King Crimson "Sailors' Tales" Mega Box (November 2017)

Actually, that's the LP cover. The box set cover flips the photo upside down (on my copy, anyway). I mean, I know that "In Space There Is No North, etc." but, still; why?

 

Another example of flipping on Discogs.

 

Download link for the bonus show is working again. I wonder if it applies to Starless as well.

 

A question on the thread for the release of the first batch of the In The Wake Of Poseidon sessions made me listen again to "The Devil's Triangle (Mixed From Surviving Multitrack Elements By Steven Wilson)" from the Additional Material on the ITWOP Blu-Ray. I'm referring to the 11+ minutes long version, not the stand-alone Pt. III from the Alternative Album Selection.
I hadn't really paid much attention to this version before, but now I'm wondering: what was it really mixed from, if only the multis for Pt. III have survived completely? Or have not even those survived completely? Does "Mixed From Surviving Multitrack Elements" mean that it is wholly and exclusively mixed from those multitrack elements that still exist? If that's the case, then there really isn't that much that hasn't survived, is there? I at least can't identify much that's missing in Pts. I and II here – am I wrong? The bass is less prominent, but I'm not sure that it's gone completely anywhere; some swooshing sounds towards the end of the cacophonic climax of Pt. II may be missing, but I'm not sure if they're not just buried in the mix; the flute isn't always in the same channel as in the original stereo mix, but again, I'm not sure if that's due to missing tracks or remixing choices.

Was anyone ever able to identify the missing elements/tracks, or has Steven Wilson ever explained how he created this particular version?

(What is clear is that Pts. I and II are not just copied over from the 2004/10 version. It's not just the mastering that's different (waveforms of Pt. II look quite different), but also some differences in the mix as mentioned; moreover, the spectrogram shows frequencies of up to 23kHz, whereas the 2004 and 2010 versions [which are not 100% identical, btw, but look very much like they are from the same transfer] don't reach 21 kHz.)

 

Ok, I did it, I bought this Crimson Megasuperduperdeluxe Edition, my first one, and I love it.

The 3 albums in it were always growing on me, and I always loved the Live stuff from 71/72 after I got some of the KCCC stuff. I had Jacksonville early on a cassette, but never came back to this one after I bought Plymouth 71, Detroit 71 and Summit 72. These 3 I like actually more than the 69 Live stuff.

After reeading many but not all pages in this thread, I still have some questions:

1. What do you think why the Plymouth concert was not chose for a cD, but is only feartured on the Blu?

2. I understand the concept of the Blus, but why there are also 2 DVDs in the set which feature nothing new, and which feature only a small part of the Earthbound Blu?

3. Is the extended The Creator has a Masterplan the only extended version on the Blus compared to the CDs, or are there more differences between the concerts on the CDs and the Blus?

4. There are also 3 more Soundboard recordings from that phase available as downloads, which are not included in the set. Are they less good for their audio quality, or maybe for the performance, or was it maybe just a matter of space?

Miss the reproduction of the Islands LP sleeve, well the outer sleeve is on the booklet, and the right side of the inner sleece is on the part with the 3 bonus discs , leaves the left side of the inner sleeve which is not reproduced (why?), which means the lyrics and credits of that album are not in the set. Odd ...

And yes, of the audience recordings, at least the only known performance of Islands should have been added.

 

It's for the people who don't have a Bluray player.
There are much more DVD players in the world than Bluray players. (I know, they're missing something ).

 

I've always been confused as to how they go about choosing what to put on CD and what to put on Blu-ray/DVD in these sets...and also what is included as bonus discs (vs regular discs) and what is excluded from certain sets, but available elsewhere. I know that there's likely a lot of thought behind it, but it often just seems random to me.

 

Of course, but there is only a small amount of the Blus on the DVD, and even that is mostly also on the CDs. I still don't see the reasoning behind putting only some Earthbound stuff on the DVDs, nothing of the other 3 Blus.. Either you have anything also on the DVDs, or at least anything that is Blu Ray exclusive and not on the CDs, or you have nothing on DVD, but only a bit seems pretty inconsequent. And I think all those who are crazy enough to buy all these box sets, will need in the end only the Blus.

Whatever, I would have preferred 2 more CDs ...

 

I think what happens is they author the DVDs for the stand alone CD/DVD sets and figure the cost is negligible to print a few more to toss into the big boxes as well. I’m not sure how many people who spring for those boxes don’t already have a Blu-ray player, but I imagine there are some.

 

I may be misremembering, but it seems to me that converting the Sailors' Tales bluray Poseidon/Lizard/Islands outtakes to individual WAV files took me a lot longer than it did to play through the December 2020 Complete Poseidon and Lizard sessions downloads themselves.

Grateful for it all nevertheless.

