Aqualung HELP!

Hi Angel,

Your recall is probably better than mine...... i thought SH only had a couple days to do it.

-Jeffrey

 

He was given a limited amount of time to use the actual master tapes, but he had all his "moves" down by that time. I'm sure the three days or whatever that he had to actually master this album didn't affect the outcome...

 

But does it have any bass?

 

Sorry, but I'm not criticising Steve's work here!!!
MoFi chose to rewrite history with equalisation. Steve did the mastering as the UK vinyl sounded. My point is that the recording is very squashed and the drums are poorly recorded - compare the sound with This Was or even better, Stand Up.
Incidentally, the green label Chrysalis pressings also used the same Island masters - see the ILPS 9145 A1U/B1U in the dead wax - and none of them sound good. That was what the recording was like. IMHO, there was a big drop in recording quality with Benefit and Aqualung, and a return to sonic form with TAAB

 

Well, of course it has bass...*all* the issues of this album have bass. What you're asking is, does it have enough bass to suit your tastes?

As to that I can't say. I certainly preferred Mr. Hoffman's remaster over EMI's attempt (the worst by far of their generally great remasters series, IMO). Aqualung, by Ian Anderson's own reports, was recorded under suboptimal conditions, and will never be an 'audiophile' setpiece. I suspect the DCC is pretty close to what the master tape sounds like. If you must have more bass, you could try adjusting it using a preamp, equalizer, or digital editing tools.

 

How difficult is it to find Steves' version of Aqualung?

 

What John said. One of the more interesting pressings is the Quad issue. Not sonically great either but a bit better/different.

 

Not difficult if you had $150 to blow on half.com.

Jim W.

 

thanks Gary, good advice.

 

Hey, brucefan:

A sealed copy has been collecting dust at Audiogon for 24 days. It's not exactly a gift at the asking price of $99.00 but it's less than $150.00.

Perhaps the chap will give in a little.

BTW, it's not mine and I'm not familiar with the seller.

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?softdisc&1059537503

Good luck with your search.

Jet

 

Thanks for the heads up , Jet.

 

I've got a blue/white label Chrysalis LP w/CHR 1044 on the covers spine. AMG shows a 21044 from 91' and a Reprise 2035 from 71'. What do I have and is there a better site than AMG to identify releases?

 

I'm not at all sure about that. As I recall it seemed like everything above the midrange had been filtered out. For me, it's a pretty nearly fatal flaw.

With the vinyl all that does is bring up vinyl noise. I suppose it might work with a CD issue, but there are limits. If things are filtered steeply enough there's just no way to get them back.

I'm sure if there was much bass on the master tape it would be there on Steve's mastering. I guess I'm asking if the master tape is as deficient in bass as the original LPs were.

 

Steve's is the best, but it's a pretty lousy recording anyway. That's strange, because the rest of their catalog sounds so well done.

I bought the DCC gold CD when it came out, I'm proud to say.

 

I guess the MFSL LP bass is boosted..."Locomotive Breath"...extreme bass!

 

The blue/white labels were much later.
The originals pressings of Aqualung were on Island UK (ILPS1945 - sunray label). The next pressings used a green/red label with the same metalwork as the Island pressings (ie check out the dead wax)
The album was given a new number after Thick as a Brick was released - the number you have (but many of these still used the Island metalwork for pressings)
Next the label was changed to the blue/white design and the UK pressings were redone by Polygram I believe (if my memory serves, I remember seeing the familiar Polygram UK sequence of numbers in the dead wax)

 

Thanks for the info John. Record companies and releases can be difficult to figure out. I'm hoping to pick up a turntable in the near future to give this and some other vinyl a spin.

 

As I said many times before the DCC remaster is the best remaster. Period!

 

Cool!, I have an old Pioneer from the 70's lying around...I'll have to hook her up and get a Thumpin!!

 

Ian Anderson has said that "Aqualung" was recorded at the new Island Stuidos under very bad technical conditions, and that it NEVER sounded good, even in the control room.

At the time, he thought the album was a total disaster, and the band had been unsucessfully used as "guniea pigs" for the new studio.

FM rock radio came along at just the right time, I guess.