I’m not sure what else to call it, but on my press of Mysterious Stranger by Weather Report, in the middle of Cucumber Slumber it just gets CRAZY loud in a 30 second ish span of time. I’d say it might be the mix but it’s just too random a spot, and doesn’t correlate with the song form. Anyone else ever have this? It’s an original press if that means anything
Posted Jul 5, 2022, 11:26 PM UTC
Zawinul definitely turns up his synth mix by surprise here and there on WR albums. So if it sounds like someone literally turned something up in the mix, and it's the same place every time, that might be it. What I'm thinking of is that it can be visualized as turning up one instrument but the rest of the mix doesn't change. I bought all their albums when released, with album #2 onward, big stereo.
^(Unlikely option B is that your system is almost borderline feeding back between the bass volume from your speakers resonating the deck holding your TT, or an element of your TT such as tonearm. To eliminate this as a possibility, listen as you are normally and very very very lightly tap the deck under the turntable, or the main surface of your turntable, to see if it is resonating.)
Definitely not option B, my speakers are actually on the other side of the room from my TT, so it really must be in the mix. Strange
Listen, I'd like to help if there is a way for you to find that it's repeatable, and roughly the time to check for per each song, it might be good to find the same spot on the youtube version for timings instead of actually timing. I'll check my vinyl. No hurry whatsoever on that; I'm currently changing my living room around.
Related option here is if it's happening randomly on other albums, I'd be troubleshooting all the wiring in my system, from the cartridge to the speakers. Could also be related to the amplification components front panel knobs and switches versus age/dust where the connection comes and goes, which has happened in my long line of amplifiers since the 1970's. If my amp had A and B speaker functions, I'd swap from the A to the B for testing at some point.
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I think you mean Mysterious Traveler.
Is it a quadraphonic version? If so, that might explain why.
Here's all the versions Discogs has listed, but it looks like it will say "Quadraphonic" on the front cover if it is. https://www.discogs.com/master/21696-Weather-Report-Mysterious-Traveller
You’re right, definitely wrote the wrong name
But it’s definitely this release which only begs more questions from me. No idea what year it was pressed, other than the fact that the pressing plant was open from 1981 to 1991, meaning this has to be a reissue since it was originally released in ‘74.
And why the heck did someone write “chet” in the runout groove??
As I’m listening to it more, there’s a lot of weird volume issues with it, instruments randomly getting real quiet or real loud
I think Chet is this guy. The guy who mastered it for vinyl.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/631269-Chet-Bennett?page=1
Sometimes engineers would mark the records they worked on like that or put other messages in the matrix.
As when your copy was released, it'll be hard to pin that down without trying to compare it to similar releases that do have release dates.
As for the volume issues, not sure what to say about that. It's possible the record is wonky and Chet fucked up, and it's also possible your system is playing it wonky for some reason.