As I wait patiently for my turntable to arrive, I’m continuing to buy vinyl.
My main man Patrick was over Thursday night so we could work on playing “The Evil That Men Do,” from Iron Maiden’s critically important Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son record. It’s not ready for prime time, and it isn’t Patrick’s fault. He’s doing the Steve Harris romping bassline just fine. I’m having trouble playing and singing the “Living on a razor’s edge…” prechorus. I can play it, and I can sing it. Just can’t do both. Not yet.
It was cheering to see my “Maiden Japan” picture discs arrive Friday afternoon. Word on the street is that they don’t sound as good as the 180-gram Maiden vinyl that’s being released over the next few months. We’ll see how they sound. In the meantime, here’s what we’re working on, just so you can see how close I don’t come to it when I finally get around to recording it:
Now THAT is clickbait!
Wow. I haven’t listened to that album in years. I had the cassette, but it’s long gone. Thankfully Spotify has (almost) the entire Iron Maiden catalog.
“Infinite Dreams” was always my favorite track, followed by “Seventh Son…”. I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but it’s interesting to hear how much more “prog” this album is, especially with the synths.
At the time it felt like a huge step forward into… something.
They still put on a great show. I saw them when Seventh Son came out, and again this year - 26 years later yikes I’m getting old. They played more songs off of this album than any other, and that was just fine.
Getting a turntable… be sure to get a superb cartridge or you’ll be disappointed. Back in the analog days I had… can’t remember the name, from Austria. It was ok, barely. Sprung for a Shure V15 and suddenly the highs were there. High hats came alive, upper harmonics, amazing what the Shure provided. Records still clicked and popped and in real quiet passages there would be surface noise.
Grado cartridges are superb, still made in Brooklyn by Joe Grado’s family. Their headphones are great too.
http://www.gradolabs.com/index.php
Systemdek IIX turntable
Profile tonearm
Grado 8MX cartridge
What kind of turntable did you get? I’m currently waiting for my blue U-Turn table to come in. The cork mat arrived today
The SteveHoffman.tv crowd hasn’t been impressed with the Maiden vinyl remasters. I’ll just stick to the vintage Capitol CDs. They sound just dandy to my 47 year old ears.
I know the picture discs are supposedly not perfect — but what about the new 180 gram stuff?
Of course, I have most of these on vinyl from 1982 or so anyway.
If you have the original albums on vinyl, and they aren’t trashed from a cheap console record player, I would try a new one out and let your ears decide.
If your ever broke and your originals are in good shape, you could probably pay a few bills with your vintage metal albums.
Sweet!!
What turntable did you get?
I highly recommend Soundsmith cartridges they are all handmade in the US and sound killer
Still working the deal, can’t say quite yet!