Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed Original Mix question

Yep, unfortunately.

I bought my second copy of the UK first pressing, hoping that the noise on my first copy was due to its condition. My second copy, which is STONE MINT, also has the static noise here and there throughout the first couple of tracks.

What is even more interesting is the same phenomenon on my Japanese pressings, which are also as Near Mint as I have found any Japanese pressed record. Even on those, I hear the same annoying static noise on Side 1, ARGHHHHH!

Also, what is with this unnecessarily long intro silence on Side 1 before the music starts? Is there some subliminal message that I can't tell? Hmmmm.

On their Long Distance Voyager LP, the original master has this "heart beat" intro that is cut out or is almost inaudible in most of the pressings. I have seen only two copies with the entire "heart beat" intro (similar to Pink Floyd's Dark Side), and one was a US test pressing and the other is a US promo label pressing with the exact same matrices as the test pressing. On Days Of The Future LP, I don't hear any similar sound, and always wondered why the long silent intro.

 

I dumped my original UK pressing due to ticks and clicks back in 87, and then scored another one in the used bins early last year. It has much fewer noises than that other copy.

I plan to needle drop and hand remove any ticks/clicks from the file(s). But it appears I may in for more than I thought, and might not be able to completely clean it up. I always hand remove ticks and never filter an entire track. This one project has been on the back burner for a while.

Any others here have dozens of needle drop projects waiting in line to do? This one deserves some time and effort spent to get it right.

 

I likely have that one too and it is the best I've heard a US pressing sound. '11-6-69' and 'ZAL-8078' is all thats in the deadwax. It has the 'Stereo' in a rectangular box below the spindle hole, a fairly early one.

 

As far as the static-y type pops go, a pretty big one can also be heard quite easily on the intro of Tuesday Afternoon - on the original mix AND the remix. Must be part of the multis.

 

That is my personal fave among the US pressings also.

I think it was a Bell Sound pressing, 'cuz I think I can see a part of their stamp on the dead wax. I could be wrong.

 

I have a terrible RCA record club version. Really dull.

I listened to my Holland pressing yesterday morning and enjoyed it. It's got a few ticks on the 1st track that I can't seem to identify visually.

Also, i just bought a Japanese copy 2 weeks ago whick is marked, King Records 1973. I don't normally like Japanese pressings, but this one is really good. Quiet vinyl, nice tone with rounded bass. I have noticed though, that "Dawn is a Feeling" is a really bad recording of a great song. The orchestral parts at the beginning sound so great and then the band starts and it's quite anti-climatic sound-wise, not song-wise. Maybe it was the first song recorded and they hadn't gotten the sounds together yet.

I checked out the original cd from the library last week and am actually really digging the remix. I haven't played it on the home stereo, but it's on constant rotation in the car. I haven't really figured out how it's differnent from the original as I'm still fairly new to the album. I can't get enough of this album. Brilliant.

 

Yup, you can see just part of the stamp on side two. This is the one I use to compare to the UK & German's.

 

Are you referring to the long fade-in of the gong?

 

Bell Sound never pressed any records, only mastered them. But most of their cutting rooms (five in all, up to 1970) did indeed use the "Bell Sound" stamp on their dead wax. (Only the cutting room with the Scully lathe that cut the bulk of mono 45's through 1970, for the most part, didn't have such a stamp - when Dominick Romeo was at the lathe; Joe Brescio's occasional cuttings on such lathe had the stamp, though he mostly worked on one of two Fairchild lathes in use at Bell Sound through 1970 - as on lacquers cut for the 45 of "Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)," Deram 85028.)

Given that RCA did their own in-house mastering of their record club issues, somehow that's not much of a surprise to me. I pretty much avoid RCA record club pressings on that basis.

 

Another vote for the Holland pressing. It's my keeper.

I wonder if the ca. 1980 'Audiophile Masters' Canadian pressing
contained the original mix, or remix? Anyone know?

 

I'd just like to say how much I appreciate someone starting a thread about what is one of my top ten favourite albums ever! When I was doing my needle-drop research a couple years ago, I came across a Japanese Deram LP that sounded much better than US and even UK versions - except for the ticks 'n' pops, which sounded like a campfire going on behind the music at all times. This one is distinguished by the entire front cover being a glossy printing of David Anstey's painting (title info in white, upper left corner), no border with "Deramic Sound System" or any of that. No idea when it was pressed.

(Heresy alert: I prefer the common CD mix. The original, although it does have a certain mysterious quality, does sound dull to me; and many mix cues are muffed that Tony Clarke finally got right when he remixed it in the 70's. Which is not to say that I dislike the '67 mix; I just think that, apart from leaving out some vocals in "Evening" ([IIRC - an oversight?] the mix on CD reads much better.)

 

Good to know. It was my first Moodies purchase. I figured I should have some and that was the most popular one. I picked that copy because it looked old. I should have known from the terrible printing, how bad it was. The photo of the group on the back, sitting around the conference table, is more like a solid black box. After taking it home and playing side one, I concluded that the Moodies were the worst band in the world and that anyone that liked them was either stupid, deaf or both. I am glad to report that thanks to giving them another try, I am now a member of that elite group of the stupid and deaf.

 

GK did some sweet work back in the day including this album,unh?.His Rod Stewart stuff was on point considering the fact that vinyl quality was sometimes spotty back in the Seventies. I have to check out and see if I have that pressing.

 

The remix sounds better to my ears, too. The missing vocals on 'Evening' ruins it for me, though.

A few years ago I assembled my own version using the remixed CD for everything except Evening (cut/pasted needledrop from Holland LP pressing) and Nights (original mix from the Greatest Hits CD, aka Legend of a Band).

 

Thanks for this thread. I have four copies at home that I haven't cleaned or played yet; I've been scared actually and been putting it off!

 

Don't fear the Future.

 

I just feared that these won't play as good as they look... all very cheap buys.

 

Jump on in, the music's great!

 

I know the G.K. in deadwax is original mix, but G.K. on UK and US LPs? If not how do you identify US original mix LPs. The 2 I have seen lately are Deram and London Deram with ZAL and Bell Sound in deadwax. Later ppears to be remix. Haven't heard first Deram.

 

Anyone know what year the remix was done?

 

WOW,STEVE!

That is a shock! Well...At Least I'm not alone in saying that! The remix is fuller and has more than enough to satisfy than the original mix,which,in my own opinion,is thinner and more washed-out than the new mix! (t least,that's just my own opinion..I'm glad we agree,Steve!) Michael Boyce

 

YIKES

 

REALLY??? I hate the remix. I felt like they took a classically-influenced rock LP & turned it into a rock-influenced classical LP with the remix, that emphasized the orchestra totally at the expense of the band's playing. Nights loses all it's power on the remix, with it's puny BG vocals (plus that missing "Evening, time to get away" just drives me nuts, along with the missing instruments during Evening's break). Not to mention that a mint UK (of which I have 2, 1 original DSS cover & the other the cropped, screwed up cover) destroys any US Deram, Kong or no Kong. WHAT way is the remix superior?:thumbsdn: