Frank Zappa - Entire Catalogue Remastered and Reissued (part4)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by MilesSmiles, Nov 20, 2012.

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  1. therockman

    therockman Senior Member In Memoriam

    So you are saying that the new (2012) Sheik Yerbouti has a different mix than the old Ryko?
     
  2. By original mix here I imply/include the original edits and sequencing of the tracks. Sorry of this is a technically wrong choice of words. I was trying to put this in a nutshell for poster Turnaround.
     
  3. Jetlag1

    Jetlag1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Centerville
    As it turned out, one of my friends got a copy of the US UMe remaster of Joe's Garage. Thanks to him, I was able to compare the two versions of the entire Watermelon.

    For the comparison, I made a "US vs EU" test mix - in other words, deleted the left channel of the US version, then copied and pasted the right channel of the EU version onto the erased region. After a bit of sample offset correction, the mix turned out to be almost perfectly mono (not bit-identical, but their waveforms are basically the same) - except for 5:50-5:55! (Of course, the EU version of this section has the loud glitches.)

    After five seconds, the mix went back to mono, but it appeared to have another sample offset. For the second correction, I inserted 853 samples of silence at 5:50 of the left channel, and it became almost perfectly mono again after 5:55.

    This is an excerpt from the test mix (5:45-6:02):
    http://www.sendspace.com/file/3iiedm

    So, what does this mean?
    On the EU version, there are loud glitches during 5:50-5:55.
    On the US version, the same section is slightly (853 samples) longer and has no problem.

    Therefore, IMHO, it's very likely that the latter was fixed with some sort of patchwork.
     
  4. Anthrax

    Anthrax Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Thanks a lot, Jetlag1. That's very useful information :thumbsup:
     
  5. Laservampire

    Laservampire Down with this sort of thing

    Received my RSD 7" of Big Leg Emma, mastered by Bernie Grundman from the original mono master tapes apparently. I know there's a little digital glitch on the CD so once I transfer the 7" I'll see if it's on there too.

    Should get onto it Wednesday hopefully! :)
     
  6. Mychkine

    Mychkine Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    I did a search and found nothing helpful... this is becoming a HUGE thread, and I hesitated opening a new thread...

    Can someone please tell me if the LP version of Lumpy Money is worth 130 us$ ?

    Thanks !
     
  7. Not to me...but you may find it worthwhile. ;) Sorry but there is really no way to answer this question accurately.
     
  8. dlokazip

    dlokazip Forum Transient

    Location:
    Austin, TX, USA
    Since Lumpy Money was not officially released on LP, I would say no.

    EDIT: No Frank Zappa album released in the past 15 years came out on vinyl. That will change when Finer Moments is released on LP in the coming year.
     
  9. 93curr

    93curr Senior Member

    Only if you believe you can later sell it for a profit. It's a pirate so anyone, anywhere, anytime can press more if and when they feel like it.

    Plus, the sides are mostly 30+ minutes each, so it's not likely to sound very good. A collectable novelty item only.
     
  10. I don't think that this is "very likely". I would guess somewere during manufacturing of the EU version something was damaged and the missing samples lead to a shortening of the piece. I don't think the US version was made later from a somehow repaired EU master. I was attempting a repair myself and could not create a working version that sounded intact. I gave up on that.

    Did you compare the 2012 US version to the Ryko version? Any "repair" of the defective source would be audible - at least by you ;-).

    Thinman
     
  11. You all reminded me to pull out Hot Rats. My original 70s pressings I got when I worked in record stores in the 70s.

    photo copy.jpeg
     
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  12. Laservampire

    Laservampire Down with this sort of thing

    Yup, the only official ZFT vinyl has been the 2008 Classic Records Hot Rats and the 2012 RSD Big Leg Emma 7"

    Finer Moments should be AWESOME on vinyl!
     
  13. Jetlag1

    Jetlag1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Centerville
    I wrote "very likely", since the waveform of the US version seems to have some evidence of the patchwork.

    You can see it in close-up screenshots of the above-mentioned excerpt from the test mix (above channel = EU, below = US):

    A. 0:05.116 - 0:05.120 (w/o the second offset correction = 853 blank samples)
    WIEH_closeup1.png

    For the first half, both versions have almost the same waveform. At 0:05.1175, while the EU version goes smoothly, the US version has a sudden increase between two samples. After that point, the waveforms become totally different.

