It's great to see they are continuing the series! I guess the chances that they do the remaining 70's albums are slim, but all hope isn't gone..
Wow! That's even more exciting! (To me anyway). I could understand them not wanting to do Self Portrait because of what it is, but at the same time, did Pat Garrett sell that much at the time? Definitely wasn't around back then to know if it was popular or not... One album that badly needs an upgrade is "Dylan (A Fool Such As I)". This one was HORRIBLE on the 2013 set, compared to the old Columbia CD from 1991. It sounds like it was mastered from a 3rd gen cassette...
Wow...I disagree completely on DYLAN in the box. I thought the 2013 mastering is excellent compared to the old CD...I A/B'd them and it was like a layer of mud was removed when listening to the 2013 disc.
I would have to A/B them again, but I already did a few times since 2013, and I keep coming back to the old CD. Maybe I should have them level matched to do an absolutely fair comparison, but the first thing that jumps to me when listening to the new CD, is just how harsh it sounds. Just to be clear this not a mastering (limiting/compression) issue to me, but more of a tape source issue. I'm usually not that type of guy who likes older dull sounding CD masterings, but in this case I just really didn't like the new one.
God, I wasn't even slightly exaggerating when I said it sounded horrible. 10 seconds into the first song it's very obvious how bad it sounds. Here are 30 second samples of the first track, "Lily of the West", from the 1991 Columbia CD 32286, and the 2013 remaster. MEGA The 2013 remaster litterally sounds like a bad MP3 file encoded at 64kbps...
Apparently on the MFSL SACD reissue of Love and Theft, they're missing an edit because the mistake "stadows" is right there at about 1:35-1:40 on "Moonlight." From the Uncut interview with Love and Theft engineer Chris Shaw: But, the thing was, there’s a lyric on the song where Bob sings, “The leaves cast their shadows on the stones,” and, when he was singing it live, he was reading his lyrics off a piece of paper, and, I guess, for a split-second, he got dyslexic, because on the live take, he actually sang, “The leaves cast their *stadows* on the stones.” So, the only time I did any editing on that song, was when I heard this word “stadows” go by, I knew he meant shadows, because I had the lyric sheet in front of me. So, when I tried a remix, I took the vocal, and I found a “sh” from somewhere else, and I chopped the “st” out and put that in, so he was singing “shadows,” y’know. And Bob was listening to all these mixes, and he kept saying, “Nah, man, I really wanna use that rough mix.” Finally, I said, “Well, you know, on the rough mix, you don’t sing ‘shadows,’ you sing, ‘stadows.” And he took a long hit on his cigarette, and he kind of looked at me deadpan, and he went, “Well, you know:*‘stadows.’*” So, at the final mastering, we figured that we really couldn’t let that stadows go by, because everybody would give him **** about it, so we did sliver edit, literally just for the “sh,” like a 15 milisecond edit.
I hear it! Thanks for pointing this out -- I added the MoFi "Moonlight" to my file of Dylan oddities and rarities.
Great news about Oh Mercy and Pat Garrett. Wasn't expecting that one...but I'll be sure to reward MFSL with a purchase. That leaves Self Portrait, Greatest Hits Vol. II, and Dylan as the only catalogue titles from the debut album through Desire to not get the MFSL treatment.
Well there is no sign the the Dylan series is over. I wouldn't be surprised if it continues with a few more titles. Also "Slow Train Running" was a Sony SACD and MOFI haven't announced that one.
I am very glad to see MoFi continuing this series. Looking at how well they handled the dark mooded Blood On The Tracks, I am very excited for Oh Mercy! On a side note, did MoFi ever address the clicking problems on Track 5 of the Planet Waves SACD? Been out of the loop for a bit, and can't even remember which MoFi thread the clicks were originally discussed!
Also (I'm doing this from memory; please correct me as necessary): MoFi consulted with the remastering engineer, who confirmed the audibility of the clicks and said they were present on the tapes he was given. There may even have been a defense of the decision not to fix/repress in the name of "warts-and-all". The clicks are indeed audible and I can see why they are an irritation for audiophile buyers of an MFSL title. That said, given the way I usually listen to music, the 2-4 light clicks on that one track are not much of an impediment to enjoying what is otherwise a pretty great remaster. There is also, on one track, a throat-clearing, one-beat, introductory guitar thrum included on some versions of the album, but shaved off here. Listeners who know and love that guitar thrum will also be frustrated by its absence on the MFSL. So: in sum, I think the irritations with Planet Waves are justifiable -- one expects perfection from MFSL. What one gets on Planet Waves is perfection on all but two tracks. My own view is that the imperfections there are pretty minor, but others are well within their rights to observe that audible imperfection is audible imperfection and I think most of us agree that MFSL might have made some happier decisions on the two tracks in question.
Thank you so much for catching me up!!! I am glad to hear MFSL went back to check the master tapes! If the clicks are on the mater tape, then I have no problem with MFSL leaving them on. Tape damage does happen, and if MFSL wants to take the stance that they present the master tapes as is without digital touchups, I am fine with that! For some reason (and again I have been out of the loop on this), I seem to recall that the LP pressing of Planet Waves did not have the clicks, which left me rather confused regarding the SACD.