a little mastering trivia

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_Banquet


In August 2002, ABKCO Records reissued Beggars Banquet as a newly remastered LP and SACD/CD hybrid disk.[11] This release corrected an important flaw in the original album by restoring each song to its proper, slightly faster speed. Due to an error in the mastering, Beggars Banquet was heard for over thirty years at a slower speed than it was recorded. This had the effect of altering not only the tempo of each song, but the song's key as well. These differences were subtle but important, and the remastered version is about 30 seconds shorter than the original release. It was released once again in 2010 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese only SHM-SACD version.




anyways...

I like to play with records as practice... some are tough to hook up with.

Sometimes there's a reason. :-)

That would sure splain a bunch of stuff like why albums back then were always out of tune with the piano in the house which was tuned to tuning forks (A-440) .....and why the coolest thing I ever bought back in the day was a turntable with an adjustable speed control. Guy at the stereo store said.... "Musician?"   when I asked for speed control.  I still have that turntable BTW. 

I wonder how out it was. And change of key may only be a fraction of a semitone. I guess get the remastered version and find out. Just goes to show how people could make mistakes even back then. Same thing can happen now. Someone had varispeed switched on one of the mastering tape machines and did not notice it until later. 

I still have a Technics Hi Fi direct drive turntable from the 70's. I have never seen so much electronics inside a turntable. Anyway varispeeding is its thing and it is very continuously adjustable over a nice range. It has a lovely strobe too. 
More importantly is the arm and pickup mounted on top of it and that in this case is the famous Shure V15 type III. Running through an expensive RIAA equaliser yields a fantastic sound especially on the Sheffield Lab albums from the 80's. There is so much detail it is quite breath taking. The Stones always sounded good too. 

Thanks for that Matt.

Good stuff.

best,
mike