Rage Against The Machine: "Evil Empire" SACD mastered by SH on Audio Fidelity coming

I listened to this last night. It sounds fantastic, so musical and involving. One of my favourite Audio Fidelity releases.

 

I found the SACD to be much, much more enjoyable than the original CD. I A/B'd both with headphones and like others have said- found it to be a lot less harsh on the ears.
There is space and warmth on songs that weren't there before.
Sure it doesn't "kick" as hard but at the same time it doesn't sound like a mess at the end of Year of tha Boomerang & with others.

Steve- please do the third album & Renegades! The Battle of Los Angeles practically needs it.

 

Thabnks for sharing that!

With more dynamics, wouldn't the AF kick harder?

The Battle of Los Angeles was a loudness war. We all lost.

 

My SACD finally arrived 2 days ago and I just started listening to it
What can I say, since I have the original 1996 UK CD, the SACD sounds more refined and a bit more clean for sure. While I think vocals are a bit behind in some songs, I hear new subtle details here and there. Overall the album now seems more enjoyable to me and as I mentioned previously it's my least favorite record from RATM catalog. Bass guitar sounds purely awesome, I never got that joy previously with original release.

P.S. after recent thoughts and Audioslave's 1-evening-reunion gig I really cross my fingers and truly hope Steve might consider to work with their debut album... Of course along with the last two RATM records haha

 

got to hear someone's copy of both RATM SACDs and all I can say is wow. Dynamite! My only criticism is maybe I would have preferred them to be just a *touch* more dynamic but I have no idea if that's baked into the master or not, and of course this is already such a nice improvement over any version I've heard in the past. Both of these desperately need a 45 cut. Hopefully Sony can sense the demand for this and get the tapes back to Steve to finish the job.

 

Bring us to the Battle Steve!

 

Although I'm nowhere near as much a fan of Evil Empire as I am the debut album that got me into RATM 20+ years ago, this new SACD does sound great. Took a little while to get my order fulfilled in Canada via Amazon.ca but was worth the wait. Thanks AF!

 

Vietnow is one of my favorite drum tracks. When I listen to this, the initial guitar riff is repeated, at the very beginning of the track (first couple seconds, in the silence between riffs). Almost as if the tape is looped back over itself? Or maybe it's just hum? It is very faint but it's there. Comparing this back to back with my original CD rip I have the same effect but it's seemingly more quiet. I'm just curious what this *is*. I'm not a music producer/engineer so I'm just asking from a curious person's perspective.

 

I don't hear anything looped. What I know for sure is that Tom, Tim and Brad have amazing rhythmical chemistry and they recorded everything live. In case of Evil Empire - right at their rehearsal space with some later guitar overdubs of course on Tom's part. Since he was (and still is) using Digitech Whammy WH-1 pedal to harmonize his notes 1 oct below (in case of Vietnow) there's some digital artificial noise generated by the pedal due to its monophonic nature and tracking imperfections. If you listen closely that Whammy noise is different at the end of both riff takes.

 

It's a magnetic phenomenon called Print-Through from the analog tapes. The problem gets worse the hotter you record to the tape and tends to also get worse over time as the tapes sit in the vault. Generally it manifests as a 'ghost version' of music and the effect happens AFTER the main audio..... if the tapes are stored 'Tails Out'. The most famous example of PT is probably Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin where the vocal print through during the breakdown is AHEAD of the main audio due to improper tape storage.

 

Is this a straight to dsd64, no 24bit files?

 

I know this is likely an unanswerable question but intrigue has taken me over...

Mr. Hoffman, any idea if RATM's Battle of Los Angeles will get your treatment as well? As far as songs go that one has some gems but it sounds pretty bad overall.

 

Write Marshall at AF and ask about it. He responds to most messages.

 

I did just that. Got a quick reply (actually a couple) back from Marshall. He said they are "releasing Battle of Los Angeles for our next RATM. It's a good one. Shout it to the world."
I inquired about release date and he said they are "looking at second quarter of this year".

Heck yes!!!

 

P

Great news!

 

Yeah, that's what he told me months ago when I asked about it, before Evil Empire came out. Glad to hear that is still the plan!

 

Hopefully we'll get Renegades as well!

 

that news deserves a dedicated thread! Thank you for sharing

 

Woohoo!! After both SACD releases I listened again to Battle of LA and the sound is indeed not that good in terms of mastering. Especially Brad's percussion (cymbals, hi-hat etc.). This is going to be a significant upgrade from for sure \m/

 

I thought about doing that (making a new thread) but wasn't sure if it would be appropriate. But heck... why not.
Rage Against the Machine's The Battle of Los Angeles will get the Audio Fidelity treatment as well!

 

It will surely be interesting for to finally compare these. I have the originals, the XX remaster at DR6 of the 1st, and now both of these.

I will be posting my results when I get them. I've never had too much a problem with the first couple Rage CDs. But I could not resist because we hardly EVER get full dynamic releases of modern rock records. Honestly, I cannot even remember the last time this happened for an album I like this much. Maybe never lol. Not recently anyway.

I'll be paying special attention to the bass, as this is the main reason a lot of people seem to give for cranking DR values. Will be interesting to see how this DR6 XX remaster fares lol. At any rate the XX release sadly does have the best artwork by far so I had to get it for 6 bucks.

 

Well then, that release is easily the most pushed of all of them by far. I would not call it awful but it definitely could use some space and please lower the edge on that old thing.

 

straight to DSD

 

Wish they'd put out a DSD stream of it to download.