Are you speaking from personal experience or speculating ? Because my own idle guess is that trusting precious master tapes (whatever their condition) to a mastering engineer is a lot more complicated, time consuming and costly than handing an artist/producer approved digital master to your pressing-plant in-house guy (or gal, as the case may be).
Last year Andrew Sandoval delivered the original Pye mono Kinks master tapes from the UK to Kevin Gray in California. He cut them all analog, and those reissues can be had for less than $25, which is lower than the price of MOFI, AP, AF and other all analog audiophile releases. Same story with the Beatles mono reissues in 2014. Obviously they pressed a million of those, so the unit cost is lower than a short run. How many of those Kinks reissues do you supposed they pressed? 5000? 10000? The Kinks will sell a fraction of what the Beatles will, yet those albums were mastered with the same care, and are very reasonably priced. So doing reissues the right way isn't necessarily more expensive, it's just so much quicker and easier to cut from digital transfers. I've said it before, if the master tape is in good condition, the only reason to cut from a digital transfer is laziness on the part of the reissue producer. Sure, some rights holders won't let tapes out of the vaults, but we're talking about Pink Floyd. They own their masters now, do they not?
With these particular reissues a lot more time was likely spent on preparing the digital masters than doing a straight cut from tape. The master tapes are at Abbey Road as is the cutting chain so we are not talking about sending a file for a bog standard knock off at GZ or Optimal. With these major artists the sales are going to be relatively high so any extra work involved has little relevance to the unit cost. The use of digital is mostly for convenience so they can use the same source for mastering all formats. In some cases it is possible that tapes are in poor shape because of the formula used. I believe there are problems with The Wall but the early albums pre 1974 should be on issue free tape stock.
The fact the Kinks analogue reissues are relatively cheap for you doesn't, in itself, mean analogue is cheaper to arrange. For one thing, I imagine The Kinks and Pink Floyd don't have the same monetary amibtions. It should also be noted that The Beatles mono reissues were by no means cheap in Europe (they were, in fact, about the same price as MOFI and AF releases), and that the European Kinks reissues were digital affairs.
It is official....they are releasing them all! On 3 June 2016, Pink Floyd Records will begin the reintroduction of the complete Pink Floyd catalogue on vinyl, making it available for the first time in over two decades, with the release of the first four albums: ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’, the soundtrack from the film ‘More’ and the 2 LP set ‘Ummagumma’. Special care has been taken to replicate the original packaging, and the first batch of releases, mastered by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Bernie Grundman, will be pressed on 180gram vinyl for optimum sound quality. Pink Floyd Records will release further titles from the vinyl catalogue throughout the year, with release dates being announced at regular intervals. In the meantime, all Pink Floyd albums are now available on CD, digital and most streaming platforms.
I wonder if they've listened to criticism of going down the digital route and have gone like the Beatles mono for AAA releases, it's wishful thinking on my part. I'm thinking these will be digital which in this case there is nothing for me here, I would definitely be on board if they did but I'm thinking they are just cashing in on the vinyl resurgence in the most easiest way. That is not to say a proper job will be done on these but I have all the back cat on AAA vinyl already so digital versions are just not for me. Good news for those looking for inexpensive (hopefully) crystal clear pressings though.
"The first set of releases were mastered by James Guthrie and Joel Plante, who have collaborated with Pink Floyd and their members for several years, and Bernie Grundman, who has mastered several notable albums including Thriller, Purple Rain and The Chronic." Not much hope of a mono Piper, but the personnel promise a decent result.
Please give us mono Piper and SoS. This announcement also lends credence to the Early Years box set. I wonder if a complete box set will be made available, or if they will be standalone releases only? We need someone in the know to fill in some details here (e.g., AAA). June 3 is not far away, so these first four are probably already pressed and ready to go.
Amazon US and Amazon UK pre-order links: and prices Amazon US The Piper at the Gates of Dawn ($27.98): Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Amazon.com Music » A Saucerful of Secrets ($27.98): http://www.amazon.com/Saucerful-Secrets-Pink-Floyd/dp/B01EW1UMOG More ($27.98): Pink Floyd - More - Amazon.com Music » Ummagumma ($39.98): http://www.amazon.com/Ummagumma-Pink-Floyd/dp/B01EW1UMM8 Amazon UK The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (£16.99): The Piper At The Gates of Dawn [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: Music » A Saucerful of Secrets (£16.99): A Saucerful of Secrets [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: Music » More (£20.99): More [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: Music » Ummagumma (£23.99): Ummagumma [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: Music »
We'll probably have to wait for Fremer to ask Grundman directly about the sources used for cutting these... but let's be realistic, there's like 99.9999% possibility they are cut from digital source.
That's a common blurb. It usually means "remastered from a digital transfer of the original analogue tapes". I used to think that "cut from the analogue masters" meant AAA, but the recent Captain Beefheart box debunked that one, too.
That's good news but we know that sticker can mean quite a few things, one being all analog. Fingers crossed....
That's just wrong when they do that but it's not like anyone holds them responsible. Many albums just say "Remastered from OMT" and are indeed all analog and then others say the same thing and are just sourced from OMT and cut from the digital masters. Most of the one's that say "Cut from..." I do believe are telling the truth. And then we have artists and labels that don't even mention the world analog and the are completely analog. Time to invoke some optimism, I'm glad to see Bernie Grundman is involved.
The fact that the labels say "The stereo remastered album.." *may* indicate an eventual release of the mono Piper. It would be a real shame if we didn't get the mono mix.
