Yes and no. In the US when TOAPP was released on CD (can't recall but believe the same is true of the vinyl as well) used one of the remixes.
*Which* US release? Original EG? Polydor/WG WB EG? Or US WB EG? Here is Neal and Jack and Me from the US WB EG of Beat: http://download.yousendit.com/B8C13296496AC997
Right ... The WG WB EGs seem to be the 1st release in the states, as I have never seen the "original" EG's here. The US WB EG can't be an original, because there weren't any CD plants here that early on, yet the US WB EG seems to be a better mastering than the WG WB EG. (For the 80's releases.) So out of those two (plus the 30th and the DE), do you know which ones have the correct (original) Sleepless on them?
The seller said this was a US WB EG. But look what it *really* is: Same EAC numbers as the WG WB EG I already had. (I bought multiple copies of the US WB EG because it's rare to get what I actually thought I was getting as far as their discs go ... )
I've downloaded it already. My Polydor Beat has still to arrive, so I will do the shootout when I have three Versions of 'Neal' to compare (yours, DE, Polydor). Meanwhile I've scored a 0777-Wake since I liked Jeff's samples more than my somewhat overbright Definitive Edition. It's neither a Nimbus nor an E'G-Jem, but an "EMI Swindon" one. The peaks are the same as Jeff's Nimbus-Wake. I'm happy with it. So what's left is the 80s stuff. BTW: I should do a shootout between my 30th-Anniversary THRAK and my Limited Edition Gold-CD once.
Update: I have a sample from the Original E'G-Wake of 'Pictures Of A City' (WMA, 128 kb/s unfortunately) and converted it to the same format as my 0777-Pictures Of A City and they're almost congruent. So: 07777-Wake might be the Original mastering.
As a bit of a Crimso nutcase, this thread was beginning to make even me long for the excitement of watching paint dry by comparison, but I do have something to report regarding Islands, so I'll start it up again: I received an early LP pressing of Islands the other day. It is the pink rim Island with the palm tree. It appears to be from the UK as it has the blue inner sleeve with the London address. It's missing the inner gatefold and the outer sleeve doesn't have the same type of edges on the back that I believe original pressings had. My guess is that it might be a 2nd press but anyway, it has A1U and B1U matrix stamps. Sonically, this is not as bright as the original EG CD. It has much more bass than the CD and quite a bit less top end. It's also kind of interesting to note that when I compared the 30th mastering to the EG way back when, the 30th had quite a bit more top end, so unless the early Island vinyl rolled off a pretty drastic amount of high end when the vinyl was mastered, I think my conclusion that the 30th was boosted quite a bit in the upper midrange by Fripp and Heyworth is probably reasonable. Even if true, whether this is bad or not is, of course, a matter of taste. The original EG CD and the Island vinyl both have pretty similar tape noises at the start. I am assuming that whatever noises John noticed on the later Polydor vinyl are not a factor here, but maybe the EG CD has a bit more of this. It's a bit hard to give more detail than that as this vinyl copy I received is a bit scratchy at the beginning, so picking out tape noises is not exactly something I can note with great clarity. Overall, I think the old EG CD still sounds very, very nice, and is certainly comparable to this LP, but it does sound a bit "toppy" when A/Bd. Perhaps in some cases (this one?) EG did use Polydor cutting tapes, but I fail to see how that would make a lot of sense. My guess is that the old EG CD is about as close as one will get to hearing how the tapes sound, but whether that really matters is probably not important to many. All I can say is that even in this case, where some have argued that the 30th makes a lot of sense to own due to the strangeness of some of the early CD pressings, it does move further away from the tonality of the Island vinyl. If one digs that "crispy" clean sound, it will do the trick, but the old EG disc is actually a pretty nice middle ground between the Island vinyl and the 30th. How the 1989 DE masterings fits into all of this, I don't know, but iirc, one of them (the one John hated) was apparently recalled and they might have ended up just reverting to the original mastering anyway. And there you have ten minutes of my life I'll never get back.
