Nick Drake remasters

I have the Jeff Buckley Grace LP on Simply Vinyl. I haven't compared it to the Sony/Columbia vinyl version so, I can't offer an A/B comment. I do really like the sound of the SV version, though.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Dj Wilbur, I just heard your sound clip and it sounds quite nice although it doen's have some of the higher frequency information that I hear on songs on the SACD.

BTW, the clip from the CD sounds somewhat lower in tone than your clip.

The highs on the CD clip sound grainy to me.

 

Thanks for the sample! It sounds MUCH better than the CD sample someone posted a few posts down. Nice, smooth and warm. The CD sample suffers from un-natural EQ. I was A/Bing between the two, and the CD sample is almost unlistenable after listening to the vinyl. The guitar sounds terrible - it almost sounds outta tune. There was a tiny bit of crackle/pops on the needle-drop, though. Didn't bother me one bit

 

Yeah, i kinda like those sounds as well, I'm in the process of cleaning it up a bit for myself, as making the sample motivated me to rip the whole thing.

Glad some of youheard it. After no comments about it one way or the other and the thread disappearing down the pages, I figured I posted it too late and all our Drake interest had peaked for the moment.

 

What is the liscensing agreement like for Simply Vinyl? Are they only allowed a certain press? These 3 titles have now fallen out of print. I am missing Pink Moon. Grr..
C

 

i think they have been out of print for a while now---i see them around ocassionaly.........

 

When record labels liscence material, they generally make an agreement for a certain length of time. It's usually 2, 3 or 5 years. After that time, they can try to liscence it again if they like.

Since a friend of mine has done this for many years, I know that sometimes the original label may change the terms of the agreement the second time around. They may think that they can get some extra money and increase the liscencing fee. My friend had liscenced three albums from a label and had this happen to him when he tried to go around for a second time. He originally paid a fee of something like £10,000 for all three albums the first time. When he tried to renegotiate, the company wanted £10,000 each for the rights! Needless to say, he didn't got for another run.

My guess is that Simply Vinyl may have run into a similar situation. Either that or they figured that they had sold as many as they could... or the original label simply did not want to liscence them out again.

Cheers,
Chris

 

I've been reading this thead with interest......

I've always assumed the original UK Island CDs were different from the Hannibal/Rykodisc ones in the original (12"x12") Fruit Tree CD box.


I also thought the remasters sounded OK - maybe even better.

However, I hadn't sat down and played any of them side by side until today........

The original Island discs are indeed identical to the Hannibal/Rykodisc ones!

As for the Heyworth remasters......

Well, on first listen I certainly found them to be slightly more detailed and thought maybe they were possibly better. That was just listening to the first couple of tracks on Bryter Layter.

Then I thought Pink Moon was probably a better place to hear the difference being just Nick and the guitar (and a few Piano notes....).

This is where the difference stuck out like a sore thumb. The Heyworth remasters were boosted in the treble to the point where the guitar sounded scratchy and the vocals were thin and aggressive sounding.

Back to the original mastering and the guitar was back to normal and the vocal, while still having that papery thin sound Nick's vocals tend towards, had the right ammount of warmth to be very pleasing to the ear. The album still has a stark quality to it but the Heyworth remaster turns that into a slightly unpleasasnt sound whereas the original mastering presents the album beautifully.

Then I went back to Bryter Layter - now I knew what to listen for I instantly heard the same qualities. The Heyworth remaster sounded too edgy, scratchy or aggressive in the treble. It's a subtle effect if you don't know what you are listening for but once you've heard it you can't live with it for long (at least I can't).

Same thing on Five Leaves Left.

So, for me the original CDs (Island or Hannibal/Rykodisc) are the keepers - no question.

As for Cally's comments here - http://www.robinfrederick.com/cally.html - it's clear to me that it is just the same old BS we get from those who know nothing about mastering:

Cally: "Record Companies are notorious for losing master tapes, I'm not sure what tapes they used to manufacture the [original] CDs from, but they were really poor. The sleeves were no better. 3 sides of poorly reproduced album artwork reduced to the size of a packet of cigarettes, and a whole page telling you how to clean a CD in 4 different languages, ptchah."

This is totally ridiculous - by the sound of it I reckon the original CDs were mastered from the exact same tapes as the remasters - but thankfully without the aggressive treble boost.

As for the commment about the artwork having "a whole page telling you how to clean a CD in 4 different languages" - my "IMCD" island CDs don't have that. In fact, nor do any of the original ("CID" or "IMCD") Island CDs I've ever seen. Indeed, Island are probably one of the better labels for using original artwork on their original 80s CD re-issues. I've a feeling Cally never even saw an original Nick Drake CD let alone listened to one.......

