Hi-Res Download News (HDTracks, ProStudioMasters, Pono, etc.) & Software/Mastering Part 12**

That ZZ Top box is fantastic

 

I'm particularly glad to see that For the Rose (Joni Mitchell) is offered on this site from that series, whereas it's not offered on HDtracks or Qobuz for some reason (even though the other JM albums from the series are).

Also, do you feel the Madonna ones from the series (particularly the s/t debut and Like a Virgin) surpass the mastering of the original CDs (which I don't own)? What's confusing on this site is that they have a 2012 release date (which I assume is from the Flat Transfer series) but also says "(Remastered)" in the title and a symbol that says "MQA STUDIO." So not sure if these are indeed the flat transfers.

 

In my opinion, if it says "MQA". Run. as fast as you can. MQA is a lossy 24 bit file. The flat transfer Madonna's were not MQA, & I did prefer them to the cd's. The 2013 Joni Roses is also excellent imo. In fact better than the Japan Vinyl. Do be aware it is NOT a bright recording; it may (depending on your system) sound SLIGHTLY dull. I replaced all my Joni cd's with the 2013's (one or two of the later ones were taken from dvd-a masters and are not as good. It's the symphonic stuff.

Could you remind me the name of the site or a link? I need to do some browsing, though I think I've got all the Warner FT's I ever wanted.

 

Yep, I'm already used to the sound of these Joni flat transfers and like them very much - I have Hissing of the Summer Lawns and Hejira (I have the DCC Gold CDs for Blue and Court and Spark).

The website is https://www.highresaudio.com/en/site/index

 

Thx! I agree that the Dcc cd's sound very good; I prefer the 192/24's.

 

It looks like us Americans are going to have to go there with a VPN. Note the White W in the photo. The original flat transfers series used to always use that logo. I had a little difficulty finding the old Purple Rain, but I think you are right; that it is the 2013.

 

Interesting...I didn't really think those two DCCs could be bettered. But since Blue and Court and Spark are two of my all-time favorite albums, it sounds worth the double dip. You've convinced me to try the hi-res.

 

Thank you for the info — What is the price of each album when purchased via this method?

 

Man I wish this would get a commercial digital release.

 

I didn't go far enough to find out. There is no specific title I want at this time, just wanted to check out the site. I also wasn't thrilled with their interface. You're going to have to log in with a VPN that has a European IP address.

 

Hope you like them as much as I do!

 

I have the DCC of Court & Spark and shelled out for the flat HD transfer. I like the EQ better on the DCC, but there's something more lifelike about those high res files.

I'm also not sure how "flat" those transfers are. They don't sound much like the original C&S CD, which I also have and which I presume is a flat transfer, since it's thin and weedy and somewhat muffled. I just think whoever mastered these used a really delicate hand...

 

Yep, from what I heard they don't want to be giving out the flat 24/192 or 24/96 masters out. Funny....The whole idea of the CD was that now the consumer could hear the master tape. No pops or clicks, no distortion, 5 - 20 000hz +- 0.5 db flat response. Why now do they have problem with this? Of course back then you couldn't pop your CD into a computer and make a perfect copy of it and then burned many copies as you want at 30 cents a blank disk. Times have changed. Or better yet download for $30 a perfect flat copy of MJ Thriller at 24/192.

I never came across a CD back in 1991 that was a copy of a copy. Copies but never a copy of a copy and yet this is what they were afraid of. Maybe they had a point and still do. But I wonder....mmmmm.....Back in 1987 what they were fearing would have needed 2 DAT recorders. Way too expensive for the average Joe. I never met anyone who said they owned a CD player and a DAT machine. And then again most cheap commercial CD players back then had no digital output. Very common by 1991 but not back in 1987/1988. And anyway any pirate could just a buy a pro DAT machine and bypass all the copy garbage. Pointless really

Case in point: Many years go I purchased the CD Jeresy Boys. My Mother wanted a copy so I made one at 4x speed. I scanned the insert and printed out a new one glossy paper. And put the disk in a proper CD case. Not the thin kind.. except for the label the CD was an exact replica of the original. I added a bit at the back about indicating that I had made it.

My Mother asked me to make three more for her friends. So I did the same thing but 3 more times. And then next week I was asked to make 2 more copies. This is now 6 copies. Excluding my Mother I have just robbed the record company of at least $75 of revenue. And then my mother asked me to make 3 more for her other friends and I said, "No! This is not me making 2 copies for a say you and my girlfriend. This is ridiculous." This is the kind of copying they we were always talking about and we consumers would always poo poo them. But there I was making 6 copies and about to make 3 more.

The Beatle Box set I had only made one copy. One stereo and mono box for my Brother. Of course I put the singles/EPs where they belonged. PAST MASTERS never made any sense to me. The only thing Love Me Do (single version) and I Feel Fine had in common was that they were singles that weren't on any Beatle British studio albums. Otherwise nothing. So I put I Feel Fine / She's A Womn at the end of BEATLES FOR SALE. I'm Down / Yes It Is and Badboy at the end of HELP! ; Hey Jude / Revolution at the beginning of THE WHITE ALBUM; THE LONG TALL SALLY EP at the end of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, etc..... Both for the stereo and mono version. And I made new inserts for the cases all on glossy paper. They were pretty much the same but I added new art work and pics where neccessary. Like on A HARD DAY'S NIGHT I added a small picture of LONG TALL SALLY EP at the bottom right. And at the back of the CD you would have the 13 songs listed for the album. Right below it was a scanned pic of the back of the EP with the 7 inch record coming out half way. Below that was listing all 4 songs. I owned the LONG TALL SALLY EP. I even have a Austrian HELP! EP. Nice 1980's vinyl. I also added songs from Anthology 1 and 2. Of course the mono mixes only went on the mono CDs and the stereo tracks on the stereo disks. I was very selective here. I only used maybe 25% of the Anthology Series. I even made a stereo RED and BLUE album as well as a mono RED album. All with inserts of course. If I had made 6 copies of that it would have been wrong.

