Cant recall if there was any significant but atleast one: The original start of Powerslave is on the previous song's (Back In The Village) end.
'Iron Maiden' remaster: If I remember right, Paul Di'Anno's speak in the end of the Phantom of the Opera is missing from the remaster. And the intro of the Strange World was moved to the end of the Transylvania
Hopefully that's what we're seeing. Otherwise they're just cutting off the left edge of the art, which on a dense visual like Somewhere in Time is a travesty. There's a whole bunch of hidden gems on that one.
it's really frustrating to be a fan of some bands and watch them constantly butcher their music product either thru lousy recordings/masterings or in this case the actual format, another possible word of warning, I'm willing to bet that it's Kevin Shirley doing the mastering, these might end being the worst sounding Maiden releases yet
I hope Shirley doesn't do any mastering. I would consider getting some if mastered well and the pressing quality is good, but what are the chances of that? Especially the first three records, as passable quality pressings are hard to come by these days. The Final Frontier has much more dynamics on LP and is relatively better in pressing quality than Dance of Death, but @#$!, anything is better than that piece of worthless crap.
Have you compared with the UK vinyl? The record sounds waaay fuller and with that oomph you'd expect from a metal record. The first pressing is indeed a little thin in comparsion. But it's also good when you crank it up.
All of my Iron Maiden records sound good when the volume is cranked up... It's the only way to play 'em!
Yeah, but not the remasters. Those sound fatiguing if you turn it up, as it happens to many modern remasters.
Yes, the current ones. But I still prefer the 1st cd masterings. Except for Piece Of Mind, the 95 is superior.
It could be. I know there are 3 main releases: the first cd pressings from the 80s, the 1995 two-fers (remastered with b-sides included) and the 1998 sanctuary remasters. I'm not counting weird japanese pressings or things like that, only the worldwide releases... But you're right, maybe I'm a little fuzzy about so many reissues on so many cds of so many bands!
The 1995 versions were re-releases (not remasters). Here's a post where I tried to briefly describe the various releases through 2002: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=4421403#post4421403 (note that I erroneously called the 1995 versions remasters - they are not) I would suggest reading oldschool's "The big comparison of Iron Maiden CD masterings" thread. It's very informative.
The UK vinyl has a different and unique mastering altogether than the US vinyl and other countries. It was cut @ Abbey Road by Nick Webb. It is in fact the original (and probably best mastering.)
It might be worthy to note that for the first two albums, the mastering os different between the UK (EMI) and the US (Capitol) first batch CD releases. I find the US release superior for the first album and the UK release better for "Killers".
I don't think Kevin Shirley masters anything. If for some sick reason Steve Harris decides these albums need to be remixes then we should be scared about Caveman's remixing! If we get remasters with bonus tracks I'd imagine they would be something like the recent Black Sabbath remasters that were mastered by Andy Pearce. Hopefully he'd get to master these. But sadly this is only fantasy
Right, thanks for the link! Great info there! So, from what I'm getting, the 1995 catalog had the same mastering from the early releases (including the First Ten Years b-sides), but with a volume boost? They didn't change anything apart from that?