Out now: Sacha Vidal, Traboules
GLB003, and how it was finished on USB sticks sent by post between Lyon and London.
GLB003 is out today. I am Tom Ashby. I joined in April to look after the Balcony Tapes, and several people have written to ask why this master took as long as it did.
Sacha Vidal prefers physical media for stems. Upload speeds in the Croix-Rousse were poor this spring, but the main reason is older: a previous label once sent back a "final" with a track bounced at the wrong sample rate. So every revision of "Traboules" came to Clapton as a USB stick in a jiffy bag, with a note in felt tip saying what had changed.
Lyon to London took between four and nineteen days during lockdown. The slowest was version 5, which contained a change I disagreed with. By the time I had phoned about it, Sacha had already posted version 6, undoing it.
"A traboule is a passage you only find if somebody shows you. So I don't see why the record should be in a hurry." Sacha Vidal
The mastering engineer received version 7 at 24-bit, 44.1 kHz. The filter on the track is doing a great deal of the work, and it had left a build-up in the low mids. He took about 1.5 dB out at 280 Hz, and the track opened up considerably.
The Long Version on side B is the one to hear on a proper system. It was made with a Paris basement in mind, for the Long Count at Rex Club that was cancelled in March.
The sticks are still labelled, and the felt-tip notes are in a shoebox in the office.