New Chicago box - remixes?

I was listening to Robert Lamm yacking during the pledge breaks of the PBS Soundstage show last night and thought I heard him say that the new box set (i.e. "Chicago: The Box") was remixed from original multi's.

Anybody have the set? All remixes? Some remixes? Confused musician's syndrome and no remixes?

 

No remixes. Unless he's referring to the single remixes from the Full Moon era, but I doubt that.

 

Guess the box wasn't expected to sell that much, so dropping that word there, helped sell some.

Why do they do stuff like that ?

 

Maybe he *thinks* the tracks were remixed. Just because the guy recorded the songs doesn't mean he is a technical guy. Maybe all that compression on the remasterd stuff made him think they wre remixes!

 

Gary,

Your new Avatar just scared my co-worker here!

Bob

 

Lee Loughnane has said words to the same effect when he was defending the remasters (or trying to). At best this is misinformation and stupidity; at worst it's false advertising, IMO.

 

I guess this, also, means, they don't listen to their own cd's, too.

That's just, Special, isn't it ?

 

No Chicago in my collection. Would the "Group Portrait" box from '91 still be the best compilation to get?

Jim W.

 

Yes.

 

Yes!

Hmm, no Chicago? Really?

 

I don't have the quotation on this computer, but when he responded to a critical thread on the Chicago bulletin board (actually, to a "what's your opinion, Lee?" thread that responded to the critical thread), Loughnane, who is credited with overseeing the remastering, said something to the effect that he wasn't an audio engineer, but he understood that the remastering engineer was able to separate the original mix into its frequency components and thus bring out instruments that might have been less audible in past versions. (This sounds to me like frequency-dependent compression/limiting--discriminate audio processing we used to call it--along with EQ.) He also said that you couldn't please audiophiles and he was sure anything the mastering engineer did would be subject to their criticism, but that nevertheless he stood behind the remastered CDs 100%.

Can he not hear the distortion, the tape drag, the dropouts? I don't know. Some of the industry people on the SH forum have testified that artists often want their remastered catalog to sound loud and in-your-face just like all the new releases (apparently this is why the new redbook remaster of DSOTM sounds the way it does--the artists wanted it that way). My hunch in this instance is that Loughnane had only a passing acquaintance with what was done with the tapes, and trusted his management and the remastering engineer (Dave Donnelly, with whom the band had recently worked on other projects) to come up with a product that could be marketed effectively. My dark suspicion is that purely musical matters ended up a second priority, or lower, for all sorts of reasons, including sales and the attendant puffery.

I wish I could say that Loughnane's remarks didn't affect my respect for him, but they did.

 

Oh, Loughnane might know, but the average musician only pays attention to the performance. Some, like Barbara Striesand or Ray Parker Jr. actually work the board.

Lamm may have only been thinking about that DVD included. Who knows?

 

So, he knew full well that Donnelly was going to dink with the masters. This tells me that Magid/Donnelly were trying to make a name for themselves by giving the record companies exactly what they want and to hell with quality sound.

Why do audiophiles always get the short end ot the stick?