    B. 0:10.397 - 0:10.401
    WIEH_closeup2.png

    Similar to the shot A, the US version has a sudden decrease around 0:10.3993. After that point, both waveforms become almost identical again.

    Fortunately, both edits (?) on the US version don't cause any audible digi-noise.

    There should be the early EMI CD somewhere in my house, but unfortunately I can't find it at this moment. If it emerges, I'll compare them.
     
  14. Jetlag1

    Jetlag1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Centerville
    Sorry, "At 0:05.1175" was a typo. This should have been "Around 0:05.1178".
     
  15. Sytze

    Sytze Senior Member

    So I possibly bought a counterfeit twice? Usually I'm very wary of those. In most cases, they look too good to be true. There are a few Can LP's on the 'United Artists' label that are clearly counterfeits. Everything looks perfect, but there's no yellowing at all. My copies of Hot Rats, although NM, look their age. But maybe I was fooled after all.
     
  16. Early Zappa albums and counterfeits are a huge problem. I recently discovered through the book "Grand Zappa" that my copies of Absolutely Free and Cruising with Ruben & The Jets are most likely counterfeits. I had bought them at regular stores in the 70s. They are made very good and don't show the obvious signs of counterfeits (no track separation, moirè on the cover, etc.). But they do not sound good. Counterfeit copies of Lumpy Gravy and We're Only In It For The Money I have, can clearly be indentificated as such and I knew that they we're counterfeits when I bought them at a flea market in Holland in the 80s.

    A later candidate for being a counterfeit is Zappa In New York with Punky's Whips on it. I have an italian copy that looks good and sounds good. I'm still not convinced that this is a counterfeit.

    So if you have the early albums and think the printing of the covers looks bad and the sound is bad it is not unlikely that you have a counterfeit. If you have the opportunity to compare them to definite original pressings would be a chance to find out.

    Thinman
     
  17. Everything I wrote was conjectural, and I do not have any sound experience with buying or evaluating counterfeit LPs. Like I said, what was strange is, I do own a genuine original (NM) Bizarre "Hot Rats", and the suspect, skipping one sounded just as good to my ear!... And that skipping LP, landing straight back in the seller's racks as it did (!), just might be travelling again around the globe as I write this, but your copy skipped on one side only, while mine skipped about everywhere I let the stylus run more than a minute or so. I didn't understand how such a clean looking copy wouldn't also somehow have retained its original Bizarre inner sleeve (a selling plus), and I didn't understand either that spanking clean cover, that looked like the Classic reissue one minus the moustache logo and the Barking Pumpking credits... All the ones I had ever seen were flipbacks!...

    There just might have been a bad run of genuine HR pressing, a batch that shouldn't have left the plant but did for someone to make a few bucks out of...
     
  18. Vivaldinization

    Vivaldinization Active Member

    It just occurred to me that Mothermania lacks any sort of tracklisting on the back. I haven't seen the physical packaging for "Understanding America"; does it suffer from the same infirmities?
     
  19. rstamberg

    rstamberg Senior Member

    Location:
    Riverside, CT
    More or less.

    MOTHERMANIA sounds good on cd, BTW.


    Rock Stamberg
     
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  20. dlokazip

    dlokazip Forum Transient

    Location:
    Austin, TX, USA
    No tracklisting on the back of Understanding America. Just pictures of tape boxes.
     
  21. jsayers

    jsayers Just Drifting....

    Location:
    Horse Shoe, NC
    Yes! Got this last week and love it! It is a pain that the track listing isn't on the back cover, but that's the way the original vinyl was, right?
     
  22. Yes.
     
  23. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
  24. Thanks for this! Sounds good!

    Anybody knows what instrument (wah-wah) is soloing on "The Old Curiosity Shoppe"? It phrases more or less like blues guitar, but it doesn't have the attack of a guitar...
     
  25. eyeCalypso

    eyeCalypso Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colorado, USA
    And if you click Lees Meer, you get to hear the other six selections
     
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