Not Now Music - How is the sound quality

I've just come across this label http://www.notnowmusic.co.uk/index.htm

Their collections look interesting but I wonder if forum members have any views on the sound quality.

 

All UK Public Domain - Varying from the pretty good to the pretty awful - as per usual with PD mostly needle drops.

Richard

 

The Dean Martin CD I heard is a horridly processed, badly mastered needledrop.

 

Thanks guys, any thoughts on the Harry Belafonte double cd

 

Being there are doubts as to quality, I would not suggest it. There are options. His Greatest Hits Volume 1 on RCA has many of the tracks most folks want and would be easy to find quite inexpensively. There is a more recent 2-CD Essential on Sony/Legacy to consider as well. For a more complete approach there is also a box set on Bear Family. Another popular album is Belafonte at Carnegie Hall on RCA. Any of these I mention should be easy to obtain, all are licensed and all use original source material (tapes).

 

The Elvis Gold two disc set is pretty crackly in places and some tracks are in fake stereo. As noted above, these artists are pretty well represented by sanely-priced official compilations, so I say avoid these jokers.

 

I bought 3 titles by this label not knowing what kind of label it was, it just said it was 180 gram pressings, as i wanted to get into jazz.

Miles Davis - Kind of blue
Charles Mingus - Mingus ah um
John Coltrane - Giant steps

Anyone know the quality of these records? I am no audiophile and have nothing to compare against. None of them have the original covers, but they were pretty cheap. 10 € a piece.

And the source is another vinyl record, is that a "needle drop"?

 

I have a 3d Johnny Cash set by them. It could sound better, but i'm not complaining.

 

I have a 3 disc Bill Evans set, which sounds quite nice. I think it's simply a clone of the original cds. I also have a 5 disc Miles Davis set (Walkin' etc), still on the first disc but no real issues arising thus far.

 

FYI, I picked up their Introducing Stevie Wonder set (a two-fer of Stevie's first two albums from 1962). The sound is pretty good. I just gave it a cursory listen, but it doesn't sound like a needledrop (or if it is, they did a good job of cleaning up the clicks). No traces of noise reduction or anything either. Plus, each album as a couple bonus tracks (relevent singles from the period). Overall, a nice collection.

I believe Hallmark (another PD label) recently released both albums individually, as well, but I haven't heard them so I can't make any comparison.

 

I was looking for information on a Ventures Singles Collection I found used on CD from this label and saw this comment regarding the vinyl release from Amazon user Stereo Fan:

I am a big fan of The Ventures and the tracks on this collection are great BUT I was disappointed to find that these are not the single mixes. The single mixes were for the most part monaural and had other distinguishing characteristics such as completely different takes for "Instant Mashed" and "Blue Moon". These are stereo mixes that I suspect are mastered from CD's which means there is no analog advantage to the vinyl pressing - even if it is 180 gram vinyl. No mastering details are given. Due to copyright relaxation overseas, there has been a wave of these sort of re-releases.

I'm new to the Ventures and have to say that the collection sounds good with the stereo mixes following the separation of the instruments on the extreme right and left as was apparently the way with the Ventures in the early days of stereo. So, I got lucky. BTW, this is my first reply in this forum and I realize this thread is already five years old, but what the heck. No longer lurking!

 

I occasionally see these at HPB.

Darryl

 

The Ventures disc is one of the better releases they've made, because those tracks were pulled from other CD releases. Not Now remains active as a label, but I have mixed feelings. I believe a label should utilize the best possible sources. Sometimes they do, sometimes they use needledrops which I strongly suspect are taken from other existing budget compilations. On a positive note, the artwork on most of their releases is very nice and the outer packaging helps to grab the attention.

 

I have occasionally picked up CDs by Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Ricky Nelson, The Everly Brothers & Hank Williams.
Great for the car. I believe the Ricky Nelson release has re-recordings.

http://www.notnowmusic.com/artist/r/the-best-of.html

Darryl

 

Does anyone own the Junior Wells / Buddy Guy "Pure Raw Blues" 2LP from Not Now Music? I'm curious to hear how the sound quality is.

 

Actually, this is one of their better compilations, but I would say it's a mixed bag where the good outweighs the less than perfect. Not sure about the LP version, but the audio on the double CD version is suitable and seems to have been sourced from a few of the original CD releases. Even if you already have those, I like having a condensed compilation for a track variety. I'm often quite skeptical about the Euro grey market releases and it's best to lower your standards when dealing with these titles. In this case, the Buddy Guy/Junior Wells compilation is quite enjoyable.

 

These are pirate reissues, made possible by the elapse of 50 years after the recording dates. Buy the official CD reissues by Riverside, Blue Note, Columbia, etc. The musicians represented would be irate if the knew of these reissues. The producer is very poor, because they put out one CD with 6 tracks from Bill Evans's Village Vanguard session (1961) coupled with tracks from 1962 studio sessions. The Vanguard date yielded enough tracks to fill a CD, and these should be issued together. Likewise, the 1962 studio sessions. 0 out of 10 for production. The material has long been available on official Riverside CDs. Similarly bad pairings are found on other Not Now CDs. The name is very appropriate. Don't get them ever. I resent the appearance of this series of CD reissues. Avoid.