Marvelettes Ultimate Collection question and Steve "mini-rant"

Marvelettes Ultimate Collection question

Having just read a thread about Kevin Reeves, I recall that he mastered the Four Tops Ultimate Collection.

Well, I'm thinkin' about pickin' up some Marvelettes soon, and noticed that the Marvelettes Ultimate Collection is mastered not by Reeves, but by Suha Gur.

Is anyone familiar with this CD and how it sounds?

 

Steve,

Most of the Ultimate Series discs that I have are unlistenable and they sound nothing like the original 45's, IMO....

Bob

 

'Nuff said

 

The best Marvelettes, IMO, is "Deliver - The Singles 1961-71" from the mid 90's remastered by Inglot/Hersch, but it might be OOP.

 

I don't know who was in charge of the Ultimate Collection series, but they are all maximized to death. I picture the waveforms looking like one solid block.

 

Harry Weinger is in charge of all Motown reissues, and from what I gather, he isn't too keen on the technical stuff, but he does his homework.

For my money, the Four Tops Ultimate Collection is the closest to the sound of the 45s as I experienced them on that old tube Wards stereo console. Your experience with the original 45s may differ.

 

Really? I did get a chance to hear the Four Tops collection, and I thought it sounded pretty bad. I have no experience with the original 45's, and they may very well sound like the Ultimate Collection CD, but the Ultimate Collection sounded really compressed compared to the Hitsville box set. Great track selection, though.

 

I feel the box sounds too smooth and slick. Those 45s were modulated and gritty sounding, as I recall them.

My view is whatever gets me closer to the sound I experienced in the 60s. In that sense, I don't want the best sound quality possible. If that isn't an audiophile thing to want, oh well...

 

I'm with Grant in that I don't necessarily have as many complaints with the Ultimate Collections as others do, but I don't even have the first hand experience with the vinyl that he does.

The Marvelettes' Ultimate Collection rocks my world, that is for sure, but feel free to chalk that up to me not having competing (less compressed?) versions. Can't beat the tracklist, as well as HW's homework on getting the right single versions....

 

The "Ultimates" series is too compressed all right, but IMO not bad sounding otherwise.

Ah well, still, could have been better.

 

I thought the Ultimate Collection of the Four Tops (the one that included the Dunhill tracks) was horrible! I bought it just for the Dunhill and Casablanca tracks and they sounded awful.

 

Some CD's come closer than others, but no CD has yet matched the sound of the old Motown 45's.

 

Hi Casino,

Does the Hitsville box come close? I own it but not the 45's (unfortunately).

John

 

I agree. My Supremes- Ultimate Collection (remastered by Kevin Reeves) is compressed and digitized but unfortunately it has the best single disc setlist so for that reason its a keeper. BTW- Smokey Robinson & Miracles 20th Century Masters is remastered by Suha Guhr and I think it sounds great.
My Temptations-Ultimate Collection is mastered by Gary Mayo (never heard of him) and that sounds good as well.

 

Really Steve? I had no idea. I don't doubt that the original tapes sound better. Didn't you mention in a post a while back that most Motown masters were prepared in such a way that no further processing or compression was required when the lacquers were cut?

 

Sounds like the audio equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich!!!

 

The Supremes Ultimate Collection is bad. The speed of "Someday We'll Be Together" on that CD does not match the 45 I grew up with. I understand that the 45 was pressed at two speeds at two different plants. I have the 45 from RCA, which is slower than the one Reeves and Weinger used as their reference. Bill Inglot's anthology is better.

I also prefer the Bill Inglot/Dan Hercsh mastered Smokey Robinson & the Miracles box set.

Gary N. Mayo has done several Polygram titles in the 90s.

 

And you are correct, Sir! I still see them around, used, and add to the Marvelettes the Martha Reeves, Mary Wells, Ross/Supremes and Jr. Walker comps from the same general period. Perfect? No, but a much smoother sound than any of the ULTIMATE's I've heard, which, yes, are really harsh. Add to that all the lost B-sides and unreleased material, and they're pretty spiffy packages.

Having said that, Grant has a fair point about the 45 vinyl: most of it left much to be desired, being a mix of poor regular vinyl and polystyrene; so of course much of it sounded kind of grungy. On the other hand, if you got lucky and came across a clean, nice vinyl WLP, you got better sound(needless to say, I don't have nearly enough of these; what I do have offer much better sonics).

The Four Tops situation is unique, as they didn't get a mostly-mono set like most of the other Motown acts did. Marvin, Smokey and the Tempts got more elaborate boxes(and edited versions of same, with sound closely matching); the Tops kinda got screwed in that department, so ULTIMATE is probably the mono package we're stuck with.

ED

 

Harry Weinger says he is planning a new 2-disc Four Tops Anthology. I asked him to make it mono, but he says that is what the recent Hip-O box set was. So, I don't know what we are going to get. There is a British import available with all the singles masters, including the ABC/Dunhill tracks, minus "Are You Man Enough".

Stevie Wonder was screwed worse that the Four Tops in this regard. There is still no compiliation with all of his MONO singles. HW says this is in the planning stages too.

 

Bill Inglot . . . works for me

I am assuming that no one here actually knows
any of these remastering engineers (naive perhaps?).

Is it my imagination that Bill Inglot's work on this kind of material is
far less processed than anybody else's (at the major labels)?

I used to think that Rhino' stuff was too bright. I upgraded the players,
started burning my cd's to black cd-r's, and now Rhino's discs are
pretty much the nicest stuff in my collection - from the majors.

 

Re: Bill Inglot . . . works for me

Steve knows a few personally, but why would that matter? I don't believe he has met Harry Weigner, though. You'll have to ask him if he has.

Well, seeing as how Inglot did Motown stuff up until about 1995, or so...before Rhino was sold to Time-Warner and he got bogged down with their material...We were getting un-futzed stuff from the majors as late as 1998.

Even though BI says that he liked a bit of extra top end, I wonder if it just isn't the monitors he uses. I know at one time he used to carry around his own soundcards because he didn't trust the ones available in other studios he would work in.

 

I should add that while most recording engineers and record/reissue producers have not made themselves accessable to the general public, Steve and Harry Weigner, and a few others have, which is a big plus for them. They get real feedback from us regarding what WE want.