Were Jim Reeves' songs speeded up for Bear Family box?

Larry Jordan, who authored the new Jim Reeves biography (672 pages of it ) , says in his blog that he suspects the songs in the 16-CD Bear Family box set were speeded up in order to fit so many songs into each disc.

Here's what Larry says in his blog:

You can find the blog post here.

Larry does not state this as fact. Rather, he says he suspects the songs were speeded up.

So, my question is: does anyone know for a FACT whether the songs in the box set were speeded up?

Any other info you can provide on this box set or other Jim Reeves material is welcome.

Thanks!

 

Steve,

That's what I was thinking about a company so devoted to preserving old music.

But what's this assertion about the box set being "not tuned to A-440"?

Can you explain that in layman's terms?

 

Well, I don't have any 45s.

BUT, if I can put up a Bear Family track and the same track from the Jim Reeves CD you mastered for DCC, would that help, or must you have the original 45?

 

I assume we're talking about an extremely slight speed variation, otherwise it would be obvious to all listeners and easily verifiable by comparing track lengths. But how much time would you gain on a disc by speeding songs up so slightly that there's only a subtle, barely noticeable pitch difference? Probably less than a second per song, which means you'd gain maybe 20 seconds for each entire CD. Are any of the discs in this box set so maxed out that there aren't 20 seconds to spare on a disc?

If there are pitch problems with some tracks, I'm skeptical that it was done deliberately due to CD space limitations. This is a 16-CD box set we're talking about here. If Bear needed more space, they would have just added a 17th CD, wouldn't they? It's not like there are a significant amount of people who would buy a 16-CD box but would balk at the cost of 17 CDs.

 

Don't know if this is relevant, but how long are these cds. Some Bear Family cds I have exceed 80 minutes, and have 30+ tracks.

 

The older sets, like Reeves, do not exceed 80 minutes per CD

By the way, I have both the 16CD and the 4CD BF boxes of Reeves. The sound does differ, I forget exactly which way. But my conclusion after much synched A/B comparison was that it was a toss-up as to which one would be called better...but they did differ

 

I wonder what the reason for the difference is. Larry Jordan, Jim Reeves' biographer, is pretty certain Bear Family speeds up the music.

 

It's pretty irresponsible of Jordan to make such charges without citing proof, particularly when it would be simple to prove one way or another. The fact that he hasn't bothered to analyze any tracks suggests he's more interested in throwing around innuendo than finding the truth. And it's clear he has an axe to grind against Bear Family, given the other comments on his blog.

 

This is something I've been trying to understand for years! When the 16 disc box set was released, some fans said it was a vast improvement over the 4 disc box set, which supposedly used some "inferior" copies of the master tapes. I've never known Bear Family to release anything considered inferior, so is there a possibility that it might have just been a strategy to sell copies of the expanded set.?

The new Johnny Horton expanded set definitely brings something new to the table when compared to the two previous sets.

 

I bought the Jim Reeves Bear Family's 16 cds box-set in a records store at Munchen (Germany) just 20 years ago today (August 1, 1995)!
Although today it seems strange, I should say that I made that fast trip (from Italy to Germany with my car, all in less than 2 days) ONLY just to buy that set, because then my records stores in Italy were unable to take soon that set to me (eventually, once in Munchen, I bought also the Bobby Bare box-set and various others Bear Family cds)... now I have more than 180 BF box-set and hundreds of BF cds and dvds.
Today, in the internet era, I can order and have cds and box-sets (of Bear or others labels) soon and fast (with less expense also), also now I can pre-order a box-set days before his release, but then in 1995 ...

 

Is is possible to change speed without changing the pitch/key:

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/change_speed.html

 

That's very interesting!
Thanks for the link.

 

Larry Jordan has done anything he can to trash and criticize Bear Family, on Amazon and elsewhere. He holds many grudges. I wouldn't trust anything he writes.

 

I have both sets, and when I got the 16 set, I carefully did many synched A/B comparisons. There was a difference, and though it was hard to decide which was better, I gave away the 4CD set as it was "duplicated". Later that friend gave me back the 4CD set. I would believe that it was just a slightly better remastering on the 16CD set, though it is possible that an earlier generation tape was located in the USA. The 4CD set is not "inferior", or at least what that word connotes, even if one prefers the 16CD version. I can see some people picking the 4CD edition

 

Oh yes!

He is extremely critical of anything that is not produced by him!

He has even gone to great lengths to criticize the Mosaic box set of Rosemary Clooney, I suspect because he produced a Clooney CD as well and finds the Mosaic set bad for his business...

At the same time, he absolutely cannot handle any criticism of his products. He goes berserk!

 

And Larry Jordan uses pseudonyms to continue his tirades and trashing of anyone who appreciates Bear Family more than his bootleg overdubs

 

A Mosaic set or overdubbed public-domain stuff? Hm... Tough choice

Back to the Jim Reeves BF.

 

Revisiting the original question, is there any positive way to find out whether the music was speeded up or not?

 

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but couldn't you compare the running times from the cd to the running times on the corresponding lp or 45?

 

Yes, it would be easy. All you'd have to do is compare the running times on the Bear Family box to other releases of the same tracks, either on LP or CD. Yet for some reason the guy who is floating this theory (Larry Jordan) either didn't bother to do this simple test, or else he did do it but could not find any evidence to prove his accusation. Either way, I can't imagine why anyone would take his claims seriously, since he's citing absolutely no evidence to prove them. Furthermore, it seems clear that he has an intense bias against Bear Family that makes his comments about them even more suspect.

 

Absolutely. The false accusations Jordan has made about Bear Family and Mosaic would potentially cause damage to most companies, but I don't think many people would even give his comments the time of day. Thankfully, Bear Family and Mosaic have an unsurpassed level of brand loyalty which is testament to the quality of their products. If Jordan views Bear Family and Mosaic as competition, I believe he's sadly mistaken. VoiceMasters mostly sells posthumous overdubs which appeal to a much smaller market of die-hard fans and unsuspecting or misinformed buyers.

 

Bear Family have built their excellent reputation around ethics, accuracy and an undying love for the music. There are many European labels who do not license the recordings and pay royalties as Bear Family does.