Yeah, well, out of morbid curiosity, I just A/B'd "Introduction" from my old '70's LP to the "50th Anniversary Remix" on You Tube...three words: W.T.F. First, I don't think remixing this record was even necessary in the first place (II, on the other hand is a different story and Steve Wilson did a helluva job there) but I fail to see how these guys -the remaining band members who played on the thing included- could sit there with a straight face afterwards and say this remix sounded better than the 1969 original (and, yeah, I'd be curious to hear Guercio's verdict on the remix as well). First, the sound is all ear splitting trebly mid range (indeed, you got yer AM-radio sound for sure), the low end has been completely f--king neutered, as have the drums (as if they were trying to 'bury' Cetera and Seraphine in the mix, as it were), I hated the wide spread panning on the horns (which indeed sounded way more kazoos than they ever did on Carnegie Hall), but, for me, worst of all, during Kath's solo, the 'divebombing' guitars he overdubbed underneath -which I love- are buried as well. Travesty. I didn't bother with the rest of the album, and damned if I'm gonna bother with this massive Carnegie Hall set they're bringing out, either...but whatever happens, this Jessup guy better keep his g-ddamn mitts off of VII- don't even think about f--king around with that record, buddy...
I wish Giles Martin mixed CTA 50th instead. Just wishful thinking. I realize there are some that don't like Giles work but at least it would of worked better with CTA 50TH. IMHO
The Abbey Road and White Album remixes are infinitely better than this Chicago Transit Authority abomination, Giles Martin did some nice work there. In some way those remixes did manage to improve on the originals (IMO), this Chicago one? Er, not so much...
I gotta say, when someone reported the AutoTune way upthread, I thought to myself..."They have got to be exaggerating or joking". No and No. Have some respect for the music, Jessup. NJB
I have my Mastersound CD, the MoFi SACD & the Columbia first release pressing of this album. All three are phenomenal! I wouldn't touch this piece of remastered crap at all.
A Complete Carnegie remix/remaster has been a dream of mine forever. I love that period of the band. Also liked how the bonus live tracks from the latest Carnegie release ( a whole disc worth IIRC) sounded terrific. I see those bonus tracks in Spotify as "Unreleased Rarities from Chicago at Carnegie Hall" but I seem to recall from the CD (which I dont have in front of me know) that these bonus tracks were NOT from the Carnegie Hall shows but from other shows around the same time and/or tour. So maybe there are other shows that were multitracked at the time. Since nobody here was happy with the CTA remix or the Decades Live box set project (which I have not bothered with because of the bad SQ reviews), this is not a good indication for the new CH box. Somebody should look at the Cream and Band of Gypsys live box sets for a job well done. Of course, The Grateful Dead has been doing this for decades now.
No, the fourth disc of the Rhino box was from Carnegie, the notes identify the dates. The Spotify playlist is that disc.
Thanks, I don't know why in my mind I thought the fourth disc listed other cities, but I was going from memory.
Last year I realized that my amp was calibrated for the wrong room size. Once I fixed that, things started to sound even more normal! Those Giles Martin remixes sounded better, too! No more complaints from me about them, except for the almost missing piano of "The Day And The Life", and that I was right about the remixes replacing the originals.
Who needs Giles? A deaf monkey could have done a better remix than the CTA 50th. And probably would have flung less crap around than the audio diarrhea Jessup served up.
I'd be inclined to say that Terry Kath was Chicago's balls, but that's probably a topic for another discussion... What gets me with this CTA remix though is, these guys all studied music, so I'm guessing that at one time, at least, they had ears. Surely Lamm, Pankow etc picked up a thing or two about record/sound production and whatnot over the years- again, how can they honestly say this remix actually sounds good and is an improvement on the original?
Is it at all possible that they gave it the thumbs up to encourage sales well as a way to bring re-energized attention to their often "lost" but great early seventies music? Given the rock solid negative consensus from fans who know the album, it's very hard to believe that the band members honestly like it as they outwardly indicate.
That's not an excuse, man. Bobby Lamm, Jim Pankow, Walt Parazider and Lee Loughnane need to get their hearing checked, then, if they think this remix sounds good.
Then the question arises who they expect to reach? Do they really think now suddenly a big number of young music lovers will re-visit their sixties' output? Would anyone get interested in Mona Lisa if they largely repainted it with worse colours and worse expression? No, this remix goes too far. There are red lines that should not be crossed.
I really don't think any of them picked up much about record production. I think they were all too into making the music and left the production up to whomever produced and engineered them. And their hearing is shot!
This poor album can't get a break. Joe Reagoso has now remastered it for Friday music. He was the worst until I heard Tim Jessup. This record is a magnet for bad engineering. I only hope MoFi gives it another shot on vinyl.