Have you heard the original LP? What I'm getting at is if your posts are based on your actually having heard the original record album, or if you're just repeating things that you've read somewhere?
My posts are based on the facts of how the original album was actually recorded, as related by the people who recorded it. I have heard the original album, years ago, because my uncle had it. And it sounded like crap. Which is hardly surprising, given how it was recorded.
OK, give us the facts. Was this reverberating piano strings technique used on all the songs? If not, which ones? Just the facts please.
I probably won't buy the new Joni set, but these discussions gave me the opportunity to play these albums chronologically and realize that I loved them all.
'Member when early CDs promised the new format would reveal " the limitations of he source tape"? Well, I've been waiting and here we are. Careful what you wish for.
I’ve finally had a chance to listen to the remix and compare it to the original mix, so here are my thoughts for what it’s worth. The original mix creates a warm dreamy atmosphere that offers a little unspoken instruction about how Crosby wants you to hear this material. Get comfortable and listen. It’s an album experience. In a way, sonically, it reminds me of John Fahey’s mid-late 60s albums. The remix is much more modern sounding, with a more modern perspective on the material. Rather than savoring the vibe, the intent seems to be to present each track as a song - vocals clear and up front, guitar in support, and striving for a drier, more intimate feel. It’s easy to see why she’d prefer this approach. That said, it is also over-compressed and oddly eq’d, removing a lot of body from the guitars. But, like the recent Beatles remixes, I bet these remixed songs are more likely to suit the expectations of younger listeners - and make it ripe for rediscovery. And that may have also been a motivating factor behind this mix. So is the remix successful? Depends on what you want from it, I suppose. I wasn’t expecting to prefer the original mix, but I do. And I can’t help but wonder they didn’t just go back and do it right from the start. It sounds like they were aware of the hiss issues due to low recording levels back in 1967. I can understand Crosby producing, but was he also engineering? If so, why? If they knew the sound wasn’t up to par, why didn’t they just re-record the songs? I mean, she’s a fully capable solo artist - it couldn’t take more than a few days to re-do ten songs, right? Sure it would be a pain and cost some money, but wouldn’t everyone involved prefer a debut without sonic issues? Hmm. Anyway, it might have spared the need for a remix.
You could, you know, read the interview with Croz upthread and some of the other material that's already been posted about the recording of Seagull if you were actually interested in "the facts".
Because studio time isn't free and the label probably wasn't going to pony up big bucks to re-record a bunch of tracks for a debut folk act's first LP. Especially since the patched together version they got was "good enough" for kids listening at home on their all-in-one record player - the target audience. I also don't get the argument that the remix sounds "modern". It doesn't sound modern in any way, shape or form. It sounds a lot like the recording you'd get from a live TV program circa 1968. They've stripped off the gobs of reverb and done away with a lot of late '60s fake stereo trickery, so I guess in that way it's "modern". But people quit doing that stuff by the early '70s.
You two could, you know, get a room, or something. And simmer down on this whole East Coast/West Coast "I know Joni's Work Best" shoot-out at the OK Corral vibe. It is a Joni Mitchell new Box Set thread, for goodness sake's. Let us just chill a bit on the hostilities and focus on our subjective views/reviews/opines on the Box Set and the remix of STAS, but without the BS chest beating. Please see the new, current "Bemused" Sticky Thread about civility and being a bit more chiller and nicer to each other herein. It's not a pissing contest! (YMMV) Yours, sincerely. WHM
If you post passive aggressive BS without bothering to actually, you know, read the thread, expect a hostile response. Not my problem.
Nor are you mine. Time to unwatch this thread. Thanks folks, I've learned a lot from following this thread since the beginning. But life is too short.
Come on, there's no need for personal insults - to my ears there is something wrong with it, and I do know what I'm talking about. But I do think you've hit the nail on the head with the comment about modern tech and digital compressors - to me the new mix sounds like it's been processed using some very sophisticated software, by someone who's never used it before so they've just turned all the plugins up to 100%.
So you can't answer the question. How about this question: When you listened to your Uncle's LP many years ago, on what songs did you hear the effect of the reverberating piano strings recording technique? All of them? If not, which ones?
You're right, we don't know definitively, I was making more of a general statement to there being no moral reason to return something unless there was a physical defect. Some outlets (such as highresaudio.com) are reporting that the high-res files are from 44.1khz sources for the first album (though not all sites are disclosing this), and whatever processing they have done makes the guitar sound off. This was actually my first time hearing the first album (I listened to the original mix after and subjectively preferred it). The guitar in particular sounds odd and the top-end cut-off compared to the original mix to my ears. The first album definitely sounds the worst of the bunch, which may be inherent at least to an extent in the recording, but I don't think whatever processing they've done on the remix has helped any with that. YMMV. The other albums I like the mastering. It's not better than the DCCs (which I've heard but don't own, so can't do direct comparison, and this is only from memory), but it's not worse either - just different. Sounds airy without losing warmth to me. Nice and open, dynamic (for recordings that are primarily acoustic guitar or piano and voice). Yes I can hear some defects, but these sound inherent to the tape.
Here, let me make this plain since apparently you haven't gotten the message yet: Go. Troll. Somebody. Else.
