Mono Hendrix AYE and Axis LPs Coming in March

I'm a lo-fi freak. I play my whole record collection on a Sesame Street turntable.

 

Good to know. I'm assuming long out of print - are they difficult to find?

 

Then my child, you Bert and Ernie will love that record.

 

jimi Henrix coutume de sonner mieux en français en mono si juste acheter le disque putain

 

Don't forget Big Bird

 

Anyone have a comment on how the newly issued mono Axis stacks up against the Classic Records mono version?

 

I agree with Raunch about most mid 60's rock. Stereo was still pretty new and the best stuff that offered big beats and loud guitars sounded most immediate and powerful in mono. Further I disagree with the assertion that either AYE's sound lo fi. No they're not as advanced as Axis or Ladyland but I find the mix really grabs you much like the first few Who lp's. To skip these because your ears were expecting something else is your loss. They are true rock'n'roll records meant to be played loud.

 

you were posting a page or two back about 2 different masterings of that french barclay AYE.how can someone tell them apart?i would like to hear both of them some day and it would help if i knew what to look for when trying to track them down. thanks

 

Barclay Hendrix

difficult to find, yes and expensive, especially the first press.
and beware, lots of bootlegs of this one, most of them are colored vinyl.

 

I pre-ordered AYE UK, US, Axis and Heaven but yesterday I recieved AYE US, Axis and Heaven. It seems that UK version is so popular. Check the number on the back, AYE US was 2xxx but Axis was just 9x. There was so much difference between them. (Heaven was 5x )

 

So, from what I can gather from the reviews so far, the new AYE UK is a good way to hear an original track pressing without forking out the ££ an original would cost? And, if anything, it's very slightly better?

 

Y'all made me pull out my Barclay early this morning ! Mono UK AYE, nice.

 

Well, that certainly clears things up, doesn't it? Having heard the whole new album by now as ripped by Sid Harta (thanks dude!), I can say the following:

The new AYE mono is sourced from the UK Track. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. EH used a reasonably clean copy for the majority of the recording, but had to switch to another crappy needledrop for the end of Fire. Maybe there was a stick or a jump at the end of Fire on their choice copy? Whatever the reason, the edit is a major farce. But that's not all.

Based on what I hear from Sid's rig, the EQ ranges from similar to quiet different to the UK mono. Several songs on the new album sounds much more dampened than the Track. Frankly, I don't think this is an artistic choice, but rather an attempt to disguise the whereabouts of the source material. See, the Track is a loud cutting. Even with the cleanest, unworn copies, it's bound to distort and crackle on the last three tracks of each side. So in order to get rid of those unwanted noises, they went with a combination of cutting frequencies in the 5 to 20 kHz area and CEDAR declip software (or something similar). Of course, like any other noise reduction application, this leaves its audible artifacts...

Let's look at Side 1 of the EH mono vinyl: it starts off with a fidelity that is close to the UK Track. EQ'ing is quite a bit different though; Grundman has clearly chosen to give the new version a more meaty low-end. By the time we get to Can You See Me, the sound suddenly gets very dark and anaemic (the latter is what Sid already referred to as the "alignment issue"). This is certainly not the case on the Track which retains its level of clarity, but has some notable tracking issues's occurring at this point, with I Don't Live Today and especially Love & Confusion being the worst offenders. Rather than preserving whatever fidelity there was left, EH had to work around those issue's, otherwise the "from the original mastertapes" claim could easily be rebutted by an average listener.

Side 2 follows the same pattern. May this be love has a similar high-end response to the UK Track, but with a strong low-end boost. Fire is already a touch darker sounding, and by Third Stone To The Sun we are back listening to a murky mess that bears no resemblance to the relative clarity of the UK original. Once again, it's not surprising that the shift in quality starts right here, since the UK cutting of 3rd stone is heavy on the upper-mids, and distorts easily. It's no different with the last two songs, which arguably have the best fidelity of all selections on the Track (but not on the EH). I'm truly amazed how they managed to screw this up: not only did they strip off whatever high-end information was left on their source of choice, but in their strife for "perfection" they also ruined the sound with some cheap software which give it this "poorly encoded mp3" kinda quality.

My verdict: easily WORSE than the UK Track, and light-years behind the first two Barclay cuttings.

Shame on you, EH, for releasing this essential material in the worst possible way, and for making people think that mono in general is indeed crappy.

 

Damn. After hearing Sid's drops earlier in the thread, I agree with this assessment. There's no reason for this material to sound that bad. When my Amazon package arrives, I think the UK AYE is going back, unopened.

