The Vol 4 press release regarding Live in the UK 1973 states: The live audio has been newly mixed by Richard Digby Smith using the original 16-track analog tapes to achieve a level of fidelity not heard on any previous incarnations
just got mine in today. just finished the 3LP live set. i had a 2LP bootleg of it and the bootleg actually has a bit more top end than this 3LP but in the other areas the 3LP wins i think.
I got my box set today. I just listened to the Live '75 album. I really enjoyed it and I think it sounds pretty good. Not quite as good as the live album live '73 on the Vol 4 mix set. But not far off that. So far this deluxe box set has impressed me with the quality of the pressings, the cover for Sabotage is very true to the original complete with textured cover. A very nice hardbound book full of press articles on Sabbath. A nice copy of the '75 tour book. The Sabotage poster is massive and would be cool to frame. I haven't listened to the new master of the original album yet. I paid $98 for this box set and I'm very happy with it.
The live recording really sounds like crap. Besides being lossy, it is compressed to the point the sound is "pumping". And there is the same old tape flaw at the end of the Hole in the Sky that was there on the bootleg.
I wouldn't say "like crap", and I don't hear that much compression. If this were a newly surfaced recording I had never heard before, I would probably say it sounds great. However, compared to the master reel > CDR version, the lossy-sourced official discs (CD version - I don't have the vinyl) sound clearly worse - less natural, more artifically EQed - to me. Which is pretty much exactly as expected. It's the lossy origin that surprised me.
When Ozzy's singing, the guitar goes a bit down and so on. I don't remember Past Lives having that. Or Am I Going Insane?
I think I can hear what you're describing. The EQ they chose screws with the guitar & vocals frequencies in a way I really find unnatural. It's also possible there is a little compression. I'm not seeing it in the waveforms of the song portion but between song talking does look like it's compressed some. So what you're hearing might be something screwy that happened with the pretty extreme EQ in combination with some compression. Whatever it is, I don't like it and find the bootleg to sound far more natural.
Yeah, whatever they did there EQ-wise, it was a bad idea. The good news is that after listening to this, I can appreciate the strengths of the alleged master reel > CDR version even more. It sounds so powerful yet natural.
Bummer that this boxset doesn't have any studio outtakes or demo material on it like Vol. 4. No cool new material, no interest from me. Add in an MP3 live show bootleg and it's an easy pass. Come on Sabbath, get with the program, release more demos / studio outtakes for Steve Wilson to remix! That was BY FAR the highlight of the Vol, 4 SD release.
I may have missed it but what are peoples thoughts of the remastering on the album proper compared to the previous Andy Pearce remaster?
Not that I'm the forum expert, but I'd like to see more thoughts on this too as really not fussed about the live stuff (not that I'm excusing what's happened here - I just don't like live albums). Anyway, the album proper is certainly brighter than the Pearce version. Takes a bit of get used to in places, but I like it. I've always kinda hated Megalomania previously as it just sounded stodgy and like there were about 100 unecessary overdubs that muddied things. Here though it breathes more so I like it. I'm comparing it to the Pearce, though I do have the 80s WB version (whatever year that was) - that was brighter too but I didn't take to it as much as the new one, but I've never directly compared the two. Either way, I'm personally happy with the new master and I'll probably play it over the the Pearce in future.
I'm not up on the lossy source being used for this live document discussion. If you can fill me in or direct me to the source of that info I would appreciate it. This LP boxset version of Live '75 doesn't sound like a lossy sourced mix to me, so I have questions about that but anything is possible today. My thoughts below on the Super Sabotage LP Boxset live '75 show and a direct comparison to the CDR of Asbury Park 1975. ( I do not know what this CDR was sourced from but it sounds pretty good for a boot.) My LP Boxset has a Made In Germany sticker on it and I assume all were pressed in Germany? I compared 4 tracks on 2 LP's of the box set to my CDR of Asbury Park. This was done on my main system with a OPPO 103 Universal player, and a VPI table > Sonic Frontiers Pre 1 phono> Naim Supernait II > Triangle 30th Antals and na SVS 3000 sub. Tracks compared were: 1 -Black Sabbath 2 -Spiral Architect 4 -War Pigs 4 -Megalomania The LP's present a mid/full bodied mix with emphasis on Tony's guitar, Ozzy's Vocals and Bill Wards kit. This mix heavily focuses on the upper bass/Lower mid up thru the High mids and lower treble, not a lot at either extreme frequency wise. It seems to be designed to give focus and detail to Ozzy's vocals and Tonys guitar and it also does justice to most of Ward's kit, although I could use some more kick drum. Geezer rumbles along in the background and in my opinion isn't represented or defined well enough in the mix. Although the problem that I suspect is that Geezers Bass isn't narrowly focused frequency wise and is an enormous wide rumble that isn'y easily isolated and may have been leaking more than they wanted into other instrument mics as well.....Just a professional guess. The LP's have a nice sense of dimension and space and have a more punchy quality due to representing more lower mid and Upper Bass frequencies. The CDR has more emphasis on the top end and gives it a bit of air that the LP's don't have, but it's at the very high end of the listenable frequency spectrum and mostly adds a nice shimmer to the cymbals, it can also give an edge to the mix that depending on your system you may or may not like. The CDR has a good balance of instruments except once again Geezers bass isn't well defined and doesn't seem to occupy a solid space in the mix. It's just a kind of omnipresent upper Bass/lower mid rumble across a wide area of this performance. The first 3 songs I listened to -Black Sabbath, Spiral Architect and War Pigs didn't sound vastly different with each source except the LP was easily recognized as having more energy in the Upper Bass and Lower mids and a larger soundstage probably due to better channel separation. At this point in the comparison I think most would prefer the LP mix but given different systems one could possibly prefer the CDR with it's cleaner but less punchy sound. Both the CDR and the LP's aren't going to give you big dynamic range, but they don't necessarily have to to recreate this for an enjoyable Sabbath experience. I heard no problems with compression on either version except for what a live engineer would normally employ to control dynamic range and get a clean signal to the mixer and tape recorders. However when I compared the track Megalomania with it's soft passages into huge smashing creshendos the difference in these mixes really showed up completely. The LP really displayed more dynamic range in this song and had a much bigger, more spacious soundstage and made the CDR version sound smaller and much less impactful. I think this is the key advantage of the LP's mix. All in all I like the LP version of this show/tour more than the CDR because it more accurately represents a live Sabbath experience due to the better Bass/Lower mid energy which really brings Geezer and Ward's power more into focus.
It’s kind of amazing that even here in the Hoffman forums there are members that can’t tell when something is sourced from MP3s
To me that's not surprising at all. With high bitrate lossy source, in my experience hardly anyone can tell it is lossy unless they use technical means (like spectral view) and/or do a very close comparison to a lossless source that is 100% identical other than being lossless.
