A Guide to the Stones Remastered SACDs

Looks like I'll be keeping my London CDs for reference.

 

This list is very useful, but it depresses me that I pretty much have to buy more CDs than I want to get all the songs. It's been said million of times before, but Flowers is a stupid collection, especially as it duplicates songs from the previous two US albums (and the UK versions). I wish they would have put the few songs unique to that collection on More Hot Rocks too.

Oh well, leave it to ABKCO to squeeze every dollar (or 20 dollars) out of the fans.

 

You bet it's depressing. I sat down with a discography the other day and figured out that by using the original UK album track listings and adding bonus tracks, it would be possible to give you at least one version of very song released by the Rolling Stones during the 1960's by releasing the following CD's:

The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones No. 2
Out of Our Heads
Aftermath
Got Live if You Want It
Between the Buttons
Her Satanic Majesty's Request
Beggars Banquet
Let It Bleed
Get Yer Ya Ya's Out
The Singles Collection

Instead, ABKCO has released twice as many hybrid CD's and they STILL haven't managed to include everything (there's still a couple of live tracks from the UK Got Live if You Want It EP that are still missing in action). And while it's good that they finally released Metamorphosis, I'd much rather have them released a multidisc "Black Box" containing more unreleased material, since Metamorphosis only scratches the surface.

 

Amazingly, it's NOT folded down. I A-B'd it with the original UK stereo Hot Rocks version, playing both simultaneously & switching back & forth, and all instruments are in EXACTLY the same spot in the stereo spread! It just SEEMS folded down because the sound on the prior release is so much thinner than the new one. Why Hot Rocks, Flowers and Through The Past Darkly use the mono version is beyond me, as the new mastering would take away most people's objections to the stereo mix. Why they just didn't go with stereo on every album always whenever possible & only stuck the mono versions on The Singles Collection (which would have made it more essential than it currently is) is an answer that can only come from the "brilliant" minds of Allan Klein, Andrew Loog Oldham & Jon Astley!

 

I wonder if we'll find out that Jon is responsible for the fold-downs (which could've happened during transferring).

Probably not, though.

-D

 

Has anybody proved that they ARE fold-downs? My ears tell me they are not (see above). If so, which tracks?

 

Unless things have changed since the sampler disc came out, the following tracks are slightly folded down:

I Am Waiting
Miss Amanda Jones (intro only)
Dandelion
Honky Tonk Women

Listen to I Am Waiting on the old London CD. Listen to ONLY the left channel in the intro. The ONLY thing you will hear is echo until the vocals come in. Now listen to the new version. You can clearly hear the guitar in the left channel - more than just the echo.

Same with Honky Tonk Women. I don't have the original handy at the moment, but I'm pretty sure the opening cowbell is ONLY in the right channel. On the sampler it is moved to center slightly - if you listen to just the left channel you can hear it loud and clear.

Now, I haven't heard the released SACDs yet, so I suppose it is POSSIBLE they changed things, but...

Since I haven't heard the "new" stereo Mother's Little Helper, do this. Turn off the left channel completely. You should hear the vocals and "sitar" very clearly, and a TINY hint of the backing track - it is almost non-existent on the original stereo mix. If you can hear the backing at all, then they folded it in a bit.

 

Larry -- were you listening with headphones? If you were, the fold-down should have been pretty obvious in an A-B comparison.

 

No, speakers, & I was concentrating on the sitar track in the right channel, which IS exact. I'll pull out the phones & try it tonight.

 

I currently do not own an SACD player (although these discs and the Sony price drops have me close). My question is this, Is it worth replacing my older Stones CDs with this new remasters or are the stereo mixes too similar to make a difference?

 

Luke, a couple of questions: I wonder why No Expectations is in mono on the Singles Box since this was the first appearance of a stereo b-side? And I like the stereo Cloud only because of its longer fade out. Is the remastered mono mix still faded early (2:52)?

Thanks,

Brian

 

Well, its 2:53 or so on the sampler disc. I'd assume its the same on the released CDs.

Are you sure about No Expectations being in stereo on the single? Odd that that would be in stereo but Street Fighting Man be in mono. Also, I know the mix on the old singles box was missing most of Brian's slide work, so it does seem like there was a unique mono mix made, unless they just used one side of the stereo mix or something (I've never checked).

 

I looked at the stereo/mono chart again and I see they are not issuing the mono single version of "Brown Sugar" either. I have the 45 and it's a different mix. Better bass, drier, and there's an oh-so-slight difference in the studio chat at the end. I wish I could remember what that was off the top of my head.... but something is said that was mixed out of the stereo version.

 

I really do not get this emphasis on the negative that some of you are making. ABKCO got, let's say, 99% of it right, and we have all this harping about the 1% that could have been better. What areas in life are 100% perfect?

A month ago we thought we might always be stuck with the existing product, and now a vast improvement is here, better than anyone had any expectations for.

Let's put these petty complaints in perspective and thank our lucky stars.

 

First of all, ABKCO doesn't really deserve ANYBODY'S sympathy considering how badly they f****d up the last time.

Second, they've had over 15 years to "get it right."

Third, it is NOT nitpicking to criticize ABKCO for using the WRONG mix on the Singles Collection. This is SUPPOSED to include the original single mixes, nearly all of which are supposed to be in mono. I'll agree that some things are a judgment call, like whether or not to use the stereo mix of "Get off of My Cloud" (but you'd think that with that track appearing on several different titles, they'd have been able to include the stereo mix at least once). But it's not a "judgment call" to include a stereo mix on the Singles Collection when the single contained a mono mix. That's called a screw-up.

Fourth, ABCKO hasn't even come close to getting things 99% right. They used digipaks, which wear out easily and can't be replaced. They defended their decision not to include additional photos and liner notes by arguing that they wanted to remain faithful to the original releases, but still didn't use the original Between the Buttons artwork. And despite trying to spread tracks out over as many different releases as possible (nearly a third of the releases are largely redundant), they still managed to forget about the UK Got Love if You Want It EP.

 

And they used noise reduction in places.

Look out, I'm going to get David Goodwin-mad pretty soon.

 

I don't get mad, Luke...I get *creatively furious*. It's a surprisingly different emotion.


Are you sure these're NR artifacts, and not just weird processing artifacts?

(FWIW, I'm hoping that the NR was just applied to the CD layer, if anything)

-D

 

Miss Amanda Jones has a fair amount of hiss on the sampler. It has significantly less hiss on the BTB release, plus a processed sound to it.

You do the math.

 

Well, that rules Bob Ludwig out of the equation on THAT...if this turns out to be Astley, the **** might actually hit the fan.

-D

 

Luke wrote:

Actually, Luke, I was basing that on an earlier thread. The link is below:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6073&highlight=stereo+stones


In that thread Uncle Al wrote:

Brian

 

Looks like I'll be hanging on to my old London CDs, then....

 

Yes, No Expectations was in stereo on the original mono London (US) single (the one that featured the true mono mix as opposed to the fold down). No where on the label is it identified as stereo, but it is.

 

London issued stereo promo copies of Street Fighting Man/No Expectations in 1968, but the regular singles were mono.

GM

Addendum: Well this is interesting....so perhaps SOME copies of the single had a stereo B-side? I don't remember that at all, and I played the disc for months during my Top 40 radio days. I kept the lone stereo promo copy when it arrived because the mono version sounded better on the air.

 

Well, how do we know Bob *didn't* use NR?

It seems as if Astley was involved in "pre-producton". There's obviously no NR on the sampler disc, so even if he did the Miss Amanda Jones transfer, he didn't muck it up.

 

has anyone actually seen 12 X 5? or england's newest hitmakers?

i visited Tower Records in Dallas, and they only had the following in stock:

Hot Rocks
High Tide
Aftermath US and UK
Out of Our Heads UK
Beggars Banquet
Let It Bleed
Satanic Majesties...
Metamorphosis

I was surprised Tower didn't get more titles...