Paul McCartney Archive Collection - Tug Of War & Pipes Of Peace coming! (Part Two)

Got my Tug of War and self titled deluxe's today. Wow, impressed with the quality of the package, books and the variety of high res they gave us, especially on self titled with the limited and unlimited 24/96

I am inspired to get more! Quick question - Is there a reason the RAM box is like 2x the price of the others? On Amazon it is like $91 whereas the other two and band on the run are about $50

 

It includes a book of sheep.

No, actually it's one of the two most lavish packages, the other being Wings Over America

 

Finally got the remix of Tug of War - found the vinyl for a good price. I have to agree with what seems to be the consensus here that the remix is underwhelming. It's missing the low end, but I disagree with some in that I think it has smoothed over some of the harshness of the original mix. It's Particularly noticeable on Ballroom Dancing and Dress Me Up As A Robber. If it wouldn't have removed most of the low end, it would have been fine and possibly superior to the original mix.

 

Well there goes $300 more dollars hahahaha.....well that escalated quickly lol. Playing catch up. I was so impressed with the sound of the 24/96 unlimited tracks on S/T that I just binged on most of the others. Only missing P2P, WOA and McCartney II now to get fully up to date.

Can't wait to play Tug of War next (a favorite).

Anybody know if the vinyl was sourced from the digital high res? In this case, I felt like the deluxe boxes, which of course only contain the digital was the right choice for me. Just curious.

 

Apologies if this has been covered in this 389 page thread. I am getting into tug of war now, and notice it says the original mix is "exactly" as released in 1982. So, is the original album mix here a remaster? The same master as the original CD? I'm confused.

 

I wouldn't say the new Tug of War mix is bad at all. I think they did a pretty good job. On my system, the new mix is more laid back, smoother, warmer and with more air. It definitely tames some of the harshness on the original, and I agree it is most noticeable on ballroom dancing and dress me up as a robber. I also agree that this is all seemingly (why?) at the expense of some low end, which is something I always liked about this record. All in all, a nice sounding remix and mastering. I am not usually a fan of remixing albums that I feel are fine the way they are. I think the original mix is just fine, and I think they probably did too, which is why they tried to emulate it, as mentioned in the book. The more I think about it after listening, the more I am leaning toward the camp that the original mix must have been done digital. Otherwise, why would they do a remix and try so hard to keep it basically the same mix wise? I think in this case, they only remixed because they had to in order to get back to the original analog tape for a better overall sounding product than the original offering that was limited to the digital technology of the times. I would think they tried to mix it pretty much the same from the multitracks and then set out to do better mastering job. Being curious as I am, I dug out my original Capitol CD (CDP 7 46057 2) to see if there was any mention of ADD, and sure enough, it says right there in the booklet "this album was mixed digitally" so there we have it

I do not hear a ton of giant differences in the actual mixes here..as far as placement choices. I hear more of a difference in mastering. If you compare the mixes, I think they place things in about the same place, with the remix maybe edging the vocals a bit further back.

For reference I was comparing the original album mix from the new box with the 24/96 of the remix, so perhaps that has something to do with my perceived extra warmth and air too. I am kind of torn on this one at the moment, but I think the remix does justice, and is very tasteful, and it is a rare case where, if the original mix truly was digital, I understand why and it makes sense as to why they did it this way.

 

Ram's my favorite in the series, well its my favorite McCartney album and think they did a decent job with it. The remastering sound good and the bonus contents were interesting (although a bit stingy on unreleased stuff). It was cool to have the previously unreleased MONO mix as well as the out of print Thrillington. As for the box itself, it was the most lavish until Wings Over America took it step further. My only complaint was that they didn't give us a hardbound book.

Btw, if you are willing to wait, the Ram deluxe does show up at times around the $60 or less mark. I remember it being on sale towards the end of last year...

 

Agree -the deluxe Ram is a beatyful edition of one of the best pop-albuns ever made

 

Looks like Band on the Run Archive Collection is getting another vinyl pressing. Coming out March 11 2016. Nice to know people are buying them.

 

I'm honestly a little mad that if they were going to do another pressing of BOTR that it didn't show up on the Coming Soon card for POP and TOW.

The only way to right this wrong is to reprint them after the fact and make them available to those of us who have supported these wonderful releases. Some of us are collectors, and these cards are just as much of a draw as the books and music contained within.

If nothing else, they could treat them like the Best Buy bonus 45s for WATSOS and V&M and allow us the honor of paying exorbitant shipping prices for something that could have been much more easy to obtain.

 

My 1982 TOW Japanese Nautilus vinyl pressing blows away the new remix. The low end resonance is phenomenal.
Especially on the title track.

 

Thats cool. Here is a technical question for those that are more up on this stuff than me - If they mixed the original digitally does that mean the original vinyl was pressed from 16/44 digital files?

 

More like digital tape

 

Love the "Pipes of Peace" remaster but wish they hadn't remixed "Tug of War". It was like trying to repair something that's not broken.

 

@theMess did you obtain the deluxe's editions from a good vendor?

 

Yep, that is what was in my brain, but for some reason I typed files. Of course digital tape in 1982. OK cool...that makes sense.
OK, so the original mix is digital. Now, from what I understand, they could take that digital mix and remaster it if they wanted. Is that the case for the original mix in the new box set, or is it the original master as well? They don't really say.

 

The RAM box is loaded to the gills with stuff, including the mono version of RAM, which you must hear. It's radical and it's good.

