"Finally" a GREAT All Things Must Pass

After hearing that Steve had remastered All Things Must Pass all we could do was drool. Well, we may never get to hear Steve's work on this great LP but..... there is now a great remaster done by Mickboy.
Mickboy known for his great and meticulous work on Rolling Stones LPs has done magic with All Things Must Pass.
He's known for getting the best sources of vinyl and working months on end bringing the life out of them with none digital equipment.
The two disc set also includes great outtakes from the sessions.


A true find!

Joe

 

Intersting...need to find that one.

 

The recent EMI/Apple remaster is awwwwwwful - I was surprised when the late Listener magazine gave it a big thumbs up - the wall o' sound was pretty much toppled on that travesty - yuck........

 

Yeah, more details please! I already have the credit card out... I just don't have any place to put it. (Sounds like one of my typical weekends)

 

Hmm, Quite a different scenario with a couple of different words inserted in that sentence...

 

he he he... you said inserted.

 

Mickboy is a bootleg label, so this certainly won't be commonly available. Reportedly Mickboy also issued some Stones needle drop remasters that sound very very good. I haven't heard them, though, so I can't say for certain.

 

I know...

 

Too bad Steve's mastering doesn't leak out under the guise of a dub of a "rare Japanese pressing" or something...

 

Well Steve? Would that be considered a membership perk?

 

Yeah!!

Any chance Steve??

- Gabe

 

We'll keep it under our hat.Mums the word.

 

What's the deal with the Steve remaster of ATMP?
I have heard of this MickBoy, but I havent heard any of his stuff

 

I will have this soon. I will report back what I hear..

This is a quote from Mickboy about it:

In Mickboy's own words: "The first is ‘All Things Must Pass’! As my
personal homage to one of The greats in Rock music-George Harrison.

When George died, (on my birthday no less!) last year, the loss
shouldn’t have hit me as hard as it did. After all, I really dig the
Beatles and some of their solo stuff but I’m a bit younger than the
generation up from mine that grew up with them. But nonetheless I felt
an incredible sadness hearing of his death, not so much that a ‘Great’
was gone but more of an anger that this man, who didn’t waver in his
spiritual and moral convictions over the last 75% of his lifetime (if
only our elected officials had one TENTH of that kind of integrity, it
would be a better world!) died knowing that after all was said and
done….. Absolutely F*****G NOTHING had changed for the better!! Very
very sad. But life goes on…………..

So, inspired by that Rock and Roll spirit I went about
digging out a cd copy of a Japanese pressing of ATMP that a
very good friend sent me, (Thanks Chris!! You da man!!), And
for the very first time, really listening to this album that I
knew had a heavy rep as a 'classic' but had never heard it,
except for the radio cuts. Well, my friend did a great
transfer from vinyl to disc and that gave me the source I
needed to work with……So I started by seeing if anything could
be done with 'My Sweet Lord'..............

What came out of the speakers after I was done is nothing
short of magical! No lie! When the background singers on ‘My
Sweet Lord’ came over the speakers, and I use only two, no
‘surround’ sound, I literally got choked up. So much so that I
had to pause the playback and regain my composure and then
start it over again to see if I wasn’t just being emotional.
The singers seemed to really surround me, to the point that I
looked around me to see what was coming from behind me!!! All
I can tell you is that the ‘life’ that sprang from the
speakers was nothing short of spine tingling. The remaster
took on a life of its own and I take NO credit for what you
will hear except that for a few nights, by myself, I set my
mind on doing this man’s music some justice and you can be the
judge on the results, I KNOW what I hear, and it’s fantastic!
The muddiness of this old 70's record has been transformed
into a detail rich, lively recording that hopefully, will
satisfy Audiophiles and Fans of George alike.

To round out this double disc set, I dug into my archives and
pulled out many acoustic demo’s and acetate recordings and set
about remastering them all, one by one. Now, there’s nothing
new here for the very seasoned Harrison collector, But what we
do have is two cd’s full to the brim of incredible sounding
George, both released and unreleased… There is no artwork for
ATMP (except the labels, which are 'spot on'.- I’m giving
Padre a rest for all the tremendous work he's done for us over
the past couple of years! LOL!!) I’ll let YOU, the fans on the
net make up the artwork according to what YOU desire. But the
discs will have my personally designed labels on them and they
doooo look very cool!"

