Say Somethin'

Hidden in the sleepy little town of Lyons Colorado is an unassuming building without the benefit of a sign or any indication of what’s inside. It’s the home of Animal Lane, one of the world’s few 32 track Sonoma recording studios. During a week in December 2020, musicians Gabe, Tom, Seth, and Alejandro got together with Octave producer, Giselle Collazo, and recording engineer, Steve Vidaic to lay down some tunes and tracks. The session was basically live and captured without overdubs on the Sonoma pure DSD recording system, then later mixed through a vintage Euphonix analog board, then back again through Sonoma to put all the pieces together. What resulted was one of the most beautifully recorded jazz works yet and Octave Records is proud to have captured Gabriel Mervine’s music for all time. Gabriel’s trumpet was recorded using a combination of a Neumann M49 Cardioid and a Royer 122 Ribbon microphone into a Grace preamp. The mics were about 12” from the instrument’s bell. In the final mix, both the Neuman and ribbon were used with the ribbon more prominent. For the piano, a pair of DPA 4009 Omni stereo pair amplified with a Grace preamplifier were used along with a vintage RCA 44BX ribbon, amplified through a Forsell microphone preamplifier. Engineer Steve Vidaic placed the mics at the edge of the piano soundboard, lid low, to keep out the drum bleed and used mostly the vintage RCA in the mix, with a little DPA for stereo spread and air. For the bass, a Neumann U47 was placed close to the instrument’s bridge (6” out) and a Royer 122 Ribbon on the neck. Steve then added a Teletronix LA2A Limiter to the 122 and for the Neuman a Warm Audio WA76 Limiter through a dbx 160 for fast transients, and the lightest of touch with a Urie LA3A limiter for body control. Forsell preamplifiers were employed for both microphones. To record the drums Steve used a Soundelux iFET 7 and Grace preamplifier for the bass drum, a Sennheiser 421 connected through a Grace preamplifier about 6” to 8” from the front head snare, and for the brushes and overheads a rare Tim de Paravacini stereo AKG C24 vacuum tube microphone (on loan from Dan Schwartz) into a Forsell preamplifier. The C24 was placed about 18” to 24” above the drum kit. For the ambient room microphones, a custom pair of Rode stereo omnis through a Forsell preamplifier were employed. Captured in pure DSD on the Sonoma Recording System.

Download the recording booklet

• One pressing Austrian gold pressed dual-layer SACD
• Pure DSD + PROMastered CD layers
• Bonus needle drop from metal masters
• One pressing two-disc virgin vinyl 45 rpm master discs
• Pure DSD mastered by Gus Skinas on the Sonoma mastering system
• DSD64, DSDDirect Mastered 192kHz 24 bit, 96kHz 24 bit, 44.1kHz 16 bit PCM download
• No compression in the mastering process
• CD layer of SACD playable on any CD player
• Mastering monitored through the PS Audio DirectStream DAC
• All tracks hand curated on the Infinity IRSV in PS Audio's Music Room Two
• Limited edition one-pressing physical media

There's a certain magic vinyl brings to the listening room: a magic unlike any other. Where DSD captures every nuance in the music, a vinyl release directly from the DSD master is on yet another level altogether. Octave Recordings features limited-edition collector's vinyl on most releases. Each of these albums is build to perfection on 180-gram virgin vinyl, individually numbered and exemplifying everything great in the art of producing world-class vinyl. When you strive for perfection, every detail counts. The finest pressing equipment: In order the ensure maximum quality and perfection in every numbered disc, the pressing plant we use spares no expense by employing a state-of-the-art closed-loop heating/cooling system and programmable logic controllers to precisely temperature control the vinyl molds. This attention to detail is unlike just about any plant in the world where differing temperatures and times of day can change the final discs. Materials matter: Not all records run the same way during manufacturing. In order to maximize heavy gram-weight vinyl pressings, using the highest quality vinyl grades available from Neotech. Plating is critical: An essential step in producing vinyl discs is the electroplating of the masters. Our manufacturer has an exclusive agreement with world famous NiPro Optics as an electroforming partner. This provides noticeably superior sounding masters as a result of using the best metal work from the most technologically advanced and modern electroforming facility in the world. In addition, a proprietary reverse-osmosis (RO) water system is used, verses the more traditional deionization (DI) water systems in use at other plating facilities. GrooveCoated Stampers: NiPro Optics and Gotta Groove Records also co-developed and provides the first new form of record plating technology in the past 30 years, called GrooveCoated™ stampers. This combination of superior electroplating and groove coating dramatically increases the lifespan of the stamper, and reduces high-frequency loss as pressing cycles continue over the course of manufacturing so that our short-run single pressings are perfect from number 1 to number 500. Limited edition single pressings: To ensure that every Octave Record's vinyl release is as close to perfect as the current state of the art allows, we limit our runs to 500 pressings per stamper and offer them in individually numbered albums, each hand-inspected for perfection. QA at an unprecedented level: At our vinyl pressing plant of choice, Gotta Grove Records out of Ohio, one of the reasons we chose them is they have more quality control workers than any other pressing plant in the U.S. — one quality control employee per every two pressing machines listening to approximately every 25th record off the press during every shift. If you know the magic of vinyl, then may we suggest you've yet to hear what a remarkable combination of pure DSD recording and single pressing virgin vinyl collectors’ vinyl can sound like. Available exclusively at Octave Records.