LOL! On the Polydor vinyl and the DE 2nd CD, there appears to be a crackling that I think is associated timewise with the bass/bass drum playing the rhythm in particular throughout Formantera Lady - this is now from memory - I don't have anything but the 30th anymore. I suspect it was some form of tape print through, and this is not present on either the Island original vinyl nor the 30th. From memory, the 30th still doesn't sound quite as good as Island vinyl (I had the copy with the front cover return tabs glued outside the back cover), but is the cleanest it has sounded since Island lost the right to distribute King Crimson albums. The DE 1st CD is an abomination - there are no noises present, but the sound...... arggghhhhh! Looks like I have lost 10 also my friend!
Your time is not lost, it's been invested. I started to compare "Neal And Jack And Me" between: WB US <-> 30th <-> Polydor <-> Definitive Edition This isn't as easy as the shootout I did between different "Pictures Of A City" versions since the 80's KC-sound is very artificial anyway. I just don't know all of this is supposed to sound in real life. So here are my subjective perceptions: - the DE & WB US sound very alike. Both have some sort of noise that isn't found on the other two (quite obvious on the right channel at the beginning). Both are also brighter & more dynamic than the rest - the WB US is the loudest of the bunch - the Polydor sounds kind of tame - the 30th sounds - for want of a better word - somewhat "richer" than the Polydor but it clearly lacks the dynamics of the other three Conclusions: - all three (I guess DE & WB US share the same mastering) versions have their special strengths & weaknesses: -> the Polydor is too lush at some points / is not too bright or compressed -> the DE/WB US is a tad too bright / good dynamics & "rawness" -> the 30th Anniversary lacks dynamics / the sound has more of a "body" If I was to own just one version I might go with the DE/WB US. If someone is still interested in comparing the Beats, I can provide you with a sample from the Polydor. What's your impression, Kevin?
I am lazy, I haven't done a detailed comparison yet. Since you lump the DE with the US WB EG, I'll give those a shot tonight. I tend not to like masterings with rolled off treble, and that strikes the WG WB EG (the Polydor) for me. And I'm not a fan of the 30ths in general anyway. (But it is on my list of things to do, to get back to a comparison of Starless. I'm not sure we've reached consensus there, and the 30th might actually be a contender for that one. The original bothers me with this one because of the really low EAC levels. But I need to listen too.)
OK, I listened to the DE and US WB EG for Beat today. PC through headphones, and a portable CD player where I switch the headphones back and forth playing the same section. (Faster that way than swapping discs in either player. And to make sure there's no differences between the players and/or volume, I compare both discs in both players, back and forth.) The differences are small, but distinctive I think. The snare drum hits and cymbals sound a little bit more natural for the US WB EG I think. The DE sounds a little bit more forced and harsh. (But if I didn't have the US WB EG, the DE would be perfectly acceptable to me.) When I did the 1st round, I actually forgot which disc went where, so I just focussed on which one I thought sounded better. Kept coming back to the US WB EG. And then the comparison held even after I swapped the discs between the two players.
Would anyone care to summarize? I'm curious what consensus was reached for the favorite versions of the following albums: Larks Tongues Red Discipline I recently found a Jem pressing of Starless, which I preferred to the DE. I also have a Nimbus 1 dot pressing of Red - does this make it the same at the Jem? I like it, but the recording still sounds muffled to me - I wonder if that's the production and not the mastering. What's the consensus on the Red black triangle pressing?
Found yet another mastering of Red: Virgin Japan "Big Artist" series: VJD-28021 (1988) EAC: 63.7, 53.2, 59.2, 90.2, 93.7 Sample: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=TTdIYURJNHZTRTdIRGc9PQ
I've downloaded it right from the start but didn't find the time to compare until today. It's interesting. A little less high end than the original but hard to compare since I feel that the dynamics are somewhat different. More dynamic than the original for the first 30 secs, less dynamic for the last segment. Almost a tad muffled. I should frankenstein the two more dynamic parts into one file for the ultimate "First Minute of Red". How did you obtain it and is there a possbility that I will ever manage to get my hands on one of those?