 

Speaking of rare Japanese versions of ATMP, I saw a Japanese original release CD in the used bin the other day, and asked the clerk to A/B it with the original U.S. CD. You wouldn't believe how much better the U.S. version sounded! Even though the U.S. disc was murky, the Japanese version had been EQ'd so you got hit with a bright "wall of cymbals", washing out the rest of the mix. Too bad. I've got an original Japanese McCartney Tug of War of the same vintage that sounds really good. I was hoping I'd made a real "find"...

 

ATMP was remastered by Steve several years ago, for release on DCC gold disc. Sadly, the release was cancelled due to record-label politics or something, so Steve's version is just sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust. John Lennon's first two solo albums were also remastered by Steve but cancelled before release. Sad. I remember reading in ICE (at the time) that they were upcoming releases, and for years I wondered what the hell happened.

 

Actually, I know Gerry (Mickboy). I am the Chris in his message that provided him with the Japanese LP transfer. He is not a bootlegger. These are honestly a labor of love. He used to give these away for free. Back in those days, they were only available on minidisc. Of course, ink cartridges and paper for the artwork, blank cd-r's, padded envelopes and postage soon made him charge a small amount just to cover his costs, so now he gets $8 per release, including postage. Not exactly substantial - $8 will just about cover his costs. They are not sold in any stores.

For this release, I don't believe he provided artwork (although it could just be my copy that didn't have it - he sent it to me about a year before the general release - promo copy? LOL). I had a member of this board make artwork for my remaster of this title (from the same source), and it's awesome. A mock MFSL cover.

Mickboy also does lots of Rolling Stones titles, usually taking a Japanese pressing and working with it, adding bonus tracks to often expand it to a 2 CD set. He has "released about a dozen titles, although he has given me about 30 - some have not been "released" yet. He has a pretty good sized following in Stones circles. His Exile on Main Street is to die for - I reviewed it for the Sticky Fingers Journal a few years ago and did a careful A-B comparison of it vs. the Virgin remaster, and his won hands down!

 

I didn't think Steve actually remastered ATMP, and that it's sitting on a shelf now. If that's true it really is tragic. In an earlier thread he said that they considered it but it could be done only at a loss. (I would've bought one even if they were $100+ new) He also recommended the Capital pressing as being close to the orignal tapes. So why would any audiophile want a Japanese copy that had been re-EQ'ed?

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?threadid=7659&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

 

I have the Japanese LP (EAS-67107-9). Not sure when this was pressed. It certainly is much better than the re-master and the older US cd. Its warm without being muddy, and there's clarity without being bright. Also the vinyl is first rate. Overall a great issue.

So my questions are: So what did Mickboy do to make this sound so much better? Or what could he do? Better yet, if Mickboy is so generous, how about making public his recipe for tweaking?

Sorry to seem so skeptical. But before I re-invested in vinyl I bought plenty of these hyped up cdr vinyl rips. And none of them sound any better than spinning my own.

 

I have heard this vinyl-to-CD transfer of the Japanese LP that is discussed here, and I can say that it is by far the very best sounding digital version of ATMP I have ever heard. It's not even close. I thought that nothing would ever sound better than my mint orange label vinyl Capitol copy of ATMP, but when I heard this transfer I was stunned at how much better it really is.

I can't imagine that Mickboy's issue can be that much better than Chris' transfer, but I will gladly put it to the test!

 

Mickboy's is a little louder, and "heavier", for lack of a better word. It IS excellent, no doubt about it. Mine is "lighter" and a little quieter. Both are different, but both are a definite improvement of the original and remastered CD's.

Still amazes me that people at home can do better with a vinyl source than "professionals" can do with the original tapes and a million dollar studio.

 

I'm skeptical of this sounding much better than the German vinyl pressing I picked up at Jerry's in Denver a couple of weeks ago.

The first disc is about as "near" as you can get to being mint; the second was slightly noisier. Haven't played disc 3 yet. But both of the first two blew away the latest remaster IMO. Gotta do a needle drop of this once I've finshed with the Beatles catalog.

 

I've also transfered the Japanese LP pressing to CD and I must admit it sounds great. I'm sure mickboy's remaster could have added to the sound,but this Japanese pressing, as is, sounds great. I will try to track down a copy of mickboys' to see what it sounds like...if not I'm perfectly happy with my copy. I've also heard the Japanese CD and it makes you wonder how the LP could sound so good and the CD so bad.