 

I think that's the final nail in the coffin for me Prof. I'll stick with my original Track and keep my eyes peel for the Barclays. Such a shame....

 

Just want to add that I put none of the blame on Mr. Grundman, who applied much effort and attention to detail for this project.

Let's hope a quality dub of that Barclay master turns up some day.

 

Thank you Prof. Stoned for your assessment and Sid Hartha for those audio samples. I hope all those who bought this enjoy it for what it is, a cheap alternative to the Track or Barclay issues, and not focus too much that it seems to be inferior. It is a real bummer that they couldn't get a better sound out for general consumption.

 

There is some explanation at the Wiki entry for Are You Experienced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Experienced

European release

Are You Experienced was released in the UK in May 1967 without the three singles, as was the custom in the UK at that time. At the time of release, the Jimi Hendrix Experience had played a few dates in North West Europe and appeared on TV there. During the winter of 1966–67, they played mostly in and around London. They embarked on their first tour of the UK (as support to the Walker Brothers) shortly before its release and played more gigs in North West Europe including several TV shows. This appears to have paid off, the album became one of the defining releases of the psychedelic movement, reaching #2 in the UK and remaining on the British charts for eight months behind the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

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Album cover

In Europe this LP was released by three different companies: the new "independent" Track Records, which produced the original cover with a picture by Bruce Fleming; the independent Barclay Records in France, which produced a completely different cover featuring a photo of Hendrix performing on a recent French TV show, surrounded by "psychedelic" painted, swirling graphics; and Track parent Polydor Records in Germany, Italy and Spain. In Germany, Polydor used the original Track Records cover but added "Jimi Hendrix" in similar lime green text above the white Are You Experienced logos on the front; in Italy this added text was red, while in Spain it was yellow. These Polydor releases featured "fake" stereo, processed from mono. The back cover had a track list added.

Barclay Records of France added final punctuation to the album title: Are You Experienced? Some track lists of the album also add the question mark to the title track.[9] The South African Polydor release (due to the apartheid racial barrier, and that the main customer base was seen to be "whites") had no pictures, only text on a plain red background (mono only). Japan, Australia and New Zealand Polydor (mono only) copies used the original UK layout.

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The Reprise American and Canadian compilation release

Although word of the Hendrix phenomenon spread to the US, he was not seen in America (and no records were released) until the summer of 1967, when, at Paul McCartney's insistence, the Jimi Hendrix Experience appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, held in Monterey California on June 18, 1967. The performance, which Hendrix climaxed by burning his guitar, was filmed by D.A. Pennebaker for the documentary Monterey Pop. It was only after this show-stealing performance that his American and Canadian label, Reprise Records, prepared the album for release, but with some significant changes. The cover and the art on the album changed. The UK cover, which featured a picture of the band on a black background, was abandoned, and a more psychedelic design was devised by photographer designer Karl Ferris (whose group portraits appeared on all three of the band's US album covers).

Secondly, and more crucially, "Red House", "Can You See Me" and "Remember" were all removed in order to make way for the three UK hit singles: "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe" and "The Wind Cries Mary", with the running order being shuffled in the process. This time the running order was selected by Hendrix himself, but "Red House" was excluded from the album against his wishes. He was told that the US did "not like the blues". The spelling of the song "Foxy Lady" was also changed to "Foxey Lady" on the US and Canadian releases. This selection of tracks was also remixed into stereo. In August, the US and Canadian versions of Are You Experienced saw issue in both the original mono mix and the new stereo mix and became a strong and enduring seller.

When the album was finally released in August 1967, three months after its European release, the new line-up proved hugely influential, with the album peaking at #5 and remaining on Billboard's album chart for two years.

 

Hmm. Not so excited about getting my Legacy UK mono now. Now I need to decide whether to keep it or send it back to Soundstage Direct when it arrives.

 

At this moment, there IS NOT A SINGLE record pressing facility operating in Poland apart from very small, underground jobs that are only able to crank out a few hundred records at most.

Perhaps you meant Czech Republic?

 

I don't think there will be that many people who blame Bernie Grundman. He's got a track record (no pun intended). For instance, he did Frank Zappa's Hot Rats for Classic Records a few years ago and many think it sounds better than the original.

I don't know this for sure, but EH may have been in a no-win position here. When they released the Classic Records Axis in mono, everyone seemed to complain, "Where's AYE?". They may have decided early on that the tapes that they had in their possession were substandard, which is why they rejected the idea of doing a reissue. Now that they have reversed that position, the reaction is, "AYE sounds like crap, but Axis sounds great!". Uh, maybe they already knew that.

I agree that it would be better if they found the masters used for the Barclay release.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.