A couple of samples from the elusive CD release of Young Person's Guide to King Crimson EG/Virgin Japan VJCP-3001~2: I Talk To The Wind: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=Q01IeW45OW44Q1EwTVE9PQ Red: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=Q01IeW56VEhJMHRjR0E9PQ
Could someone please sum up which KC CDs are the unremastered kind and how to differentiate them from the the DEs ?
Hey, that was the Giles, Giles and Fripp version of I Talk To The Wind with Judy Dibble! Didnt know this was avaliable before The Brondesbury tapes.
Hi markanini, the procedure to differentiate the DE from the Original E'Gs goes like this: 1. If it says DE somewhere (look carefully at the back cover, sometimes it's only written in the booklet, I recall people overseeing this numerous times), it's a DE 2. If it doesn't say DE: it's either an Original E'G or a 'hidden DE' 3. Check the peak values: I suppose you are familiar with Exact Audio Copy? If you use this programm (it's free) to copy a CD to your hard drive it will display the peak values of each track at the end of the process. The original E'G CDs have the following peak values (sometimes there are two lines of peak values as the same mastering was used with just the overall volume altered): Court: 100.0 / 55.9 / 66.6 / 22.2 / 96.3 95.5 / 53.4 / 63.6 / 21.2 / 91.9 Wake: 8.9 / 100.0 / 48.1 / 91.9 / 31.3 / 91.8 / 79.1 / 54.1 Lizard: 81.6 / 71.0 / 86.8 / 35.7 / 100.0 72.0 / 67.3 / 81.5 / 30.9 / 82.8 Islands: 56.2 / 100.0 / 74.8 / 100.0 / 50.2 / 47.0 Larks: 100.0 / 51.6 / 59.9 / 86.1 / 76.1 / 100.0 Starless: 38.1 / 39.3 / 36.6 / 33.1 / 23.1 / 29.4 / 20.0 / 39.3 86.2 / 97.7 / 100.0 / 81.0 / 70.0 / 72.0 / 61.4 / 82.3 Red: 84.0 / 100.0 / 100.0 / 97.3 / 100.0 Discipline / TOAPP / Beat: there is no "Original E'G" that I know of You only have: Definitive Edition / Polydor / Warner Brothers US (all this is noted on the back cover, no need for peak values albeit a lot of Definitive Editions are not labelled as such - at least on the ones on the European market)
Apparently my local media library has some Original E'G Discipline, Beat and TOAPP, but they are in bad shape. I hope they are not hidden DEs. I have already borrowed TOAPP, here are the levels: 100 / 100 / 71.4 / 100 / 79.4 / 83.6 / 80.7 / 78.3 / 99.5 If you want, I will try to find Discipline and Beat next time, and post their levels.
Very much so! The TOAPP-peak levels you posted are the ones from the Polydor edition (aka Warner Brothers West Germany). I don't know if an Original E'G for the 80's albums even exists since they were recorded after Polydor bought the E'G catalogue (or whatever happened back then business-wise). Could you post an image of the back cover of this TOAPP? I assume it's still worthwile to give those two other discs a try - maybe the peak values deviate from what I have archived from this thread.
Happy I can help... a bit! Unfortunately my scanner is down and I don't have a digital camera anymore. But there is no mention anywhere of Polydor, just E'G on the bottom-right corner of the back cover and on the disc. The booklet is two pages, pretty cheap looking. There's a Made in West-Germany mention on the outer rim of the CD too. I very much like the sound of this disc, though. Less "tame" than the sound of the (seemingly) Polydor Beat I already borrowed, but still not incredibly dynamic.
I came to this thread late...very late and it seems that I've made plenty of mistakes sorting my KC. My 1st mistake was assuming that the later remasters sounded better as I put the older 80's CDs in the 'giveaway' pile for friends n' family. My references have always been the original LPs and in some cases, the CDs sounded better - more detail, tighter bottom-end and certainly quieter. But I never bothered comparing CDs. After reading most of this thread, I've culled any remaining KC titles from the pile and will do some comparisons. I'm delighted to have found this forum - its been an eye-opener. I've since found a handful of 'Targets' and other imports and such that I would have otherwise left in the pile and I'm certainly more wary of Remasters and no longer buy into the 'latest greatest' marketing. Thanks for the head's up...I think!
