The Electric Recording Co.

hallo, I' looking for the lp goin away from lightnin hopkins, are there of this
and maby other blues recording

Quote by Rudy Van Gelder:
“The biggest distorter is the LP itself. I've made thousands of LP masters. I used to make 17 a day, with two lathes going simultaneously, and I'm glad to see the LP go. As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good. And if people don't like what they hear in digital, they should blame the engineer who did it. Blame the mastering house. Blame the mixing engineer. That's why some digital recordings sound terrible, and I'm not denying that they do, but don't blame the medium.”

Well, honestly I think you're all nuts. If you want an authentic Analogue Pressing of a Vintage Vinyl Record then go out and buy one. A real one. The chances of ANY repro sounding and looking better than one that came out back in the day is zero. Its an ongoing mystery to me that people will pay more for a repro than they would for an original. And 180gm pressings, just nonsense. The thicker the vinyl the more likely warping and other distortions. Sweet spot between stability and flexibility is around 120gm. Like all the classic 60s and 70s pre dynaflex pressings were.

I received my copy of Giant Steps today. Anyone else had theirs? Needs a listing.

I attempted to purchase yet again from ERC. Responded to the new Bill Evans Mono. Responded immediately to email. No dice. Got a real email response this time not the generic "Allocation Process" email. Does anybody have knowledge as to how the "allocation process " works with ERC ?

Can any normal person purchase an ERC title? The "Allocation" process email they sent me implies they only sell to the same 300 people over and over. I don't have a U tube channel or media platform and haven't purchased an ERC before so i guess I'm out of luck ? I somehow have to prove I'm a true "music lover" or not a "Speculator". Where is the Application ERC ?? My wife is more than happy ERC refuses to sell to my neanderthal self. Maybe I'm stating the obvious but what ERC is selling I'm sure is a fine product but more importantly they are selling exclusivity. Is it really a record to enjoy music or is it a "collectible" ? More the later in my opinion .

People are coming in hot with their "time machine" argument. Stating that this label is not making better records than the originals, but instead an extremely faithful reproduction of the original. This is great in theory, except in execution they're releasing albums that simply do not work with this argument. The prime example is the recent White Stripes press. I'll take my time machine back to the early two thousands and I'll find a cd of the album waiting for me. If I do find a record it won't have a tip-on jacket and it'll probably sound a little bit weak as vinyl was nowhere close to the primary medium at the time. The moral of the story is this argument is lame and erc needs to check themselves.

Recently, I had the opportunity to finally hear two albums mastered by ERC through the graceful loan of my friend's copies. While I was definitely impressed with the sound quality, my major disappoint comes from the label's price and quantity.

I own "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" and "Portrait in Jazz" from the MoFI UltraDisc One-Step series. The prior is the best album in my collection and remains the most amazing record I've ever heard. I played both of these before sitting down with ERC to refresh my mind so I could make a proper comparison. I played the ERC records a few times over, and was very impressed with the quality. At many points, I found that "PIJ" matched toe-to-toe with the MoFi, but never beat it out. The same can be said of "SATVV" to an ever so slightly lesser extent. Even so, it's still extremely close, and ERC makes some extremely good pressings. My issue after this comparison did not stem from the actually sound quality, but the price these records go for.

When I saw that these records sell aftermarket for upwards of $800, I assumed that it was the same scenario as the first ever One-Step pressings of "Abraxas" or "SATVV". They were testing the waters with a few thousand before getting a better gauge on the true market for consuming these specialty pressings. Well, I was completely wrong. Where MoFi first sold 2500 or 3000 copies for $100, ERC starts at only 300 copies and begins at $400. While their extremely faithful reproduction of the jackets, pain-staking restoration of a vintage all-analog cutting system, and personally assembled packages are wonderful, I fail to see how they can justify that price tag to start with. A single LP from ERC starts at $400, while a double LP of "Portrait in Jazz" from MoFi starts at $125. Given how much these cost, I'm struggling to find any real justification for such a steep price tag. Take away the record that plays on par with MoFi, and you're left with nothing more but a very nice sleeve. While I gratefully respect their attempts at historical accuracy, I am unable to fathom how the process could possibly cost that much per album, besides summing it all up to either being greedy or milking every last cent out of a minute population of hardcore collectors.

The other issue is bottlenecking the supply right out the gate. Of course there are production limits, and small batches of a few hundred pressings exist all over the place. However, they're almost always for obscure psych, progressive rock etc. albums that can satisfy almost the entire demand with just 500 copies. ERC does not press obscure material, but puts out some of the biggest and most acclaimed artists / albums in the genre. Given the soaring aftermarket prices and ravenous bidding wars that occur on eBay for these pressings, the demand is obviously there for more copies to be produced of each title. I'm unable to think of a reason why a label would create such needless and artificial scarcity for their own products. UD1S may be limited by how many times they can source a stamper directly from the cut lacquer, but even the lowest quantity releases in that series still beat out ERC by nearly 10x.

In summary, ERC is far from a bad quality label. The pressings I've heard are incredible and carry their own weight against the sound quality levels of MoFi, Analogue Productions, etc. My issues (along with the vast majority of other people on here, it seems) is that ERC is charging insane amounts of money. You can draw enough comparisons with other labels to really notice just how little you're getting for the money.

I own 4 lps from this label. All sound amazing and have had none of the issues reported below, often by people who neither own nor have even heard a pressing from this label. (Must be an irony here somewhere.) The Out West pressing, stereo, is probably the best sounding LP I own, although the Classic pressing of Something Else — at least the 12” single — is in the running. I also had an AP edition of one of the albums and the ERC pressing was hands down more natural sounding and imaged with greater clarity, and not just to my ears but to that of another buddy there for a listen. Was it $500 better? I really doubt sonic differences translate into clear dollar amounts, but I would understand someone saying: ‘I’ll stick with damn good.’ Then again, some albums are dear to people and they want to hear it in the best possible fashion, and that probably won’t be through an original pressing — too rare, condition issues, and so forth as pointed out below. So they pop for one of these, as I did with My Favorite Things, which isn’t even a well recorded album. And I am glad I did as Coltrane’s soprano never sounded better to me, and I have been listening to that recording for decades. So, from experience, these pressings are special. But acquiring them involves serious opportunity costs for anyone not rolling in the dough. And I doubt I ever would have sprung for one if an evil friend hadn’t given me some. But here I am, feeling neither scammed nor screwed, and quite certain that those releasing these records are qualified to do so.

This is label is so decadent. I would alway prefer to spend that kind of money for an original, if available. What is the purpose of getting all the old gear together and still work with the old tapes. The critics here are all well justified. Even Rudy Van Gelder himself was happy when the world changed into digital. Well, let the rich waste their money somewhere.