Thank you, guys, for your very important comments on Empty Sky. I'm getting closer to understanding how it sounds... Waiting for Stefan's comment for a final verdict.
Now if we can only persuade Bobby Morrow to connect with Empty Sky and the treasures that await him within this album. Repeated listening is all it takes! C'mon, Bobby, become a disciple of ES. Do it before Elton dies.
Actually, I was listening to Empty Sky a bit more today and it's not really that bad. It's definitely growing on me. I really think the difference we hear between it and the others in the series is due to the quality of the recording more than whatever master tape may have been used. The mix is denser, with more compression (not digital compression or brickwalling). It doesn't have the sound of a well recorded album, the way the others do. Still, it's not too bad and not that far from the album that followed it (in the UK). One thing I can say is that my comparison of the Empty Sky tracks from the Ludwig master download that came with the vinyl LP reissue and the SHM-CD line up perfectly digitally. This mean it's extremely likely that both were mastered from the same transfer from analog tape. This is because analog tape never plays back at exactly the same speed. There are tiny variations due to equipment used, temperature, tape stretch, etc. You put two versions in a multitrack program, zoom in and line the peaks up carefully at the beginning of a track and then check the end. If the peaks line up as well at the end, then it's likely that the files were taken from the same analog tape playback session. I checked three Empty Sky tracks this way and they all lined up perfectly. I then tried The Bitch Is Back from Caribou and it did not line up. In fact, the polarity was reversed from one version to the other (impossible to say which was the right one). Interesting. I'll check some others from different albums.
Yeah, I think ES has quite a few cool tracks. Taking a brief break from discussing the 'sonics' of Empty Sky : I want to focus on the track "Gulliver / Hay Chewed" (more the Hay Chewed portion). Supposedly the title "Hay Chewed" was a play on "Hey Jude". Had there been another artist who had a "recap" type of track (pieces of songs segueing into another - all songs represented on the album) before this?
Sorry if this has already come up in this massive thread: What are the chances these shm masters are going to pop up as shm SACDs in the future?
Never is my guess. Weird that the only two ever offered / available are S/T (Same / Self-Titled) and GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD SHM-SACDs. Both of those were released in 2010/2011.
(from the Post #157) "Then in 2010, the SHM-SACD Project was launched for 6 years, which collapsed due to a lack of experience with this format and marketing mistakes. The chances that the entire Elton release will be reissued in the SHM-SACD are close to zero."
Agree. I never owned ES on cd so I can t compare. However I used to own the album and the DHM-cd sounds a lot like I remember the LP. Guess it s as good as it get given the source. Actually I like the sound of it. ED was recorded fast and in a not so sublime way. Guess that s the reason it sounds the way it does I think it s enjoyable nevertheless
Well... I thought the original vinyl sounded great but I wouldn’t necessarily want it to sound like the vinyl as there is Eq done for the format.
Continued listening to ROTW and would say this version is upthere with the AF, but I do hear some guitar in the right channel, electric on Yell Help and acoustic on I Feel like a Bullet on the SHM that I have not particularly noticed before. Again with these SHMs they seem to be bringing out subtle details which also applies to Honky Chateau, which I also listened to. The wife mentioned how great the cymbals sound on this and I agree. I would say again that if these were the only versions I had, I would be more than happy. HC is at least as good, if not better than the MFSL IMHO. Just got Tumbleweed, Madman, GBYBR, GHV1 and Blue Moves D2 to listen to next.
I did a quick check comparing the songs Empty Sky and Valhalla from the ES album and Blues for Baby and Me from Don't Shoot Me.... Empty Sky looks to be roughly the same EQ (Ludwig in red below, Universal Japan in green). The extreme low end on the Ludwig seems to rise a bit in comparison below 30Hz but this could be due to compression from the limiter he used to raise the level. Otherwise, the curve lines up quite evenly throughout the frequency range. You can see the Ludwig is on average 4dB RMS louder. For Valhalla on the other hand, the Ludwig rises in the upper midrange/lower treble. The low end is also either cut or else the song wasn't boosted as much. It could also be that Universal Japan boosted the low end cut the top. Whichever side change or maybe both, it looks like a tilt EQ was used as it's a fairly linear change. Blues for Baby and Me is interesting as well in that the EQ lines up much the same as for the song Empty Sky excepy it looks like either Universal gave it a slight wide boost centered around 9-10k or else Ludwig cut it at the same spot. By the way, Don't Shoot Me is another one where the files line up digitally so both the download accomnpanying the LP cut from the Ludwig mastering and the Universal Japan SHM-CD were most probably sourced from the same analog tape playback sessions.
