not least because of activity on social media. The AudioJumble’s organizers...

The Beatles or the Stones: Who’s Better?

Issue 165Idle Chatter

It’s a debate we’ve all heard before: “Who’s better? The Beatles, or the Stones?” When it comes to these two bands, there are two distinct camps: on the one side,...

Your Move

Issue 165Parting Shot

Actually, the photo is of Alón Sagee and his metal friends, taken by a bystander on August 8, 2002 in Xian, China.

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part 15

Issue 165Revolutions Per Minute

At this point in our lathe appreciation journey, I feel I should invite you to have a seat on one of my specially-designed lathe appreciation chairs, complete with straps and...

The Secret History of Tribute Albums, Part Two

Issue 165Featured

The news occasionally carries a story about the World’s Worst Record Collection. The journalistic ball gets rolling when a blood clot of ancient LPs is offered to a record shop...

Play it Again, Sam

Issue 165The Mindful Melophile

This is the third list of preferred recordings that started with “A Few of My Favorite Things” (Issue 129) and “More of My Favorite Things” Issue 134). These eclectic collections consist of CDs and...

The History of A&M Records, Part Four: R&am...

Issue 165FROM THE SWEET SPOT

A&M Records had success with rock, pop and easy listening music – see my previous articles in this series in Issue 160, Issue 161 and Issue 162. There was another facet the successful independent...

The Staple Singers: Soul Originators

Issue 165Off the Charts

When Roebuck “Pops” Staples was growing up on a plantation in Mississippi, he wanted to be a blues guitarist. He learned his technique by listening to musicians like Barbecue Bob,...

Zoot Sims: A Saxophonist’s Saxophonist

Issue 165Trading Eights

He had the coolest name to go with his cool sound. Zoot Sims was a saxophonist’s saxophonist, a musician everybody wanted to work with because he made everything he played...

Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part 23

Issue 165New Vistasweb-2517

  “Willie G. Davidson will be at the local Harley shop today, Montana, wanna come with us to meet him?” Chip asked over breakfast. “Not sure about that Chip, don’t...

Into the Heavens

Issue 164Parting Shot

Melancholy Circus takes the boiled-down essence of influences from a life lived and examined,from music, literature, history, and cinema and creates plains of dissimilar existence anddeep caves of thought that...

Nick Drake’s Albums in 24/96 Digital Sound

Issue 164To Be Determined

In Issue 162, I talked about Nick Drake, the artist and musician, and the myriad of mysteries surrounding his brief lifetime here on earth. This go-around, I’d like to touch on...

Countertenors: New Takes on an Old Tradition

Issue 164Something Old / Something New

“Countertenor” is one of those musical terms that has meant many different things over the centuries. These days, it normally refers to a man who uses falsetto or head voice...

Rallying With Lemons, Part Two

Issue 164Featuredweb-2517

In the first half of this travelogue of the 2022 Rocky Mountain Breakdown Lemons Rally (see my article in Issue 163), we passed through Colorado and New Mexico, and arrived in...

Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part 22

Issue 164New Vistas

“I thought you were going to ride your bike home today?” I asked KP as he poured a Belgian ale from the garage fridge. “I will,” he replied, “but I...

Mary Gauthier: Songs in Motion

Issue 164Off the Charts

Mary Gauthier thinks the best songs are ones that contain “a little movie,” songs that don’t just have their own story but also a sense of motion. The veteran songwriter...

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part 14

Issue 164Revolutions Per Minute

Previous installments discussed various design approaches to record lathe cutter heads, the history of Neumann and Scully lathes, and more. As a general rule, records cut on Neumann lathes using...