Led Zeppelin I-IV 2014 remasters considered the best?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Plissken99, Dec 5, 2014.

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  1. Maybe because they can't put in what was never there. I guess a remix would be required.
     
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  2. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Yes - having heard so many versions of this album, including all the digital remasterings and so many vinyl masterings (UK, US, Classic, etc), it seems clear that overall there's not a ton of bass in the original mix, and in particular there seems to be a lack of tight, impactful lower-to-mid bass, I would guess in the 50-80Hz region.

    I've also heard vinyl rips, and my own attempted EQ jobs, that increase the bass, which is easy to do (on purpose or by accident), but the overall effect is not great. I think one would have to do some very careful, very precise work with a parametric EQ, on a song-by-song basis or maybe even a song-section by song-section basis, to thicken up the bass and increase its tightness and impact, without turning the whole thing into a mushy mess.

    With "Rock and Roll," for example, there's actually a good amount of bass on that track. But there's a very muddy quality to it that in my experience has proven very resistant to all attempts to clear/tighten it up.

    Likewise, with "Levee," the famous opening drum section is great, but curiously lacking in bass-drum impact. I presume that's because of how it was mic'd, and also because too much bass impact and presence would work against the hyper-ambient sound they were going for by doing distant mic'ing in that stairwell. Again, it's a simple matter to dial in some EQ to thicken up that initial bit - but if you leave that EQ in place for the whole track, it sounds like a bloated mudfest.

    My guess is that not only would it need a remix, but one might first need to re-EQ some of the individual tracks before mixing, in order to cure the sonic ills of this album. Even then, I'm not convinced that the better sound wouldn't be counter-balanced by a loss of some of the magic feel Page and Johns got with that album. IMHO part of Page's genius as a producer is about his nose for the right feel/vibe - "Whole Lotta Love" is technically a trainwreck in some ways, but I've yet to hear a modern remix from the leaked multis that fully captures the menace and excitement of the original, official mix.
     
  3. nikosvault

    nikosvault Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denmark
    LZ3 and Presence are preferable. And mostly because the original and 94 remasters were awful.

    That's it.
     
  4. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Yes, I messed around with the parametric EQ a bit today on a Classic Records needledrop of Misty Mountain Hop and it came out sounding like this.
     
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  5. Fender Relic

    Fender Relic Forum Resident

    Location:
    PennsylBama
    I'm a III fan but haven't heard them all.
     
  6. CowboyBill

    CowboyBill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah
    I'm a Diament guy, but the recent III vinyl is very good.
     
  7. Prophetzong

    Prophetzong Forum Resident

    Location:
    NE WISC
    Heard most of the Zep III’s on vinyl and CD. The 2014 Davis remaster on vinyl is great.
     
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  8. Phasecorrect

    Phasecorrect Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    Very frustrating for such an iconic lp. I have learned to live with it. I just turn my sub up ....hahaaa
     
  9. Timbo21

    Timbo21 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Having been a Zep fan as a teenager when I was teenager 38 odd years ago I gave these a try, the 96/24 files. They are enjoyable. I previously had a career as a mastering engineer and cutting vinyl. I know John Davis' work who did these too. I have since bought some of the Classic Records vinyl versions cut by Bernie Grundman.

    I am still happy to listen to these hi res files, but there are a couple of shortcomings generally.

    1) John Davis has said he widened the stereo image on these. When I was mastering I liked doing it on modern stuff. Since the guitar's are often panned hard left/right you get more guitar (I'm sure Jimmy was happy), but a tad less drums and voice in relation.
    2) They lack a bit of bottom mid oomph which would give the drums and voice a bit more body
    3) John Davis said they didn't playback with Dolby because they didn't feel it sounded right, and then digitally reduced the top. I understand this. The old Dolby A racks were hard to line up and could differ, so if it was encoded with a set, it would be by far best to play back with the same cards. Of course umpteen years later that's not a possibility. The problem is I think some of the brashness I hear is down to not decoding with Dolby A. Additionally, much of the body to the drums and slight compression effect may be part of what gave the drums that bit of extra oomph
     
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  10. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Very interesting information, and really appreciate your perspective as a mastering engineer - thanks! :righton:

    Not to be pedantic, but I think as far as widening the stereo image, Davis has only said he did that on Gallow's Pole on Zep III, at Page's request. It's certainly possible he did it on other tracks too, but as far as I know this was not something done throughout the catalogue with the Davis remasters.

