ZZ Top Sixpack

I've got it, and very glad they did it and the early albums are available again in their original mixes, but I just listened to the Six Pack versions of the first two albums, and, like I said, as alternatives rather than substitutions they sound pretty good.

 

Robert Palmer did the same thing on his "Addictions, Vol I and II" Best ofs. A few of the songs were remixed with that big 80s sound.

 

Away that that abomination!

 

They sound like absolute crap, no matter how you twist and turn it. It is the worst treatment ever done posthumously to any recording, that I have heard. If you have an academic interest in hearing different elements of a mix, and have a masochistic bent, they are perhaps mildly interesting.

 

That is your opinion. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion. I am entitled to mine.

Personally I have heard things done to Beatles and Buddy Holly recordings [to name just two] that I found far worse.

 

Sorry, I usually try to avoid negative comments when it comes to music and rather focus on the positive, there is far too much negativity on the forum as is. If you think it sounds good then enjoy.

ZZ Top are very special to me and I absolutely hate what was done on the Sixpack, more than anything else related to reissued music, especially since it replaced the real thing. At least the last part is rectified now, but the damage can't be undone and I still hear those abominations on the radio and elsewhere.

Here are a couple of qoutes from engineer Terry Manning about the Sixpack (not engineer on the two first albums, where the most damage was done, but on the later three):

"To have worked so hard, and cared so much, and then for other people who have absolutely no idea about the intricacies of sound or production to carelessly ruin it all, or worse, to have intentionally injected a vision of their own which is crass and ridiculous, is the height of sonic absurdity."

"After the long hours and days and weeks and months of work to create a certain sonic signature that the band and production team were looking for, to have it all totally ruined was just unfathomable, at the time, and still today."

 

I vividly remember first hearing the "new" "LaGrange" on the radio in 1987. The DJ hyped the Six Pack (which, as a release, was actually a novel idea at the time), and then played "LaGrange."

After the song was over, there were 6-7 seconds of dead air, uncharacteristic for this FM rock station. The DJ finally came back on and said, "What the hell was that?", played another song, and the '87 mix of "LaGrange" was never again heard on that station.

 

Try "We're Only In It For The Money" first cd version.

 

Yes, that is certainely the closest competition, actually that may beat it, and if I were a bigger Zappa fan I might be more offended by that. Then again that was Zappa's thing ("Have I Offended Someone?") so it somehow seems more fitting in his case (if not acceptable then at least understandable). The Sixpack is just plain stupid.

For anyone interested try searching out original engineer Terry Manning's comments about it's creation, he was initially asked to do it but declined because it involved remixing all the songs in just a couple of days. The rush in which it was made explains some of the "sonic absurdity", they decided on some basic sound processing choices and then applied them right across all the songs, and it also might explain all the (assumed) mix mistakes with missing parts and parts that obviously were never meant to be heard (all though of course poor taste is of course also an important factor...).

 

After growing up with vinyl.
The Six Pack was one I despised!
Chrome, Smoke and BBQ is much better.
I enjoy The Complete Studio Albums set.

Six packs remixes also include drum machine.
Original mixes, with Frank Beards drum tracks are the action.
As much as I love Billy Gibbons, how could he replace the drums?

The LP/CD 10 Legendary Texas Tales is a great single disc to sample the real ZZ Top.

 

It is not a drum machine, they used (some of) Frank's recorded tracks (mostly kick and snare) to trigger sampled drum sounds. Notice how the signal sometimes is not strong enough to trigger the sample so some hits get left out, it is maddening on songs where Frank plays a shuffle beat on the snare and only some of the softer ghost notes trigger the sampled sound.

In a similar way, for all the songs on the first two albums they picked out one of Billy's guitar tracks and ran it trough a modern (at the time) distortion/overdrive device (seemingly random which track they chose, but they had to do it to one of them, like if it was a rule they set up). I have never heard anything like this done anywhere else, it is so stupid I get dizzy from thinking about it...