 

This afternoon was dedicated to a Tug of War shootout! Here were my various sources, though not all of them were used in all comparisons because I had made up my mind on some of them sooner than later

- Original US vinyl in NM condition
- Original US CD pressing
- 2015 deluxe box "original mix" at 16/44
- 2015 deluxe box remix at 16/44
- 2015 deluxe box remix at 24/96

Test setup:

Analog Source: Rega RP3 with exact cartridge
Digital Source: FLAC files streamed over my hard wired network to Rasberry Pi 2B running RuneAudio. CDs in the box were ripped and encoded to FLAC. 24/96 downloads were converted from WAV to FLAC

PreAmp: McIntosh c2500 tube pre-amp. Rega RP3 runs to the MM phono stage on this. Rasberry Pi is USB into the onboard DAC

Amplifier: McIntosh MC452
Speakers: Focal 1038BE

Let me first say, that every single one of these sources is a nice sounding recording. I don't believe one can really go "wrong" with any version above of Tug of War. It was a fantastically recorded, mixed and mastered album to begin with, being done at from what I can tell a pretty fantastic facility. Having the immortal George Martin at the helm I am sure didn't hurt either.

I started comparing the vinyl with the original CD, 2015 original mix, and 2015 remix (all in 16/44). That didn't last too long with all those sources, because I quickly deduced I couldn't really tell much if any difference between the original CD and the 2015 release "original mix" so I just stopped including the original CD in my testing. I am not sure if they are actually the same exact digital mastering or not. I have not found any definitive source that says the new "original mix" was remastered or not.

The first thing that is readily apparent is that the 2015 remix is a bit louder. Clearly, they used some tasteful peak limiting on the remix. I would guess without doing any kind of measurements about 2-3dB louder than the original mix and vinyl. As I started my shootout, I was actually quite surprised to be preferring the 2015 remix over the 2015 original mix digital in pretty much every case. The remix is definitely warmer to my ears, and they made some nice improvements. For example, at the beginning of "What's That You're Doing?" when Stevie speaks up and says "Or good morning" it is much more up front and clear on the remix. Not a big deal I know, but they did make improvements. I also personally felt that the remix destroyed the original DIGITAL mix on the low end. Take a listen to "Take It Away" and "Somebody Who Cares" and compare them, making sure to account for the remix being hotter.

So, with the above in my head, I decided that as of that moment my order of preference was Vinyl, 2015 digital remix, 2015 original mix. With that settled, I decided to try the vinyl against the 24/96 digital remix and see who came out on top

Again, I think it is actually closer than some people will give credit. I think they did a nice job on the remix and having listened to it side by side with my vinyl all day, I don't think the low end is as bad as I had thought. With that said, the vinyl trumps it. On my system the vinyl is warmer, does not have the 2-3dB of peak limiting, and the bass is just unbeatable. To it's credit, the 2015 24/96 remix does not have bad low end...but the vinyl has it at another level. The bass and percussion on "Take It Away" and especially "Somebody Who Cares" just kicks you in the chest.

Here are my results

1) Original US Vinyl
2) 24/96 Remix
3) 16/44 Remix
4) 16/44 Original mix (original CD or 2015 version, I can't really tell a difference)

I actually WANTED the 24/96 remix to win. It would make sense that it SHOULD win. We have an album here that was mixed digitally back in the day. This means the original master is digital, probably at 16/44 and that digital master was used to cut the original vinyl. It makes sense that if they went back to analog multitracks for the remix and did it with modern technology and brought it in at 24/96, while preserving as much of the feel of the original mix as possible, it would sound better....but somewhere along the line I think they must have mixed down some of that delicious low end...not sure. Again, these are just my thoughts after listening on my system in my room pretty analytically. Your mileage may vary...but hey it's not really serious, it's fun. That's the point : )

 

I'm not usually a fan of bloated box-sets, but the RAM set is truly wonderful. If it wasn't for the exclusive audio (the mono album on CD) I wouldn't have gone for it, but all in all, it's a beautiful box. Only other super deluxe Archive Series I've gotten so far is McCartney II, again for the exclusive audio. I'm suspect that FITD is gonna be a big release, since it's not being paired with anything.

 

The inside word is that the super-deluxe Flowers In The Dirt set will consist of a beat-up cassette tape and a bouquet of plastic roses...

 

If it's a Trevor Jones cassette, I'm in

 

Yes, thank you, I eventually got them on 'Amazon', for only 50 pounds each, so I saved about 60 pounds all together by waiting.

 

The credits are exactly the same, that bonus disc wasn't included in the "remastered at Abbey Road"-text, there's the "the original number 1 album, exactly as it was released in 1982"-blurb and when comparing the digital files, the 0's and 1's come out as 1 on 1, with the newly cloned disc being put a few db's lower if I remember correctly. Doesn't get any more definitive than that.

 

Found the exact details on that: Tug of War Remix »

In that topic there has been a lot of discussion on the remix as well. I posted a few samples back then. I never put out the samples for 'Here Today' as I had promised though, so here they are after all:

1982 mix, original CD: MEGA »
2015 remix: MEGA »

Without giving away too much, it sums up what I dislike about the majority of the remixes.

 

I wonder why they would go mess with the volume, and then say specifically it is "exactly as it was released in 1982". Obviously, if one is louder, it is not exactly the same. To me, nothing short of matching MD5/SHA hashes is "exactly the same"