SG-001

Soulful Journey — SOB & the CZYKS

Just listen!

The booklet as download

Here’s the PDF of the german booklet that comes with the LP. It shows and tells everything you (n)ever wanted to know about Soulful Journey. With many nice photos and plenty of (german, sorry) text. Klick on picture to open PDF

Soulful Journey at a glance:

Album: A Soulful Journey (from Big Apple to Big Easy)

Style: Jazz and Soul standards of the 1940s to the 1960s

Band: SOB & the CZYKS

Artists: Andreas Sobczyk, p; Denise Gordon, voc; Andreas Dombert, g; Stephan Holstein, cl, as, ts; Malo Mazurié, t; Karol Hodas, db; Peter Müller, d

Packaging: Double-LP in gatefold with 12 page booklet

Edition: limited to 950 double LPs and 50 promo copies; all numbered by hand

Recorded: August 10-16, 2020; Powerplay Studios Maur/CH

Console: Neve 8016

Tape Recorder: Studer C37

Sound, Mix: Andi Wingert, Reto Muggli

Mastering: Adi Flück, Centraldubs, Bern; mastering with a Telefunken M10 with analog preview using the original session tapes (no copies)

Plating: Optical Media Services, Baarlo/NL; one step pressing using one lacquer per stamper

Pressing: Nordsø Records, Kopenhagen/DK; on 140 gram vinyl using new Newbilt manual presses

Buy it! Now!!

The story of Soulful Journey

As stories go, they either start with an idea or with a wish. Ours is one of the wishful ones: We wanted to sit in at a recording session in a professional studio. Did we forsee that sitting in would not be the end of the story? No. In short: We not only sat in, we ended up with the first LP and a record label. The road from A to Z inevitably crosses L and P. And this to us means: Records made with TLC. So SG001 also sets the direction that we will take with all following LPs. What’s so special, you ask?

For instance:

100 percent analog: as analog as LP productions go – from the microphone to the lacquer, not one single bit was involved. Yes, even the preview was purely analog, just in case you wonder.
Live to two track: the band plays live in the studio, the mic feeds are mixed in real time, summed to stereo and recorded directly to ¼” two track. Yep. No overdubs, no re-mix, no punch-ins, no plug–ins or effects, no nothing, period

(What’s so special about live to two track? Well, consider… the band knows that every mistake, every wrong note, means they’ll have to perform the whole song again, all together, not just the guitar or the singer. The sound engineers know that there is no post production, no fix it in the mix—the mix is in real time and has to be spot on because they don’t get a second chance. The producers know that live to two track eats tape for breakfast, expensive tape that is. No less than 10 kilometers (around 6.1 miles for you non-metrics) of top grade virgin studio tape passed the heads of the Studer. And all that just so that you get the best possible sound quality (because there is no master tape that is mixed down and re-recorded — the session tapes are the master tapes). Less dubious sound effects—quite simply because you don’t have time for gimmics during a live mix. And last not least a band standing on their toes—simply because no musician likes to play the same 5 minute song 15 times…

Mastering with the original session tapes: We cut the selected takes from the reels of the session tapes and joined them for the production master. At least two generations less than conventional multitrack recordings.
One-step pressing (1SP): The stamper is pulled directly from the lacquer and not over the usual three steps of galvanisataion (lacquer > father > mother > son/stamper). The lacquer suffers or is destroyed in the process i.e. 1sp requires one lacquer per stamper (for 500 records). This makes 1SP an expensive way to produce records, but results in better sound: less copies, more details, more live in the studio.
Strictly limited edition: 950 hand numbered records, no more than 500 LPs per stamper.
Special vinyl formula with particularly low groove and surface noise—our goal are the unequalled japanese super pressings of the 1970s and 1980s
Pressed on 140 grams of vinyl – sometimes less is more. Compared to 180 grams, you get less resonances and less warps with 140 gram vinyl disks than with 180.
Rigorous QC: Visual inspection of each and every LP in the pressing plant; one out of 75 LPs is also controlled with real time playback. (And of course these LPs will not be sold.).
Booklet: Almost as big as an LP and 12 pages fat with lots of photographs and even more information showing and telling you all and everything you possibly could want to know about Soulful Journey and its production. (Uhm, sorry, the booklet is in German only. You can download a PDF of the booklet at the bottom of this page and maybe use an online translator if you don’t read german… ;-) )

As If You Were There

Enjoy bandleader’s Andreas “SOB” Sobczyk’s memories of the equally loose as tight recording sessions in August 2020 at the Powerplay-Studios in Maur, Switzerland

Three are enough!

Do not order more than three copies of limited edition LPs so others have a fair chance, too, of getting a limited edition Swingin’ Gate (yep, the records made with TLC).
Don’t try to be clever with orders on separate days—we’ll notice. Our refund will cost you dearly: we will of course pay you back the excess money for more than 3 LPs.
But you’ll get only 75 percent of what you paid us. The rest goes to a charity of our choice. Okay?