    Similarly, I believe Davis has said they preferred the sound of some of the Dolby A tapes played back without Dolby A decoding. So again, I'm not sure all the tapes had Dolby A, and even if they did, Davis gave the impression that some of them were digitized with Dolby A decoding, while others were not.
     
  11. Timbo21

    Timbo21 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    .

    If I had to bet I think most didn't have the Dolby.

    Led Zep IV sounds a bit funny to me stereo wise. There is M/S processing in mastering that has become very popular post 90's. Most mastering engineers use it these days. It doesn't necessarily widen the stereo image, although it can. It will open up the stereo information by processing the side information separately to the middle. It can help give a bigger stereo image, but I'm not sure I like it on older stuff.
     
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  12. ajawamnet

    ajawamnet Forum Resident

    Location:
    manassas va 20109

    I wonder what version of Dolby A units they were playing with and what he really meant by that. ... there were quite a few variations to the Dolby A cards with some guys modding 301's to do 2:1 compression on just the top end.
    The Dolby A Trick - AudioThing

    You just pulled out the other cards. Later frames had cards with all the bands on one card.

    There's an old forum topic with some opinions about this :
    How to decode Dolby "A"?

    I'm thinking a lot of confusion exists concerning the old Dolby A units and how some engineers used them...
     
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  13. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    They may indeed be the best widely available versions, but I don't think they are revelatory. You won't hear a night and day difference from the 1990 remasters.
     
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  14. ajawamnet

    ajawamnet Forum Resident

    Location:
    manassas va 20109

    Yea when I was going thru all the Zep stuff about a year ago I really didn't discern a lot of difference besides typical changes in crest factor and slight eq variations.
     
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  15. DK Pete

    DK Pete Forum Resident

    Location:
    Levittown. NY
    The biggest difference to my ears is on II...even with all the distortion on the actual tracks, they sound cleaner and beefier than on any other version. III is in second place. I don't hear that much difference in I or IV. I was hoping for a stronger lower end on IV but it's still not there.
     
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  16. ajawamnet

    ajawamnet Forum Resident

    Location:
    manassas va 20109
    Forgive me tmtomh and others that've already heard it....

    If you want to hear a big diff in LZ II - at least one song - take a listen to these:

    https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...fferent-mastering.768690/reply?quote=19283152

    Direct links:
    Compared to the 2014 remasters-
    http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawam2/lzcompare_0006.mp4

    Vid with VU meters of my mix:
    http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawam2/lz-wll-vu1.mp4


    I did change it a bit since I posted that last year - just got rid of more noise and tweaked it a bit.

    Finally put it up on a site:
    Remix of WLL

    I went thru all of the various II's I could find - the 2014 thing was an improvement. Looks a lot different thru all the analysis crap I use.

    But I still would love to see someone carefully remix their catalog. It can be done - at least I think so after doing one tune.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2019
  17. DK Pete

    DK Pete Forum Resident

    Location:
    Levittown. NY
    I'll double check but I think I've heard these before and yes, was quite impressed. I could never understand why they allowed all that level distortion to go through on II...what's even crazier is the amount of people who don't even hear it! Over the decades it *has* become part of the powerful 'charm' of the album but it can get bothersome as well. Those crash cymbal at the final section of WLL are quite bad...and yet, like I said, many don't hear it (or just don't care about it). I'm not sure which LZ album I'd want remixed if I had to choose just one. It would be between II and IV, though. II for the distortion and IV for the lack of low end.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2019
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  18. ajawamnet

    ajawamnet Forum Resident

    Location:
    manassas va 20109
    That'd be fun to mix IV ... if I recall Andy Johns wasn't real thrilled with how that turned out. - that and "... got a bit weird... " during the remix at Island after trying it at Sunset:
    MelodicRock.com Interviews: Andy Johns
    ... bout halfway down that webpage

    Sunset mix:


    There's an interesting plug in from Voxengo LF Max Punch. Might bring some lows to the existing Island official mix ...
     
