Black Sabbath Vol. 4 Super Deluxe with Steven Wilson mixes coming 2021

I don't know who on which guitar forum questioned what for what reason, but I am pretty sure it is completely irrelevant to what we are discussing here. Anyway, if you have any serious doubts, ask the uploader about his process, he usually responds to questions asked, and he's open to listen to criticism. And of course, if you seriously believe something's wrong with that video, you can check yourself: run your own comparison tests with lossless samples, download the Youtube video, compare the lossless and lossy samples and so forth. I am running my own tests, blind and non-blind, with lossless samples all the time, and most differences that I hear between different masterings would still be notable if I were using MP3 128K files. That's especially true for the Vol. 4 2021 remaster.

The 2021 remaster has been available on CD as well as online in high resolution for weeks, so the entire "Are the samples legitimate?" discouse (which was a red herring from the start) is obsolete at this point.

I was using "never" in the common, practical realistic sense, not in the deeper philosophical sense. In a philosophical sense, it is even possible that all dictatorial regimes in the world will suddenly resign and all wars will stop in April 2021. To be sure, I wholeheartedly hope that will happen, but regrettably I know it won't.

First of all, we might ask: what are our experiences with respect to remixes of Sabbath's albums?

Well, let's see what we got:

• Paranoid (1970) was remixed and released in Quad format in 1974. The Quad mix was re-released on multi-channel DVD, sourced from a bad vinyl-rip, in 2009. A stereo downfold of much better quality (but, well, in stereo) was released in 2016.
• A Quad mix of Sabotage (1975) was reportedly planned and started but never finished.
  
• A remix of Forbidden (1995) had long been discussed and was reportedly carried out by Tony Iommi sometime around 2019. Since then, he has said several times that it will be released but it hasn't happened yet.
• Live material originally released on Live at Last (1980) has been remixed and released on disc 4 this Vol. 4 Super Deluxe (2021) release.
  
• As far as we know, a remix of Vol. 4 (1972), an album known for its inconsistent production, was planned for this Vol. 4 Super Deluxe (2021) release as well but prevented by Tony and Geezer. (The outtakes that were mixed by Wilson instead had never been released before, so I won't count them as "re"mixes.)
  
• For the present discussion I will ignore mono edits, remixes of isolated tracks and such because they are not album remixes.

Did I forget anything?

So basically, outside one vintage Quad release, the only Sabbath studio album that has ever been remixed is Forbidden, an album of very limited success which Iommi had repeatedly said over the years that he was unsatisfied with its mix (and even so the remix has reportedly been finished about 2 years ago, it has still not been released). Now please correct me if I missed anything, but I am not aware that anyone in the Sabbath camp has ever been unhappy with the mix or sound of 13, an enormously successful album. Moreover, IIRC, a video was posted in this thread earlier that gave some insights into the production of 13 and showed that not just the mixed end product, but every single recorded instrument received an intense treatment with additional compression. So I am not even sure that pre-compression multi tracks exist (even the Bluray only contains compressed tracks), but even if they do, I am not aware of anything to suggest that a 13 remix is a real, practical (as opposed to a purely theoretical, philosophical) possibility.

 

This is in effect a 2xCD release. Discs 2+3 would fit on one disc, and Disc 1 is a frisbee. I like books, but unless this book contains any astounding new revelations, I don't need it. I paid 43 EUR (shipping included) for the UFO Strangers in the Night 2020 Super Deluxe set which is effectively a 7xCD set of highly interesting live material in very nice sound quality, most of which was previously unreleased, accompanied by a slightly compressed but very reasonable sounding remaster of the original album. All things considered, I think $30 would be a fair price for this Sabbath CD set. If they want people to pay more, they should put out a better product. I would happily scrape together my last money and pay much more than they are asking for this if it actually contained more value.

 

He's not hard panned. Panned more right/center.

 

was going to say - those complaining about panning on the live stuff, it’s certainly not a HARD PAN of the guitar and bass in the left and right channel, rather a right/center and left/center as mentioned above. To hear some on hear say it, you would think if you took out your right ear bud on your headphones, you wouldn’t be able to hear iommi at all on the live release which just isn’t true.

Now is it true that geezers bass feels like it needs more low end and is super duper fuzzy and blown out sounding? That is true - my gut though tells me that’s more to do with the source tapes though given how the other instruments and ozzys vocals sound.

 

From my perspective, the rather intense (not hard) panning as such isn't the problem. The problem in this specific case is the resulting channel imbalance because the guitar is clearly dominant on this disc. Whether that has to do with the tapes or the mix I don't know, but I do know that no such problem is present on Live at Last, so if there's a problem with the tapes, then the panning on the 2021 disc was a bad choice because it brings the problem to the front rather than trying to conceal it; and if there is no problem with the tapes, then it's just a bad mix.

 

Nope. I have the '86 and '96 Castle, the 2012 HDTracks version in 24/96 (and the same remaster in 24/48 from 7digital) + the SHM-SACD.

 

I've made myself a little playlist combining all tracks from CD2 and CD3. It makes for an interesting perspective to the material on offer here. For one thing, Under The Sun is consistently the one song on this collection of studio extras that you can crank up more than the others.

 

As long as the processing is applied to all samples, the differences between samples should remain.

 

True, but that's because it's basically mono.

