The Orchard To Digitize the Best Rare Vinyl For First-Ever Digital Release

Orchard Commissions World's Foremost Audio Designers To Build Landmark Transcription Platform

"Digital Wax" Program Provides Orchard-Distributed Labels With Archival-Quality Digital Masters Of Out-Of-Print Gems For The First Time

NEW YORK, NY - February 13, 2006 - The Orchard, the world's leading distributor and marketer of independent music, today announced the launch of an ambitious program to provide to record labels with archival-quality digital masters of rare and unreleased vinyl. Consumers can now easily find music that has to date only been available to collectors and aficionados.

The program, titled "Digital Wax," is the result of collaboration between The Orchard and Kondo-san of Japan, and Simon Yorke of England. Kondo-san is widely known as one the greatest audio designers in history. Simon Yorke, an audio philosopher and artist, is best known for his landmark work as the person commissioned to create the transcription system used by the Library of Congress to protect and preserve America's recorded cultural legacy. Steve Klein of Sounds of Silence helped facilitate the partnership.

The system, almost eight months in the making, offers Orchard labels a digitization platform that is unrivalled and unlikely to be exceeded in the future. A modified Simon Yorke S7 turntable fitted with a Kondo IO-j cartridge feeds the esoteric, rare, expensive and exquisite Kondo M1000 preamplifier, via a Kondo KSL SFz step-up transformer. This signal is in turn converted via an audiophile A-D 2 channel converter, and archived in DSD. All wiring is Kondo age-annealed 99.9999% pure silver wire, and all components are isolated by Vibraplane active isolation platforms. The Orchard's investment in such a rarified system is underpinned by the mantra of "do it right, once," and a belief that over time, as digital formats achieve higher resolution, the most intelligent way for labels to exploit their deep catalogue assets is by managing a high-resolution digital archive that can constantly be re-encoded to the latest and best-sounding CODECs.

The initial Orchard-distributed labels participating in the program include SST, Delicious Vinyl, Lookout! Records, In the Red, Amphetamine Reptile, and Bizarre/Straight. The newly mastered vinyl releases will begin appearing in March in digital music stores worldwide, including eMusic, iTunes, Napster, Real/Rhapsody, MSN, Yahoo!/Musicmatch and over 70 others under the moniker "When It Was Wax." The service is free to Orchard labels.

"We are fortunate to be in a position to invest heavily, and creatively, for the long-term and the Long Tail. We are proud to offer our labels a system whereby the 'crown jewels' of their catalogues can be delivered to them in digital masters that are as close as sonically possible to the original analog sources. The Digital Wax program helps fulfill the promise of digital distribution: all music becomes available to the masses. Interesting, provocative, unique, impossible-to-find music will now be as close as a mouse click at iTunes," said Greg Scholl, chief executive of The Orchard and managing director of Dimensional Associates, the company that owns The Orchard, eMusic and Dimensional Music Publishing.

"Those of us who continue to espouse the world of analogue audio would surely join me in thanking everyone at Orchard for their diligence in keeping the lamp of analogue alight in the art of the finest digital masters of the rarest unreleased titles on vinyl. It is important work and I'm proud to be part of this grand undertaking. We are all here in the service of music. By whatever means we serve this mistress, it is she who ultimately 'touches' us and drives us ever onward. The technologies we employ to facilitate this emotional transmogrification are merely a means to an end – almost an irrelevance – for it is music which inspires, neither semiconductors nor electrostatic panels, not the intricacies of metallurgy or jitter. I still revel in the magic that music brings. May The Orchard bring more light to the world," said Simon Yorke.

"We are very honored that The Orchard has chosen Audio Note Japan/Kondo equipment with which to transcribe music. The wonderful history of analogue music can be captured in digital form with careful skilled engineering. It is wonderful that Audio Note Japan has been asked to participate in this project and we wish Orchard every success, and look forward to hearing the result," said Masaki Ashizawa of Audio Note Japan.

Tom Hazelmyer, owner of the Amphetamine Reptile label, said, "The Orchard's Digital Wax program is just the excuse I needed to pull long lost gems from the vaults that had previously only been heard by the 500 folks that bought one of these singles 10-15 years ago. It made me realize that some of the labels brightest moments were limited to merely a handful of those in the know back in the day, or those dedicated enough to track 'em down on Ebay and pay a healthy premium now. It's about time the kids got a dose of something raw and not sugar coated, the way AmRep used to serve it up."

Rick Ross, managing director of Delicious Vinyl said, "Delicious Vinyl is looking forward to making all of our classic 7" and 12" vinyl and remixes available to all the fan's and the new generation of heads who are discovering the music of Fatlip, The Pharcyde, Tone Loc, Masta Ace, Def Jef, Born Jamericans, The Brand New Heavies and Young MC. While we will continue to release all of our releases on vinyl, the fact that fans everywhere will have access to these alternative versions in the digital format is really exciting, and will only help to expand the audience for these artists and their music."

Labels interested in this program should contact Jordy Trachtenberg at Jordy@theorchard.com.

About The Orchard

The Orchard is the leading distributor and marketer of independent music in the world, representing thousands of labels spanning 73 countries and every music genre. The Orchard supplies its catalogue of more than 700,000 tracks to all of the leading legal digital music retailers and mobile operators throughout the world. The company is headquartered in New York and London, with operations in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Toronto, Kolkata, Johannesburg, Moscow and Melbourne, and local representatives in Paris, Milan, Berlin, Barcelona, Lausanne, Ramallah, Nairobi, and São Paulo.

About Sounds of Silence

Sounds Of Silence was founded in 1984 with only one goal: to sit back and enjoy music. With this in mind, SOS has searched the world for only the finest products. Through leading edge engineering and innovative design utilizing vacuum tubes as well as analog & high resolution digital technologies, our select reproducers of the recorded arts offer sound, build quality, performance, & value ranging from high to extreme. Music is the motivating force behind our mutual pursuit of sonic excellence.

.