I did something I haven't done in the longest time on sunday. I played all four sides of Exile, back to back, the whole way through. Over lunch etc. I played the UK first pressing. A few thoughts. This being one of my favourite records. I love it. A lot of people denigrate Exile a bit as being, well, not exactly an audiophile gem. Here I disagree. Exile is simply a very mixed bag sonically. Very. With certain tracks suffering from a very dense mix - requiring a very good cartridge to make sense of. Other are very narrow stereo, almost mono. However.... MOST OF IT - thanks to Andy and Glyn Johns, and Jimmy Miller are role models for some of the biggest, juiciest, airy, thumping Rock n' Roll sound anywhere. Loving Cup for example has some of the best, most realistic drum sound around. It is weird though, and can be disconcerting playing this all the way through on a good, high end, wide band system, because the sound moves all over the place. Moving from nice wide stereo, to near mono narrowness from track to track. Also, it was recorded in something like four different places, each place leaving its signature on the sound. Side 2 is a good example - it goes from nice wide stereo - Sweet Virginia - to narrow - Torn & Frayed and Sweet Black Angel - then back to this wonderful wide soundstage on Loving Cup. The move from All Down the Line - very narrow stereo, and not particularly good - to Stop Breaking Down - huge wide stereo and great sound - is just plain jarring. I think a lot of people focus on the narrow stereo, not so great, or overly dense mix tracks and paint the whole album that way. The thing is, on a good system, you can hear the wide variation in the tracks. Some are excellent. Have a listen to Stop Breaking Down. The first UK press sounds the best. It is an Artisan mastering, having the Artisan on all four sides. Comparing the deadwax on the U.S. first pressing and the German pressing is interesting. The U.S. and the Germans have a letter after the number. The U.S. for example is: Side 1: ST-RS - 722507 - C CC - 1 with the CC - 1 in much fainter letters than the rest. Side 2: ST-RS - 722508 - B BB X - 1 with the BB X -1 in much fainter letters than the rest. Also the handwriting varies from side to side. Like the mastering was done by different people. The German pressings all have letters after the numbers, either -A , -B or -C. But that's it. Again, the handwriting varies from side to side. And side 1 on the German pressings is missing the the Artisan symbol, but the handwriting is consistent with Artisan as is the "PR" written in. The U.K. pressing however has just the number written in. But no letters. Just the number: ST-RS - 722507 - 10. It's also stamped, COC 69100 A1 , B1 , C2 , D1. This I'm assuming was stamped when it was pressed in the UK. The U.K. actually sounds substantially better than the others and I'm wondering why. I am guessing that this U.K. first press is actually the first mastering done of this record, possibly by Bob MacLeod at Artisan. When whoever it was brought the tapes round, is it possible that the first run was done for the U.K., for the May 12 release date? And shipped off. Then the U.S. mastering work was done. And that the U.K. sounds better because being the first run of the new record from "The worlds greatest rock n' roll band", it got a LOT of love and attention. This being the one everyone involved was going to keep for their own collection? Then for subsequent releases it was passed to the people working there at the time, like John Golden or others. I am guessing that the lettering on the US and german presses may be for different lacquers made at the time.
A couple more notes. The original production master of Exile on Main Street that was used for the original Artisan runs was lost. Sometime in the '80s apparently. Anyway, it is GONE. Maybe someone took it home. In which case it will almost certainly turn up one day in someones estate when they die. Bob Ludwig in 1994 used a tape which was "apparently" was put together from the session reels. "Apparently". This was the reason for getting hold of an original mint U.S. first pressing in Los Angeles back then. Bob Ludwig needed a reference to work to. I do not believe for a minute that the source for that 1994 CD is the same as the original Artisan presses. The 2010 Marcussen remaster is a travesty. Compressed, hard, flat and aggressive sounding. It sucks. Stephen Marcussen is for my money the single worst mastering engineer doing big name work today, period. Whenever there is something to compare Marcussens work to, that something sounds miles better than Marcussens work. Just compare the hi-rez digital of "Blue and Lonesome" to the vinyl. A world of difference. For me, Bob Ludwig is practically a guarantee for great sound. Stephen Marcussens name is a guarantee for bad sound. I think the SHM SACD is a copy of the original tape, sent to London at some point for local issues. From the sound of it. It sounds like a flat transfer. It sounds great. I love it.
Exile was cut at Artisan by Andy Johns. My guess would be he made a bunch of lacquers - one set of which went to the UK. I seriously doubt your theory is correct about UK vs US, etc.
Maybe. I am wondering why the U.K. press is missing the extra letters. And why it sounds noticeably better than the others.
Is it the general consensus that the UK first pressing sounds better than others of the same vintage?
My theory is the SACD is a flat transfer of a production master sent to the UK. It sounds too much like an Artisan LP to me to be a flat transfer of the master tape.
This happened frequently. The inscriptions aren't all necessarily done at the same time, at the same location. See Who's Next for an example.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. That makes sense. But I think that original production master got lost. The Ludwig 1994 CD just doesn't match up with the original.
There can be multiple production masters made. Perhaps A production master was lost, but I don't buy that THE original production master was lost. How does the Ludwig CD matching up (or not matching up) with the original (original what?) have to do with a production master being lost or not?
I have managed to track down a UK copy with the Artisan logo on all four sides. The numbers are as follows: COC-69100-A2/B1/C2/D2 What is the difference as far as the numbers are concerned after each letter? To get a true first pressing do they all have to be 1s? Any why the mixture of numbers? Sorry if my questions sound stupid but I would like to get as good a pressing of this as possible as I am not one for having multiple copes of the same album. Thanks!
Hi, I'm not sure, there probably is a A1/B1/C1/D1 - I have three UK copies which between them have all first and second variations - i.e my three copies have the sides as follows: Copy 1: A1/B1/C2/D2 Copy 2: A1/B2/C1/D1 Copy 3: A2/B2/C2/D2 I can only assume that the first and second cuts of each side were pretty quick in succession as yours is A2/B1/C2/D2 - so that would suggest they were using various combinations of the 1's and 2's around the same time - I can't remember if there is much difference between them, they all sound very good - from very vague memory the B1 may have been better than the B2, but that wouldn't necessarily ring true for the other sides - which is why I probably kept all three copies... I think you can happily assume yours is a pretty early copy.
The Artisan is overrated. It has a 'dirty/busy' top end....as in from 2k on up to the treble. And it lacks the bass 'Kick' that the 1/2 speed FINALLY gives us. It's good, but the 1/2 speed upped the game immensely. The beave
I wouldn't concern myself with chasing numbers unless a number of people whose opinions you trust say otherwise - and that's not likely. It's more than likely that the -1's & -2's for the various sides were produced at the same time by the same person using the same tape, the same mastering moves, and the same (or nearly the same) eqpt. Plus there is probably more inherent variability in the pressing process of the LPs themselves than between the -1's & 2's - you can have 2 LPs with the same exact deadwax that can sound noticably different.
I have the '94 Virgin cd, the half speed Abbey Road vinyl, a 1979 reissue lp with CUN in deadwax and the high fidelity pure audio blu ray. The blu ray is my go to at the moment.
The compression and the softer EQ robs it of energy. The drums have less whack and musical nuance is noticably diminished. It's basically the widely loathed Marcusson master on vinyl.