 

But ultimately your listening to a compressed stream, no?

 

The old 1986 Castle used to be my favourite, but the 2009 took its place. Try it some time, you might like it too.

 

That's not the point.

 

Platekompaniet sells the cd set for 890 kr and the vinyl for 1449 kr which is consistent with what you stated, both with a so-called 'spar 100' rebate. Have found it a bit cheaper a couple of places, but no more than an add' 100 off.

Really want this. For that price and what it contains? Fuggedabout it.

 

OK, so you are simply refusing to rank the 2021 remaster in comparison to different releases (be it via the well-made Youtube video I suggested or via comparing your CDs at home), and when I asked for corroboration of your claim that the new remaster is "more in line with the overdriven Sabbath sound of the 70's", you posted a Youtube link to modern, compressed and overly bright-sounding remaster of Into the Void (DR8, as oppposed to the SACD with DR13 and the original WB CD and 2009 Sanctuary CDs with DR12). Not only is that far from convincing, it frankly doesn't even sound like you're convinced yourself.

 

Just spun disc 2 and 3 again. Pure gold on those discs.

 

Just throwing this out there....there seems to be a group of people in this thread that are hard bent on convincing those that like disc 1 and disc 4 that they are wrong and shouldn’t like them.

I say buy what you want, play what you want and like what you want. There is no right or wrong, just perception and opinion.

I’m growing tired of some of the self appointed arbiters of cool for all things Sabbath in this thread. There is too much us against them and the tone is turning quite arrogant. It’s a rock and roll band people, we aren’t solving world problems here.

 

I'm just not sure what your point is? I've said several times now that the NEW remaster will not replace your favorite version (which I believe for you is the SACD.) No one is coming to your home and taking that away from you!

If ANYONE was looking to this to be a great remaster it was--frankly--foolish to think so. If anything we know most record companies don't care enough to do these things the way we'd like them to. The point I've tried to make is that it certainly could have been WORSE. It's a decent sounding disc, certainly not brickwalled and I can understand the EQ not being to everyone's liking but it works just fine for me. Is it the version I'd pick to listen to? Probably not. But I'd also not stop someone from buying this set based on that one disc. I think the live disc is great, and certainly the outtakes are of historical importance.

As for the clip I don't like to judge the sound quality of ANYTHING off of YouTube. Which also goes to Into The Void...as if I purposefully picked a remaster over anything. I thought of Into The Void THE SONG as being a good example of the sound they were shooting for on the new Vol 4.

 

Hear hear sir!

 

People disagree. People make their case pro or con and present their arguments to back their position. That's all I've seen so far. I may have missed those posts where some people try to convince others they're wrong and they shouldn't like what they like.

 

"Changes" always brought "On Top of Old Smokey" to my mind. It has the same phrasing (not the same melody).

 

Fair enough. I guess I was more just thinking about the CD format itself.

I know that technology always “cools down” but music product is a little different. Records cost more than they did, whereas even one CD would have been like $30 when they first came out, and now I guess some people think any more than $30 for a box with several discs and a book is unreasonable. Just seems the product didn’t “level out” and keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.

Good for the consumer, I guess, but one has to wonder whether the industry will just get closer and closer to selling streaming or vinyl only within maybe 10 years.

 

I don't know if there are people who think that any more than $30 for a box with several discs and a book is unreasonable, but I know I am not one of them, and reading this thread, I didn't get the impression that many such people are here. My point is that if WB and/or BMG offered more value than they are doing here, I would be willing to pay way more. For the UFO set, for example, I would have paid double the price that was asked. And I am not the only one: that UFO SitN SDE thread is full of comments by people (including myself) who are absolutely enthusiastic about the box set - definitely more than in this thread. The Vol. 4 set offers much less in terms of pure quantity, sound quality and scarcity value and is actually way more expensive than the SitN set. From my perspective, throwing a book in simply doesn't compensate for that because I am mainly interested in the music and its sound. Mob Rules 2021 Deluxe 2xCD, on the other hand, is a release I am already enthusiastic about even considering that the album remaster may be bad, because it contains a complete previously unreleased live show. That's another release I am happily paying for. If Sabbath did that more often, like UFO do, and ideally not even remaster them to death, I would be buying Sabbath CDs all the time, I would celebrate them all over this forum, and again I wouldn't be alone doing that.

 

In terms of quality Vol 4 is better than SitN IMO. I rarely listen to 8 different concerts with almost the same song list. I could say the same about Purple’s complete Made in Japan concerts. Vol 4 Super Deluxe has the original album, outtakes and a live concert. That is a better value, apart from the sound.

 

Big disagreement on that.

Both the UFO Strangers In The Night box and especially Deep Purple's complete Made In Japan concerts box are way better bang for the buck. A similar box from classic Sabbath would be amazing - this Vol. 4 box isn't anywhere on that level.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree then. I love live concerts, especially from UFO and Black Sabbath. And most of the live material on this Sabbath set isn't new. I also would really prefer it if they separated album remasters and previously unreleased live and demo material. Then those who want another remaster could buy the remaster, and people who want unreleased stuff (like me) could buy that. Oh, and people who want the book could buy the book. I have already four Black Sabbath books and I will likely buy a few more, but I prefer being able to pick them rather than having them added to a box set and thus increasing the price of the box set.