Many artists our still angry about people getting a hold of the multitracks in Rock Band. There is a guy on line with a 24 channel SSL Super Analog console (lucky SOB) at his home doing remixes of famous songs. He is using Rock Band tracks. He shows you how he mixed them. So you never here the whole remixed song from begging to end. A lot of work work went into taking over 70 tracks of a Bon Jovi song and knocking it down to 24. Work the Utube mixer never had to do. Everyone was praising this buy on line for his super mixing skills. But he didn't take 8 mono mixes together and make a stereo mix. Neither did he do that with the toms or the guitars. I would have liked to see him try mixing 70 or more tracks along with 8 Effect return channels.

For those mixes the Bon Jovi mix engineer had 24 track Slave reels sync to a Master 24 track reel. So you could have 20 or more vocal tracks. For Rock Band they had to take the 8/10 vocal tracks that were used back then, mix them into a stereo stem onto Pro Toools. As well as 6 or 8 tom tracks they mixed down to a stereo stem. After probably days of work they got it down to 24 tracks. Although if you count the stereo mixdown it is more like 46 tracks. Anyway bands/ performers did not agree to putting their songs on Rock Band for that. Many are now refusing. Some want their albums removed.

You spend a week mixing some album back in 1983 from 46 tracks and then some kid comes along and remixes you beloved mix with tracks from Rock Band. Happy? No! And to make matters worse the 14 year old kid's mix sounds WAY BETTER than the mix you did back in 1983.

Most artists feel that there is TOO MUCH put out there already. You don't need the master 24/192. The inferior 24/44.1 is gonna do. Although many will never admit this publicly.

 

For the Prince flat transfers, they are € 15.00 for the 24/96 and € 17.50 for the 24/192. For whatever reason, only some of them offer the 24/192 version (Purple Rain only has 24/96).

 

I wish I could find the CD! It wasn't transferred to digital to be released. It was originally transferred just to get it on digtial. In case you know.....One day.....
And I think the record company or client wanted or needed a back up or some other nonsense.

When I was given this CD in was at a party of an engineer friend of mine who was celebrating his eldest son's graduation from UOT. He was drunk and I mentioned that I loved Toby Swan.
So he says, "Wait! I got something for you....." He disappears into his basement for an hour. He finally comes up and hands me this CD. " You can't get this anywhere man...Nowhere. It is yours. But don't anyone you got it from me o.k."

I brought it home and listened to it. Even ripped a song or two onto my music player. And then I lost it. Hopefully it has not been thrown out.
It is times like these that I feel like a complete idiot. So he goes into this long story about how he came into the possession of this little gem. I swear it was like a LORD OF THE RINGS saga. Apparently it took them 6 months just to track down the master to make the A/D transfer. From what I heard recently the master got destroyed in a flood a few years ago. But I can't confirm it so I wouldn't worry. If I find the CD I will make a copy for whom ever wants it and they can sue me. I don't care anymore.

 

Could the original CD sound that way (especially the "muffled" aspect) because a higher generation source was used?

In terms of these being "flat transfers," I am curious where it's designated as such (I never saw any mention of it on the product pages). Even if not truly flat, I do agree that a very gentle mastering touch was applied.

 

Back in 2013 HDT had a section called "Warner Flat Transfer Series".

 

I listened to the Purple Rain offering on Qobuz vs my US CD. The US CD sounds a bit louder and the vocals just a touch edgy. The hi res was very similar but took care of the vocal issue. Very crankable. I will likely pick it up but will pick up the Hi res of Around The World in a Day first, as my LP had always disappointed me and I have never had it digitally before. Great stuff!

 

Literally anything is possible, but studio masters tend to sound a bit thin and flat. That's a generalization mind you. But the golden ears final mastering guys tend to pump things up quite a bit, give a certain sheen to the sound - a bit of EQ here, some compression there. The good ones can achieve amazing results with very few alterations.

Mitchell's engineer/producer Henry Lewy had a great ear though, so it's certainly possible her studio masters sound very good indeed, no tweaking really required.

 

Yes, many of the Yes albums were in the FT series. Wilson's were much better; though until Wilson they were the best we had.

 

Greatly appreciated — thank you!

 

You know, I thought I downloaded the 2013 version of Parade from HDTracks years ago, but I'm not seeing it in my library or in my backups...



Kinda surprised, since it's one of my favorite albums ever, and I think it sounds incredible on CD. I can't imagine a decent high-res transfer would sound any worse...

 

IMO, the 2013-2015's all sound much better than the cd's.

 

Considering these (the Aqualung and Thick as a Brick remixes) were the last masterings he did before going into retirement, I'd say treble hearing loss due to age finally caught up with him.
I realize none of us sound engineers have perfectly intact hearing after working in audio for years, but we know how to compensate for it if we take our hearing tests' results into consideration. But I think there is a point of hearing loss where you can't come back from.

 

If the master was destroyed, at least we know a digital copy of the master still exists somewhere, as presumably your CD wasn't the only copy.