 

^ That and also most of the stuff on the Blu-rays was for the most part already available by download on DGMLive, so hypothetically you could have already bought the stuff on the Blu-rays but not the newly released stuff on the '72 live DVD-Audio discs

 

I hate when they do that.

 

Given the alternative of having tracks in blu-ray format or not at all, I'll go with the former.

 

I think I got it, the Detroit 72 is also not on CD, it seems that the already released as KCCC concerts, with the exception of Summit 72, were not again released on CD.

Leaves these 2 questions:

3. Is the extended The Creator has a Masterplan the only extended version on the Blus compared to the CDs, or are there more differences between the concerts on the CDs and the Blus?

4. There are also 3 more Soundboard recordings from that phase available as downloads, which are not included in the set. Are they less good for their audio quality, or maybe for the performance, or was it maybe just a matter of space?

 

No, I meant that I hate when they release complete sessions a couple of years later after a curated collection.
On the other hand...

 

Totally agree.

 

Ok, I found an answer for # 4. : It seems there are in fact no further soundboard recordings.

Birmingham 22.5.71 was released as KCCC 92, but it seems that found a new date and location, and is now as Glasgow 28.5.71 in the set, but only on the Blu. Or are they not the same?

Croydon 19.9.71 is listed on DGM Live as soundboard, but in the accompanying description it is called an audience recording, and some of the comments support this.

And Chicago 19.2.72 is now Chicago 17.2.72, and is also only on the Blu.

Well and for # 3, at least from Pittsburgh 72 there is a cut version of Cadence which is not on the CD, only on the Blu.

 

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but I thought folks reading this thread might know...

I recently bought a new sealed copy of KCCC 9, Summit Studios, 3/12/72. The original 2000 CD, not the newer one with updated cover art that I've seen around. Anyway, there's some pretty obtrusive electric static noise on some of the tracks, and I just want to make sure it's on the original and not a defective copy. It's been ages since I listened to a boot of this, so I don't remember.

The noise in question seems to be solely in the left channel, but I'm not 100% sure of this. It's like static bursts that come and go in pulses. It's most obvious on Boz's vocal entry on track 8, The Creator Has a Master Plan. It's also evident in the quiet parts of track 5, Improv: Summit Going On (say, around the 8:00 minute mark). I suspect it's on the tape, but just wanted a second opinion, if anyone else is familiar with this. --Thanks!

 

I purchased the 2000 edition from DGM on release. PM me.

 

Thank you, I got my answer. Clearly I got a defective CD.

 

I see you got your question answered, but your post had prompted me to dig out my copy to check. I was surprised, firstly, that my copy was still sealed! It appears that I picked it up in 2017, just before our last move, and with the show shortly thereafter reappearing in the Sailors' Tales box, I guess I never went back to dig out the older CD.

Anyway, the odd thing here is that the CD won't rip cleanly on my computer — hundreds of read errors on every track after the first. The disc was previously unhandled, and looks perfect — flat, no pinholes or discolouration, for example. And this is the first disc in thousands that this drive has had trouble with — very strange! In the end, with different settings, I got through it, and it plays without any audible artifacts (despite AccurateRip reporting that all but the first track have errors), so I guess that ultimately the drive must have been able to correct the errors. But "static" noises, like you mention, would be consistent with a CD player being unable to correct read errors (in real time), so if you have the same pressing, perhaps there may be a problem with the pressing run.

From the looks of things, my copy is a repress, as I had all the other early club discs, so I think it had been sold out back when I joined the club back around 2001, and out of print for quite a while. Discogs has my version (matrix 7695 DGMCOL9 011406) as a different entry from the original. But it's still the same cover, as far I can tell, so indistinguishable from the original on the outside.

All that aside, I'm actually really pleased that I listened to this — possibly for the first time — as it's a stellar and pretty unique performance! I also listened to the remix in the box set and, wow, it's quite different! The club version (and, I suspect, the download version, as the track times match the old CD) sounds like they were trying to be faithful to the sound at the front of the stage, with the guitar just on the left, sax on the right, bass and drums mostly in the centre. But on the remix, they've doubled Fripp's guitar parts, panned left and right, and the sax has moved to the left, drums spaced a bit wider, I think. Much fuller sounding, too! I will probably sample both for a while, but so far I prefer the new version. (Now I just need to get a BD drive and figure out how to rip the extended version!)

Thanks, @Blue Note!

 

Thanks to everyone who's responded to help me with this.

Curiously, my copy doesn't match any variant listed on Discogs. The matrix is C36539-CMI SD 10982 20CD4423. It is dated 2000 and has the original cover art. There is no obvious indication in the quality of the packaging that it's a pirate copy or anything like that.

Yeah, I guess the noise sounds more like little clusters of micro-skips, like tick-tick-tick-tick. I've tried in 3 CD players and 2 drives and have not been able to get clean playback or a clean rip.