Moshkito

jamesg1213
Looking forward to watching this at the weekend;
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tb97f
 
Howard Goodall analyses each song to show how The Beatles built them layer by layer. Heard a couple of excerpts this week, very interesting stuff.

I saw there was one for Kate Bush as well ... would have loved to see it, but we can't see it in america!

These things usually turn up on YT eventually. There's this KB one from 3 years ago;
 

I've been listening to it on Amazon Prime Music all day at home and in my car. It's great to hear the differences from the original. 

I've just found out how to rip to FLAC using WinAmp, so I've ordered the CD. I reckon that'll be close enough to a factory FLAC from the originals for my 60+ year old ears. $19.72 with shipping and sales tax.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=0x20B8B
 

bitflipper
Can anyone name a single album that got better after being remastered?

I'm kind of thinking the Motorhead "No Remorse" compilation. Not an album remaster of course but a bunch of good 'uns made to pop better.
 
But that of course was Motorhead and the originals were... well... pretty chaotic.
 
AND personally (and this is due to the time period of the release) I think they made it all a bit too crisp/tinny in the high end... but it's pretty clean and ballsy.
 
For something like Peppers though which was well produced to begin with (for the time period) you're kind of starting at a higher bar than early MH recordings vs. the No Remorse remaster.
 
Based on this thread though I do indeed think I'd like to hear this. Even though it's not my generation of course I've heard those tunes many many times and always felt the compositions weren't being fully represented. If someone has managed to draw out all the little subleties of the OG tracks... awesome.
 
The comment about "I'm hearing instruments I forgot about" is especially encouraging.
 
er... and...
 
Hi?
 
lulz

 
@Beeps, re Motörhead...
 
I still have their first five original vinyl studio albums (Motörhead; Overkill; Bomber; Ace Of Spades; Iron Fist) as well as the wonderful live vinyl No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith and they are all - without exception - far superior listening experiences to any of the CD versions I've got of those albums. The only digital release that comes close is the recent 'complete' 2CD version of 'Hammersmith'.
 
Compared to the original LPs, the CD versions seem too stereophonically 'narrow' and have no separation of the constituent parts.
 
True, the music itself doesn't really lend itself to an ideal hi-fi experience, but surely they could have made a bit of an effort with the digital transfers.
 
 
@Bitflipper, re 'better' remasters...
 
In general I agree with what you say Dave. However, the recent release of most of The Clash's material in the Sound System box-set does come close to an improvement - certainly over previous digital remasters and maybe over some of the original LPs. The first album is definitely a more enjoyable listen for sure, and certain songs from other albums seem to have been 'opened up' and really shine now.
 
The Clash's very own Mick Jones had a lot of input into the remastering for Sound System - this passage from Wikipedia is quite interesting:
 
Clash guitarist, Mick Jones, who oversaw the re-mastering said "The concept of the whole thing is best box set ever. Re-mastering's a really amazing thing. That was the musical point of it all, because there's so much there that you wouldn't have heard before. It was like discovering stuff, because the advances in mastering are so immense since the last time [the Clash catalogue] was remastered in the 90s."
 
All the music has been remastered from the original tapes, Jones said. "We had to bake the tapes beforehand – the oxide on them is where the music is, so if you don't put them in the oven and bake them, that all falls off, because they're so old."
 
Bassist Simonon highlighted a guitar line on "Safe European Home", from the band's second album Give 'Em Enough Rope, saying he'd never even heard it before. "It's probably some session musician, while I was asleep," Jones joked.
 
 
 
 
 
 

SteveStrummerUK
 Bassist Simonon highlighted a guitar line on "Safe European Home", from the band's second album Give 'Em Enough Rope, saying he'd never even heard it before. "It's probably some session musician, while I was asleep," Jones joked.

 
Bass players!
 
Typical.
 

 

It's probably worth mentioning that everything that was originally released on vinyl has been "remastered" for digital since. The first wave of CD releases sounded pretty bad. I remember us getting our first CD player sometime in the early 80's (a Marantz, built like a tank with a large heatsink on the back) and while everyone was marveling at how "clean" the CDs sounded, I always felt like something was missing, even as a 10 year old. We had a recording of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" and to me it sounded kind of flat and one dimensional. Early digital converters were primitive and sounded brittle in the high end. Mastering engineers who had cut their teeth mastering for vinyl were ill equipped to master for digital and didn't really understand the format. 
 
I was quite into metal & thrash in the 80's and had a few albums on both LP and CD. I nearly always preferred the LP's because it seemed like a lot of the life and energy had been sucked out of the digital pressings.
 
I don't recall many remastered albums that I thought sounded better than the originals. Maybe the 50th anniversary remaster of Kind Of Blue, which sounds amazing. But they really did that properly. I hate how Spotify frequently has the remastered version of an album but not the original. Sometimes they have both, so you're able to compare them side by side. One that springs to mind is Remain In Light by Talking Heads, I've always loved the sound of that album. Comparing the original with the master is depressing. It's just louder, with more bass and to my ears less detail as a result. I mean why would you want to screw with the bass levels of a Talking Heads album? They were never a bassy band. The mentality is "well people like more bass these days." So what? Screw them!

Speaking of Beatles, I've cleaning up my studio all day listening to Sgt Peppers, The While Album, and Revolver. 
I've got my speaker system dialed in with a balanced woofer now and it sound so good. I like the older albums as much as the remixed one. 
It's so great to hear all the tones and parts on a good system. The panning always amazes me. Their music was produced so creatively. 
I would not have left in all the timing errors, harmony pitches, and sometimes where the BG vocals even said wrong words at times. It's so cool that human side was left in.
 
It's amazing how clean I can get my studio when I am listening to great music.

@Straummy...
 
But do you have that No Remorse double CD set I'm talking about? It's pretty solid. I've heard many of the MH CD releases (and OG vinyl) and while they do have a certain pleasing warmth they don't smash through the same way.
 
Also keep in mind I grew up with cassettes and then CD's. Vinyl was not really part of my musical experience as much as it would be for others so I don't have that ingrained "vinyl just feels right" thingie in my brain.
 
I mean I like the sound of old school records but really, there is some sonic limitations. Especially for a super loud band like Motorhead.