I could have possibly accepted, as alternative versions, if they wanted to add lots of ugly reverb, do strange different mixes with stuff left in/out that was/wasn't on the original, do radically different edits, etc., but these two thing I mentioned are unforgivable.

Edit: I should also add that the remixing on the Sixpack was not done at the request of Billy Gibbons or the band, but by the management/label (I guess manager Bill Ham is ultimately to blame).

 

I got the 6 -pack, knowing very little of ZZ Top, besides the 80s MTV sound of the current albums at the time, other than the great ZZ Top's Greatest Hits to be surprised at how weird it sounded. The actual music was great to get me into old ZZ Top, but it was just odd sounding even then. The best part of the 6-pack is the booklet.

Now that I have all the original mix CDs - wow, what a band.

 

will take your word on the drum processing.
It is crap, no matter how they got there.
Haven't played those discs in 10 years.

I have read in old interviews, and that was me reading years ago..
Where the Reverend said that he and Bill did the additional work on Six Pack.
They wanted to update the sound for a new generation etc..

Perhaps that was bs.
I find it hard to beleive that all the remixing was done without Billy's approval. Maybe.

 

Well, first of all Bill Ham never had anything to do with the practicalities of what went on in the studio, he ran the business. That the idea was to "update the sound for a new generation" is correct - who came up with the idea is a different question and maybe no one remembers any longer, but it seems it must have originated with the label (W.B.) somewhere and was picked up on enthusiastically by management (Bill H.), and I think Billy G. might not have had a say on this matter. This is what Billy Gibbons is supposed to have said about it at the time (in conversation): "It was to please the modern fans of the new ZZ sound. Myself, I prefer the originals."

Who did the actual remixing in not stated anywhere. An engineer hired by the management, who would probably like to remain anonymous at this point, I would guess. When it was already a fact that the albums were coming out in remixed form Billy and the band had to back it up of course, so what he said in interviews might not reflect how things happened. Also Billy never let the truth come in the way of a good story, he likes to tell "tall tales" and wind up journalists, so who know what he really thinks except he himself.

This has been posted on the forum before, but let me leave it once again to Terry Manning, original engineer (and producer in all but name) of the albums from Tres Hombres onwards, to relate part of the story on how the Sixpack came about (note that the below is quoted from a post by Terry Manning in a thread at http://repforums.prosoundweb.com):

-

To keep a long sordid story as short as possible, I was asked in about 1985 to come in to "REMIX FOR DIGITAL RELEASE" five of the "old" ZZ albums. They had booked two days, with part of a third on hold "just in case."

The idea was to remix FIVE ALBUMS IN TWO DAYS, and release those along with "Eliminator" (that one was deemed "new enough" to be "ready for digital."

I explained that:

A) One could not properly mix three albums in two days, no matter what.

B) All mixes from the original albums were great as they were, and to be "digital ready," only had to be properly transferred to the proper Masterium.

Management however were seduced by the term "digital," and wanted to be able to advertise this new "Six Pack" as "Remixed For Digital/CD."



American Marketing at its finest.



They insisted that I go ahead.

I refused.

The remixes were carried through by someone else who had no regard for the sonic problems at hand.

A single snare and a single bass drum sample were triggered from a Wendel Jr. unit, and pasted all over everything, slathered in Quantec digital reverb.

Five classic, sonically georgeous albums were remixed in slightly over two days, wantonly "processed for digital."

The mixer(s) did not even perform some of the edits that had become part of the lexicon, and those were recreated as best he could with wrong parts on hand by Bob Ludwig in Mastering (Bob had called me in tears when he got it all, asking what had gone wrong, and wanting to find any way to salvage this debacle...he had discovered wrong fades, missed edits, wrong track choices, etc., not to mention the samples and reverb).


The Six Pack was released.


The band then quickly dropped at least halfway down the Totem Pole of Rock, as real fans of their music, and purveyors of sonic quality, were aghast.



The Brand was almost irreparably damaged.



Only in the past few years have the REAL versions started to reappear, albeit at times with "Over-Mastering" qualities.

Still they are at least the correct mixes.


