Flim And The BB's
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Flim & the BB's was a contemporary jazz band that was among the first bands to record albums digitally.


History

Flim and the BB's consisted of Jimmy Johnson, nicknamed Flim, on Alembic 5-string bass and the two BBs, Bill Berg on percussion and Billy Barber on piano, keyboard, and synthesizer, with their initials having a whimsical connotation of BB pellets. Woodwind-player Dick Oatts was a featured guest on their first album before becoming a full member of the band. The band was a side project, as they worked as
studio musicians A session musician (also known as studio musician or backing musician) is a musician hired to perform in a recording session or a live performance. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a record ...
for a living. Their early days in the late 1970s included studio work in Minneapolis and playing as a band at the Longhorn Bar. They became acquainted with Tom Jung, chief engineer at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis. It was around this time that Minneapolis-based 3M began experimenting with
digital recording In digital recording, an audio signal, audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or Color, chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is s ...
, and Flim & the BB's were hired to provide music to test this new equipment at Jung's studio. The group's self-titled debut album was recorded in 1978 at Sound 80 and was ostensibly going to be a
direct to disc recording Direct-to-disc recording refers to sound recording methods that bypass the use of magnetic tape recording and record audio directly onto analog disc masters. Professional analog sound recording Most sound recordings for gramophone records, recor ...
. Nevertheless, 3M placed an experimental prototype 50.4 kHz digital recorder in the control room as a backup to the direct-to-disc lathe. Because of the "direct-to-disc" setup (recording directly onto a lacquer platter) the band was required to play the entire LP side without stopping and without being able to do any editing afterward. When the resulting
acetate disc An acetate disc (also known as a ''lacquer'', ''test acetate'', '' dubplate'', or '' transcription disc'') is a type of phonograph record generally used from the 1930s to the late 1950s for recording and broadcast purposes. Despite their name, "ac ...
was deemed inferior in sound quality to the
digital master {{For, the Sony product line called DigitalMaster, DVCAM A digital master is an image, PDF file, digital recording or another digital asset preserved as the "original" for the purpose of archival storage, reuse and re-expression. For images, it is ...
tape, the LP record was pressed from that digital backup tape, making it the second-ever U.S. commercially available digital recording. Since the machine used was a one-of-a-kind prototype, built before any digital recording standards were established—and dismantled within months—there is currently no way to reissue that first album on either LP or CD.Liner notes from ''Tricycle'' Flim and the BB's recorded its second album, ''Tricycle'', for DMP Digital Music Products, an audiophile record label started by Tom Jung. The album was the first non-classical recording to be released in compact disc format. It was recorded on the Mitsubishi X-80 digital audio recorder at Sound 80. The disc displayed the full dynamic range available in CDs, becoming a popular test disc for this reason. It was also the first jazz album to be recorded, mastered, and delivered in the digital domain. The recording chain, after the first few feet of microphone cable from the musicians' instruments, remained in the digital domain until it was decoded by the consumer's CD player. DMP's releases were for the most part recorded directly to two-tracks as opposed to the more common multi-track method. This means that there was minimal use of overdubs and the majority of the music was performed, recorded, and mixed "live" to the digital recorder. The cover art for ''Tricycle'' was drawn by Bill Berg's son Jacob. Flim & the BB's released four more albums for DMP, with each winning Digital Audio's "Jazz CD of the Year" award. After the release of ''The Further Adventures of Flim & The BB's'' they parted ways with DMP and signed to
Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (known as Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019) is an American record label. A subsidiary of Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division ...
. They released the album ''New Pants'' in 1990 and followed with ''This Is a Recording'' in 1992. Billy Barber composed the theme song for the TV soap opera ''
All My Children ''All My Children'' (often shortened to ''AMC'') is an American television soap opera that aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011, and on The Online Network (TOLN) from April 29 to September 2, 2 ...
''. A version of the song appears on ''This Is a Recording''. DMP released two of their albums, ''Tricycle'' and ''Big Notes'', on limited edition Gold CDs, and ''Tricycle'' on Super Audio CD ( SACD).


Discography


Studio albums

* ''Flim & the BB's'' (Sound 80, 1978) (LP only) * ''Tricycle'' ( DMP, 1983) (CD, Gold CD and SACD) * ''Tunnel'' (DMP, 1984) (CD) * ''Big Notes'' (DMP, 1985) (CD and Gold CD)) * ''Neon'' (DMP, 1987) (CD) * ''The Further Adventures of Flim & the BB's'' (DMP, 1988) (CD) * ''New Pants'' (Warner Bros., 1990) (CD) * ''This is a Recording'' (1992, Warner Bros., 1992) (CD)


Compilation albums

* ''Vintage BB's'' (DMP, 1991) (CD)


References


External links


Internet Archive of DMP Records' Flim site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bbs, Flim and the Jazz ensembles from Minnesota Musical groups established in the 1970s Warner Records artists