Steely Dan albums

Steely Dan was on the radio virtually everywhere in the 70's when I was a teenager. At the time I thought it sounded good on the radio. Now I have most of their CDs and also listen on Tidal. It's amazing the detail that was not noticeable on AM radio but I've discovered since. Aja, Gaucho, and also Nightfly are favorite albums for SQ.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. Aja and Gaucho both have that classic, super-polished Steely Dan sound that came out of their work with UMG, but Two Against Nature feels a little different. It’s still really clean and detailed, but the overall dynamic range and production style have more of that late-90s digital character. The mix seems a bit tighter and less airy compared to the analog warmth of the earlier albums. I’ve always wondered if the shift in label and era had a lot to do with that.

Interestingly, Night Fly was an all-digital recording right on the heals or just before Brothers in Arms. Night Fly on a 3M digital tape system and Brothers in Arms on a Sony tape-based system in Montserat. I think George Martin may have had played some part in the Dire Straits sessions. 16-bit digital recording was nothing new since Jack Renner and Robert Woods had developed a 50Khz, 16-bit tape system in the mid 70s and founded Telarc which the made a big splash with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and the amazing cannon blast sequence for which at the time vinyl and R to R tape were the only available release formats.

@viridian is correct that Aja was produced by ABC/Dunhill.

Gaucho made extensive use of digital in the recording mixing and mastering of the final master tapes. I have an original 33 rpm from a Robert Ludwig lacquer which is easily as good as the AP UHQRs.

I’ve found that original pressings and early represses having been through countless copies never reflected the outstand production and engineering that was available on the original master tapes.

@rettrussell despite the untold losses of Universal warehouse fire there were still equalized copy masters and flat transfers in circulation and Donald Fagen appears to have known how to locate them or had in his possession these masters based on the recorded discussions between himself, Chad Kassem, Chris Bellman and Bernie Grundman when Analog Products was hyping the coming Release of the Steely Dan UHQRs.

Elliot Scheiner (a former neighbor in CT) got a Grammy for engineering Gaucho.

@wolf_garcia Thanks for mentioning Elliot Scheiner which got me to do some fact checking which caused me to discover my statement regarding the use of digital on Gaucho to totally inaccurate. I found this 45-minute Tyler Burns video where all the facts are disclosed. Around 25 minutes Tyler asks Elliot where digital may have been applied and he said computer drum machines were used and around 1980 16-bit backups were used surrounding some compatibility issues with CD mastering.

https://youtu.be/r87_NQ1c9g0

I hope the monitors will let me use the link.