UMe's Vinylphyle Series First Release Quartet Are All Hits, No Misses

Joe Nino-Hernes takes his place at the top of the audiophile mastering food chain

UMe's Vinylphyle series, its version of Rhino's High Fidelity reissue series strikes the same pose, hits the same high notes and so far is a complete success. Warner Records should be flattered. With these two strong, image making audiophile quality reissue programs Rhino and UMe have left Sony in the vinyl dust. If Sony's not going to let its master tapes go to others to reissue titles, the least it can do is start a similar series.

There are similarities and differences between Rhino's and UMe's audiophiles reissues. The similarities are: a folded full color, full sized annotation insert featuring tape and tape box photos among others, an Obi with bar code (leaving the jacket bar code free), a 180g RTI pressing and gatefold "tip on" jacket, here some gloss finished and some satin matte finish. UMe has Sterling Sound's Joe Nino-Hernes do all of the cutting using original master tapes—at least on these first four.

One interesting difference is that while Rhino's are all produced by Patrick Milligan, UMe titles feature various producers, project managers and on Exodus Harry Weingar gets a reissue supervision credit (he does a much better job here than he did on the disastrous sounding Miles David Birth of the Cool release from a few years ago—I don't know what happened there or who's to blame, but his name is on it so he gets it!).

So for instance the producer of Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song is Frank Collura, and the Project Management credit goes to Elon Wertman who gets both credits on the Velvet Underground reissue. Not to slight Patrick Milligan but having different people with different ideas handling different titles might turn out to be a nice feature. Or maybe not! Time will tell.

I can't help but think what might have been had the MCA "Heavy Vinyl" series I was involved with in the 1990s been a success. It was too soon, caught in between record stores no longer selling vinyl and no Internet to sell them. Oh well.

As for two of these titles, no doubt you're saying to yourself, "there's a $150 Analogue Productions Exodus 45 rpm UHQR and this one for $39.98. There's a $100 Definitive Sound Series "One-Step" Christmas Song and this one for $39.98. So what are the differences there? Joe Nino-Hernes' Exodus cut is outstanding. Malachi and I agreed it was about 80% of what the UHQR delivers but the UHQR Clarity Vinyl is definitely quieter and the transparency produces eerily "there" percussive elements that sound like they are "live" behind the speakers. I think everyone listening would hear what we heard though how big a difference it would make is system and especially turntable dependent.

No doubt for many listeners $39.98 mastered from tape and pressed at RTI will be more than good enough and believe me, compared to the digitally remastered Marley catalog of a few decades ago, this is a huge improvement and it also beats by a wide margin the Mo-Fi Anadisc 200 edition.

The Nat King Cole comparison is unfair. The $100 "One-Step" packaged in a hard slip case and pressed on Neotech VR900 vinyl was cut by Chris Bellman directly from the 3 track master, bypassing both a generation and the original mix that added metallic reverb behind both Nat's voice and the strings, though it too sounds pretty good and Nino-Hernes's cut is considerably better than the original pressing (of the later SW version...the story of this album's iterations is too long to get into here but it's well covered in the absolutely sensational annotation that comes with the $39.98 version). The "One-Step" also includes two tunes not on the original or the Vinylphyle version. So if you want the definitely best sound where Nat is in your room like Frank is on the recent In the Wee Small Hours Tone Poet reissue, get the "One-Step". If you want to spend less and get essential annotation, and actually better cover art get the Vinylphyle edition. If you want it all, get both.

Joe has done a sensational job with the Velvet Underground title. It's never going to be an "audiophile" recording but compared to an original pressing, while the original has "fresh tape" top end air and generous decay, the quiet vinyl combined with however subtle EQ "kiss" he put through the board, produces a great reissue of an essential rock classic. Anthony Fantano's notes are also very useful for the younger generation that will mostly buy this never all that popular but destined to be immortal title.

That leaves The Band's Northern Lights-Southern Cross the first record recorded at what is now Rick Rubin's Shangri-La Studio but was then The Band's. Recorded to a 24 track recorder, the sound, which had and has a kind of generic cardboardy quality was never particularly appealing and it's not here either especially compared to The Band the group's second album recorded in Sammy Davis Junior's pool cabana. Now that one oozes atmosphere. Nino-Hernes doesn't try to re-invent the generic sound. Instead he does the best he can with what he's given. The album was recorded not produced.

Many great infectious songs—all written by Robbie Robertson— well played but again in a kind of group monotone that skims the surface but a few like "It Makes No Difference" and "Acadian Driftwood" are classics.

To sum it all up: a great start to the new UMe series and we can all look forward to many more from the seriously deep UMe catalog. It's great to see a major conglam honor its catalog and its customers.