Demon Music have launched a series of half-speed mastered vinyl editions of albums from classic artists, across three decades.
The process of half-speed mastering is generally accepted as a legitimate way to deliver higher quality vinyl pressings and is a topic SDE has covered in the past, with Abbey Road’s Miles Showell giving us a good explanation of the benefits of the process a few years ago when the Brian Eno half-speed mastered vinyl editions were released. Demon’s half speed vinyl is being cut at Air Studios by renowned engineer Barry Grint and he explains the process in his own words, below.
The first three titles in Demon’s campaign are The Yardbirds’ 1966 album Yardbirds/Roger The Engineer, Labi Siffre’s self-produced third album, 1972’s Crying Laughing Loving Lying (which features ‘It Must Be Love’, later covered by Madness) and Haircut One Hundred’s Pelican West (released in 1982). The first two half-speeds are actually out already with Haircut One Hundred due at the end of February as part of the wider reissue campaign.
The LPs are all pressed on 180g black vinyl and come with special four-page inserts and an OBI-strip. The Yardbirds and Labi Siffre were cut from the original master tapes, whilst Haircut One Hundred was cut from digital transfers of the original tapes.
These are available now, with the exception of Haircut 100, which you can pre-order!
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By Paul Sinclair
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