It's hard to tell with the original mix, as there's so much noise and reverb. Are we hearing the top end of the guitar, or are we just hearing a cloud of hiss and reverb that comes across as the top end of the guitar? I suspect there's no way to suppress the room echo without taking a buzz saw to some of the upper frequencies, tho. Since they're doing a remix, it's also possible they pulled out the tracks that captured some of the high end originally and were left with others that didn't catch the room ambience but also didn't catch as much high end. They don't provide a ton of specifics, but it sounds like in the original recording Croz plopped mics in unconventional positions to try to catch more ambience and it backfired spectacularly, catching ambience yeah, but oddly, and not really capturing the primary performance. I'm not sure why the engineer went along with it. Maybe he objected and was overruled. Or maybe he got talked into the experiment. Or maybe they figured they could fix it in the mix and then couldn't really. The thing is, I think too many people are focusing on the "fidelity" of the album and not on the impact the sound of the record has on the delivery of her performance - both the original and the remix. And that I actually find really fascinating. With this remix I can totally hear what she's going for, and also I think why the sound of the original pissed her off for so many years. Not that she was angry at Croz, but just upset because it's not how she wanted the performance to be colored. And I think even tho the original record was considered a success and is beloved by many, I can see how she hated the way it presented her. All that echo and reverb is very ethereal and wispy and twee. It's extremely precious. You could say it suits the material, but the reality is it colors the material dramatically. As presented on this remix, the songs are a lot more grounded and immediate. She's this distant creature singing to the void on the original, with this sort of chorus of reverb and echo to accompany her. On the remix she's plopped right in front of you and singing right at you. The remix is a lot less ethereal and way more direct, and the songs come across less like some wisdom delivered from on high and more like someone singing right at you in a coffeehouse. Which of course is how they were largely intended to be delivered. It does make you wonder how Mitchell would have been treated at the time had something closer to the remix - without all the remaining technical issues - been released originally. Because now this feels a lot more like Blue - direct and intimate communication - and less like wisdom being delivered from on high. Fidelity-wise of course it's nothing like Blue because it's still a mess, but the directness is there and the songs definitely hit differently. I can see why people fell in love with the original. But I can also see why Mitchell was really irked. It's also a really interesting insight into why she's been bristling so much at perceptions of her and her work almost from the start, because she was inadvertently misrepresented almost from the start. And maybe commercially and even critically that ultimately worked out for her. But clearly it wasn't the intent. So, love or hate the sonics, I find this a very interesting release. Fans should definitely check it out online at least.
You have made numerous, lengthy posts about STAS. There's nothing wrong with my asking you questions about what you have posted. There is a 'Reply' button for each of your posts that all forum members are free to use. There's nothing wrong with trying to find out if your posts are based on your actually having listened to the original STAS LP. Since we have determined that you only heard the LP many years ago at your Uncle's place, what you have to do now is list his equipment that you heard it on so that we may evaluate what you have said about the sound quality of the album. The fact that you can't answer simple questions about what you've been posting (such as the topic regarding the effect of the reverberating piano strings recording technique that you read about but apparently have never heard) reflects on you and not at all on me. I asked you if you actually heard this and you cannot answer. What is a person to think? Then you get defensive and start calling me names (troll for example.)
Again, troll somebody else. Even the people who recorded the record thought it sounded like crap. Croz tried something, and it didn't work out. Happens.
Yeah, but as you've admitted, you only heard the original LP many years age at your Uncle's. Is the entire original LP drenched in all this noise and reverb and echo that you've read about? Are there any songs that sound OK? If so, which ones? I'd especially like to know which songs on the original LP you hear to have the worst noise problem? It's a tribute that you can remember all these details about something you listened to so long ago.
By the way, I've seen you make this claim: Do we have any evidence the treble on any of these remasters is boosted compared to prior masters? I did an A/B on Ladies off Amazon Prime HD vs the HDCD last night, and the new remaster sounds virtually identical. The only dramatic difference I noticed were occasional low-frequency thumps, which are much louder and go much deeper than on the HDCD. My assumption is they're studio noise on the original master that were either carefully edited off the HDCD release or the entire low-end was filtered off for that release below a certain limit. Beyond that, both masters had almost identical high ends. Neither of them sound like the results of "hearing loss". My recollection is that the vinyl is also bright, but it's been many, many years since I heard it. Not shrill or especially thin, but neither are the HDCD or the new remaster. I suspect that sound was the result of engineers finally having mics, mixing decks and tape recorders that could fully capture high frequencies like that without distortion or overloads, and taking full advantage of it. Which seemed to work well with Mitchell's material - I found it a pleasant listen (apart from the thumps, which honestly were a bit scary in a couple of spots, but also reminiscent of live audio - it certainly gave the remaster a "you are there" feeling). Ironically, I found a review of Rhino's 2012 vinyl reissue of Ladies here on the forum complaining about numerous low-frequency "thumps" they thought were pressing defects. Um, nope! This review indicates that all of the pressings of Ladies are pretty treble forward, with some verging on shrill. So even on vinyl this record always appears to have been pretty bright, and shrill in some iterations. Which makes me question ascribing the sound of this latest remaster to "hearing loss". I'd be interested in seeing spectrograms comparing these to the high res remasters for download from HDTracks and to the HDCDs, as well as to the DCC's of Blue and (when it comes out) Court And Spark. Spectrograms comparing anything to vinyl masters (including other vinyl masters) are...problematic, since so much depends on the vinyl setup used to capture the audio in the first place...
Let me see if I have the facts straight: You've posted so far 18 times in this thread, but own neither the original STAS LP nor the new box set?
Let me see if I have the facts straight: The performer of the album and the producer of the album think it sounds like crap, but you're here to tell us that's the result of hearing loss because they're over 70...even though they've been saying the recording of Seagull went wrong for decades now.