Thank you very much for making the charts. It's quite difficult though, seeing EQ differences by comparing absolute amplitudes, unless the differences are pretty big. Doesn't that program have an option to deduct the amplitudes of one curve from the other? This way one curve can be used as a baseline and equal EQ is easily spotted because it produces a nice flat line above or below that baseline.
This is Adobe Audition, which doesn't have an option to calculate the difference. I do have a couple of programs to do such differences but really, we have no way of knowing which one would be a better baseline because we don't know what mastering moves were done. Plus in the case of the Ludwig versions, some limiting was added, which can affect EQ. In fact, I wonder if Ludwig himself actually did the limiting because the files actually peak digitally at exactly 0dB. Bob Ludwig has been at this long enough to know better than to run digital peaks right up to 0dBFS because true peaks go over (which they do in this case). Anyway, ssuffice it to say that two out of the three tracks I conpared showed differences in the EQ. I continue to be happy Universal Japan actually mastered the Elton SHMs and didn't just release flat transfers as they did with the Stones SACDs because some of those Stones tracks need some mastering work, as our host pointed out at the time.
Thanks for doing that - every opinion counts. More new comments about Tumbleweed are in favor of MFSL - I am going to edit it in the rating list in the next update. I may change the category after I receive my copy soon.
Has anyone in Australia ordered with ordinary airmail (no tracking) from cdjapan? How long must I wait??? They said shipped 14 days ago!
The MFSL is better than the SHM, having listened last night, but the SHM is really nice, the backing vocals on Son of Your Father and strings on Burn Down the Mission being particular highlights.
We can never know the baseline EQ of the original master tapes unless we have them in our possession. So, off course in that way you are completely right when you state that we can't know the mastering moves. However, the method is very useful to find EQ differences between derived masterings. Swapping the baseline just inverts the curve.
I have bought my first SHM CD: Madman Across The Water The artwork is stunning, different but maybe even more exquisite than the WG DJM CD and definitely richer than the MFSL CD. But artwork is not essential. Talking about the sound, here is where I stood some 10 years ago: The MFSL CD sounded muffled, smooth with deep bass but not enough "life" for my taste, so I preferred the WG DJM CD. Now I compared the three side by side: SHM, MFSL and WG DJM, and must say that I don't enjoy the eq of the WG DJM CD anymore, it sounds a bit artificial and hyped compared to the over-smooth representation of the other two, especially vocals and piano. The SHM CD has a tiny bit of upper midrange added compared to the MFSL which helps, in my opinion, but far less than the WG DJM. If the MFSL CD is a flat transfer, then the SHM CD has maybe 10% of the eq from the WG DJM CD applied. My new favorite is the SHM CD, but the MFSL is almost equally as good. In an earlier post, it was reported that Levon might have a high-pitched sound on the SHM CD, connected to the piano sound. I listened carefully and checked spectral analysis, but didn't notice such a thing. It could still be there, but I didn't notice it.
The report of a high pitched noise on the track Levon i did hear this on the left hand channel, i did not comment on this as i could not distinguish what it actually was, but as the last post said he could not hear it though i should, only thing that came to mind it was some kind of keyboard sound, moog or organ at a guess, just to add it sounds like one continuous tone.
"the files line up digitally" i'm a bit confused, are we saying that the 2019 SHM of Don't Shoot Me is the same as the download included with the Ludwig LP? the download seemed really loud when comparing it to the old DJMs which put me right off it but maybe its a keeper after all!
