Eric Records - new releases - DES or "Digitally Extracted Stereo" versions of 50s classics +

I'll compare recordings I have of "Love Is All Around". On "Dick Bartley Presents Classic Oldies 1965-1969", it's a stereo debut and unless I'm mistaken, it's not DES. The levels between the instrumental tracks may vary from the original mono mix or perhaps there was additional compression applied. I'll compare stereo vs. mono on the Foobar DR meter. I have a pleasant sounding mono mix on RHINO's "Summer Of Love".

 

Well, I compared "Love Is All around" featured on RHINO's "Summer of Love Vol. 1" and "Dick Bartley Presents Classic Oldies 1965-1969". Diversion on the RHINO disc is mono.

RHINO disc DR measurements:

foobar2000 1.3.9 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-03-09 08:01:20

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statistics for: ?-Love Is All Around
Number of samples: 8043840
Duration: 3:02
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Left Right

Peak Value: -2.77 dB --- -2.73 dB
Avg RMS: -10.50 dB --- -10.46 dB
DR channel: 6.02 dB --- 6.02 dB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Official DR Value: DR6

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 1411 kbps
Codec: PCM
================================================================================

ERIC disc DR measurements:

foobar2000 1.3.9 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-03-09 07:56:42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statistics for: 16-Love Is All Around
Number of samples: 7921536
Duration: 3:00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Left Right

Peak Value: -0.78 dB --- -1.82 dB
Avg RMS: -14.91 dB --- -15.50 dB
DR channel: 11.68 dB --- 10.76 dB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Official DR Value: DR11

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 1411 kbps
Codec: PCM
================================================================================

The RHINO version sounds very squashed with all of the vocals and instrumentation more or less at the same volume, which would explain why the guitar sounds louder on that version. That's because the quieter elements of the song are being brought far closer to the forefront of the recording. My guess is that the RHINO recording more accurately represents what the original 45 RPM sounds like.

 

I would like to know as well. One thing is certain, they sound terrific! Another poster mentioned that the CD notes don't indicate which selections are DES and which are not. The official website does, so I made notes of my own. The three songs you mentioned are not noted as DES on the website.

 

They are from tape. I still don't like the stereo, and prefer the mono hit singles.

 

They are from tape. These are tapes that have never been issued until now. There are lots of stereo tapes out there that were mixed back in the 60s and early 70s that, for whatever reason, never got released, just like the stereo mix of I Melt With You" by Modern English. Eric released that last year, too.

 

I HATE MONO with a passion, it gives me a head ache to listen to, I hate the lack of spatial queues and to me mono is not musical in the l;east bit. It sounds so unnatural and to me does not sound like music. It seems most of the mono love just comes from the fact early stereo mixes were done by second class engineers.

I love the Eric Record DES release and wish I could send him a couple of CD's worth of mono tracks and have him remix them in DES.

 

I beg to differ, I greatly enjoy the House of the Rising Sun and Incense and Peppermints DES version much more than the mono versions.

 

How could anything as subjective as the value of DES ever be evaluated as a universal truth? It has value to me as these two songs I've always wanted to hear in stereo and the DES versions sound amazing to me.

 

Purists be darned......these DES tracks sound great. I can finally hear every note of the electric jug on "You're Gonna Miss Me".

 

These reasons do not seem to be related at all with the difficulty of separating tracks from a mono source, but rather to the impossibility of editing an alternate stereo source in order to successfully replicate a particular 45 mono mix. Which makes me question the true nature of that DES process.

 

Speaking of things that aren't universal truths...

 

It's like everything. You decide whether or not you like it, and you don't buy it if it isn't for you.

I don't mind DES and DCS - indeed I like a lot of the end results. In principle I find the Beatles 1+ Blu-ray far more offensive with the original recorded sound grossly distorted by whatever means to be hard in your face and further contaminated with fake add-a-track reverb in 5.1 mix.

 

Brett Weston; Landscape Photographer


Brett Weston; Landscape Photographer
January 24, 1993 |MYRNA OLIVER | TIMES STAFF WRITER

Brett Weston, son of pioneering modern photographer Edward Weston and himself renowned for his artistic black and white photographs of California landscapes and nature, has died at age 81.

Weston died Friday at the Kona Hospital on the Big Island of Hawaii after suffering a stroke, said his nephew, Matthew Weston of the Weston Gallery in Carmel.

The famed second generation photographer astounded and upset art and photography circles in late 1991 when he celebrated his 80th birthday by burning 75 of his most important negatives. Maintaining a lifelong pledge to himself, Weston burned or chemically defaced all but 12 of the thousands of negatives he had produced since he took up photography as a teen-ager.

"No one can print another photographer's negatives," he said in his 1980 monograph, "Brett Weston: Photographs from Five Decades."

"It's just too personal," he wrote. "There are infinite choices to make. It's partly a matter of mood. You have to work with enthusiasm. When I'm back from the field, I like to hit the darkroom that night and print the next morning.

 

If you compare the original mono mixes to these created with spectral editing, you will find that absolutely no creative liberties were taken. The only difference is a slight EQ variance that one would find on any mastering.

I will admit that when I want to get into the time machine and go back to 1967 for "Incense And Peppermints", it is still going to be the mono mix. Why? On the mono mix, after the first six measures, the next four with the background vocals are slightly muffled, as if it was edited onto the tape. So, that little detail makes a difference to me. But, I can easily replace the mono "Winchester Cathedral" and "Little Red Riding Hood" with the new stereo mixes and never miss the mono.

 

It's a shame (according to Greg Russo) that Art LaBoe at Original Sound trashed all the original 10-track tapes in the mid-70's.
If that didn't happen, we could get a unedited full stereo mix of Incense and Peppermints, (the alternate single version of) Tomorrow, and a version of Sit With The Guru without that annoying bit that the record company tacked onto the end of the track. Better yet, a instrumental backing of that song without the cheesy lyrics.

LaBoe still has the 10-track headblock from Paul Buff's machine but trashed all the tapes.

Some of the songs on those discs came out in true stereo, how do we know what's been DES'ed and what hasn't?

 

Eric will tell you
no secrets

*This track is presented in Digitally Extracted Stereo (DES), a technological advance that uses the original mono recording to produce an authentic stereo listening experience.

 

Black & white or colour - I couldn't care less either way. If they colourised A Hard Day's Night it would most likely irritate me, and I certainly wouldn't rush out to see it or buy it.

But sound is completely different. If somebody brought out Old Man River in DEQ (digitally extracted quadraphonic) or if somebody remixed Come On by The Rolling Stones in W-I-D-E S-T-E-R-E-O™ I would be wanting them immediately.

We're all different. Live and let live.

 

I still dislike the term "Digitally Extracted Stereo" to describe spectral editing.

Why would he do that, and where can I read more about this? I have always been wary of any Art Laboe product, even the Oldies But Goodies 45 RPM series because of NR.

How did Art Laboe wind up with the tapes?

Did he transfer them to 16-track, or did he just out and out trash the tapes? I always thought the miltitracks were considered gold. If nothing else, you don't get rid of the multitracks!

Eric Records has nothing to hide. They have always mentioned the sources of the tracks on their CDs. They have come a very long way in the last decade. They no longer use that dreaded noise reduction, and haven't in years. Their volumes 15 and 16 of mostly 80s songs were sonically fantastic! They are the best sounding two CDs the company has ever done, IMO.

 

OK, I totally understand your position. I also felt that way not too long ago. But, have you actually listened to the CD?

 

Is this your perspective on all remixes? Because DES stereo is a a remixing process ... nothing more, nothing less.

 

C'mon man, that's the definition of any remix.