The true intent of the entire production team can only be heard on the original vinyls.

-

(In the above he probably means El Loco was deemed "new enough" to be "ready for digital", since it was the "untouched" album in the SixPack - Eliminator was already out at this point.)

This, and more importantly some very interesting comments about Terry's work with ZZ Top on the original recording sessions, can be found in these threads:
http://repforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,5689.0.html
http://repforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,20008.0.html
http://repforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php?topic=20754.5.html
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=51529

 

Speaking of redoing the drum tracks.
I recently did a needle drop of Phil Collins - Face Value
From the opening drums beat of In the Air Tonight, I noticed that these sounded different than the cd. This had been redone just like the Six Pac set.
I also remember hearing that the first wave of Zappa on cd had the same treatment, but I haven't compared them.

 

Curious to know what happened with Frank Beard. Terry is very tight lipped about it. It's clear though that "Legs" was recorded by just Billy and Terry.

 

Even though I was raised during the Eliminator era, I've come to believe that The Complete Studio Albums 1970-1990 is superior to Chrome, Smoke & BBQ, even though I certainly enjoy those punched-up tracks on occasion. (Yes, I own both.)

In all of the press around Complete the word was these were the original mixes, minus the gated snares, etc. They sure sound good and clean to me!

 

Yes, it is a big mystery. To my ears, and this is just my personal opinion, Frank has not been on a ZZ record since El Loco. His style of playing with the band live has no resemblance to what is on the later albums, where there are real drums on the recording.

Jimi Jamison does vocals (as he does on quite a few songs of that era), but other than that yes. I would guess they did most of the record on their own, since Frank's not on it and I don't think there's anything from Dusty either (I don't hear any traditional bass guitar except the slap bass in "Thug" and that is supposed to be Billy).

An important part of the Eliminator story is also the pre-production recordings done by Billy with Linden Hudson, where many of the ideas and the songs originated. I guess these recordings are what Terry refers to when he says this about "Legs": "As mentioned, this song was recorded in my attic, except for Billy's lead guitar and vocal, which came from a previous studio version which was unsatisfactory. (Oh, if I could tell the whole, real story! Maybe someday...)" In that case part of the "real story" is in David Blaney's book Sharp Dressed Men.

 

Was it a record company thing?

 

Here is Linden Hudson's side of the story: http://www.lindenhudson.com/fa-2-2/

 

Here is perhaps that "previous studio version", or something very similar, the vocals sound like they could be what ended up on the album, the lead guitar is slightly different:
http://soundcloud.com/texasman-1/legs-song-by-zz-top-pre-release-proto-type-recording-clip

(I just heard this clip for the first time just now, did not know it was out there. Sorry to have gone so totally off topic...)

 

This is an incredible story...wow!

 

On the clips from the Linden Hudson sessions Frank and Dusty are playing along to the synthesized tracks and a click track. I guess Billy simply came to the conclusion that it wasn't working and eliminated(!) them in the final production. According to the David Blaney book Frank didn't know he wasn't on the finished recording until he heard the album (although I find that hard to believe).

 

So who mastered the Six Pack?
Are you sitting down?
According to the booklet...

Bob Ludwig, Bill Ham and Joe Hardy.

Additionally, they labored for months...

Believe it or not. It is there in writing.

 

Sorry, my mistake when I said that "Who did the actual remixing in not stated anywhere" in my post, I was thinking about the separate CD releases where it doesn't mention remixing. I forgot that there is that page in the booklet of the SixPack.

However I don't understand why Terry Manning would be asked to do it it two days and then, when he didn't want to do it, someone else "laboured for months with the unmixed tapes", so it is word against word (and personally I don't trust what's in the booklet, it is sales-talk). I still don't see Bill Ham having anything to do with the actual mixing, so maybe Bob Ludwig mastered it (don't know if he usually gets involved in mixing), and maybe Joe Hardy is the guy that did the remixing?

For example the credits for Antenna say:

• Mixing – Joe Hardy
• Mastering – Bob Ludwig

So maybe that was the usual division of labour?