  19. originalsnuffy

    originalsnuffy Socially distant and unstuck in time

    Location:
    Tralfalmadore
    I think the recent remasters are a bit light on the bass. But I still play then more than the other releases.
     
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  20. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    When it comes to Zep IV, the original mix definitely is a bit bass-shy, and something about the mix seems to make it resistant to fixing the bass simply by EQ'ing it up - seems to reduce the clarity. I would guess that the only real cure for the sonic issues with that album would be a fresh new mix, one that would faithfully reproduce the mixing moves of the original, but with a little bump up in the volume of the kick drum and a little thickening of the isolated bass guitar track. I'm a rank amateur though, so that's just a guess.
     
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  21. Timbo21

    Timbo21 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Well said.

    It's easy to listen to a finished product and wonder why they didn't bump the bass, etc, but sometimes it just doesn't work, or just isn't there to boost.

    I recently bought a 200g Led Zep IV Classic Records BG cut and I really love it. Someone like Grundman is really as good as it gets as a mastering engineer. Bob Ludwig was great at Sterling and Masterdisk, but I didn't like the sound of his stuff when he opened up his own place in Maine, plus he dropped vinyl. Engineers sound does change when they move studio, and it's often been for the worse.
     
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  22. ajawamnet

    ajawamnet Forum Resident

    Location:
    manassas va 20109
    Aren't we all just rank amateurs?

    One of the problems with Levee is the phase... see this vid:

    http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawam2/leveeraw-liss-out.mp4

    this is from the Mothership release... the vid shows a lissajous of the left and right channels.

    Page always went for some strange imaging... add to that the stairway mic'ing of the drums at Headley Grange and you get some funky phasey stuff going on. One of the reasons just EQ'ing results in less than ideal results.

    So here's another vid showing the Voxengo LF max effect

    http://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawam2/levee-lfmax-out.mp4

    The music starts about 20 seconds in to give you time to read the text that tries to explain what's going on with me setting and bypassing the effect. You'll see my mouse moving around to the various parts of the screen. Note the spectragram on the bottom left of the vid as the bass is added by the LF Max effect...

    As the darker blue cursor hits the various transitions of the light blue effect bypass automation envelope you'll hear the diff and see the results in the spectragram

    It starts with the effect bypassed and the first time it kicks on is the second Boom cha of the drums.

    The Voxengo elephant is a just a simple peak limiter set to minimum - just enough to keep the track from clipping as the LF max kicks in...


    So the LF max is not an EQ - it actually synthesizes low end using various algorithms - a while ago he mentioned a lot of it was written in X64 assembly... aleksey is an incredible coder

    About the LF max from the developer
    Bass Enhancer and Exciter Plugin [VST, AU, AAX] - LF Max Punch | Voxengo :
    "LF Max Punch plugin dynamically emphasizes selected bass frequency band, applies a smooth saturation over it, and produces additional sub-harmonic content, with the ability to blend it with the original bass band sound. Optional compression can then be applied to the resulting low-frequency sound. LF Max Punch first splits the broad-band signal into low- and high-frequency bands and then applies the aforementioned effects to the lower band only."

    And yea - LZ's catalog really needs some loving remixing in my opinion...
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2019
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  23. Chemguy

    Chemguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Western Canada
    My 2014s have plenty of solid bottom end. I like them very much.
     
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  24. Jimmy Mac

    Jimmy Mac Zooropa... better by design

    I know this is gonna be blasphemous around here but dare I say that when I listened to it today, that it sounded so much more bassier, more bombastic then my Hot Mix RL does???

    Damn thing shook the house!!!
     
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  25. douglas mcclenaghan

    douglas mcclenaghan Forum Resident

    Jimmy Page is one of the greatest record producers of all time. If it's OK with him it's OK with me.
     
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