If you love Nick Drake's recordings do yourself a favour and seek out an original CD mastering - you may be pleasantly surprised by what you hear.

 

Nick Drake - A Skin Too Few (Documentary) 1 & 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPM9uRZ3tN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSK6jpb5ObQ

 

I already have the Simply Vinyl LP version of Pink Moon, as well as the SACD compilation, and this thread raised my interest in checking out the current CD reissues of other titles. Found that Amazon currently has several Nick Drake CDs on sale for $7.97, including Bryter Layter, Five Leaves Left and Pink Moon.

 

Thank you very much for your post. I've got the Hannibal CDs and I've always be pleased with their sound. Nevertheless, by reading some Nick Drake threads here, I began asking myself if I wouldn't buy the remasters... I didn't and your post confirm it was a good idea.

The Hannibal CDs have a warm and pleasant sound even when they are played at high volume which is an good indication for me. Anyway, I wouldn't understand how the same mastering engineer can do these horrible (IMO) Kinks reissues and beautiful remasters of Nick Drake's work.

 

Now I'm even more confused...

I have the Hannibal Fruit Tree box HNCD 5402 containing HNCD 4435, HNCD 1318, HNCD 4436 and HNCD 4434.

Inside each CD booklet it says:

"Mastered by Simon Heyworth at Chop-Em-Out
Re-mastered by John Wood"

I also have the three remasters.

Inside the "remasters" it says

"24 Bit Super Bit Mapped mastering by Simon Heyworth at Chop-Em-Out
Re-mastering engineered and supervised by John Wood"

Did the same people do both mastering jobs? What gives?

 

IIRC, there were a couple of formats for the Fruit Tree box. There was a full 12x12(inches-I'm a Yank) box that was used to house the LP and CD (and was there ever a cassette?) versions. Later on, after the LP set went out of print, there was a slipcased CD version.
This could explain the discrepancy.

Cody

 

Agree -- I was surprised to see the N. Drake Island remasters compared to the Fairport Convention Island remasters. The Fairport remasters are no-noised. I don't think the Nick Drakes are.

 

from Spin CDs:

Nick Drake Japanese Vinyl

These are extremely limited superior Japanese 200 Gram Vinyl Pressings, click on the titles to 'pre-order': 1) 'Bryter Layter', 'Pink Moon' and 'Five Leaves Left'. All released on August 8th.

 

Thanks for the review Mal.

On another related topic - I picked up Bryter Layter on a mint looking UK pink rim island LP - in fact, it was too mint looking. It has small hand etched island ILPS matrices in the deadwax, not the stamped ones. Everything about the LP, from the E.J. Day cover (although not textured finish) to the island / witchseason label - is very accurate to an original.

Doing a little on-line investigation, it appears that Island records re-released the LPs - if I read what cryptic information I could find 'right.' The sound is fine but I have no original to compare it too. Does anyone know anything more about this/these?

 

I'm also interested in how these new Universal vinyl reissues sounds like?

 

Great job and very highly recommended.

 

Thank you for this post Mal (read the whole post above). I took your advice and am sitting here with a smile on my face listening to the Hannibal Fruit Tree set. As I go back and forth between the remasters and this set I completely agree with everything you said in your very detailed post.

 

I found one of these too, about a month ago, and was also wondering who put it out...

To my ears it does sound good, although when I was making a CDR comp of needledrops I wound up using the "Treasury" LP for Northern Sky; I thought it sounded better there!

--Matt

 

Found here: http://www.nickdrake.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=4368


Here's a quick update on the Fruit Tree box from Cally:

The Fruit Tree box will be widely available to all who want it and there will be just the one CD edition and one vinyl edition for the world. Therefore ANYONE who orders it through Amazon will be sure to get it.

Both formats are being made by Universal centrally in Europe for the world.

The edition is only limited in as much as this release is designed to sell to all the new-comers who do not have a copy of the studio albums, perhaps just a compilation, but, to make it fair on those that maybe have two of the albums, we have added the DVD and new booklet to help the decision.

Most importantly, the DVD and the booklet WILL come out in late 2008 in separate and expanded form, so I would be telling all fans to wait until then should they feel the need to buy it simply for the new book and DVD...

Hope that’s clear, I believe the release date will be October 22nd but that is, as yet, unconfirmed.

The CDs aren't remastered and Time of No Reply won't be included.

Cheers,

Matt

 

So is this what I need to get if I have no Nick Drake on CD? Or do I need the un-remastered discs or the remasters? A simple reply would be appreciated. I'm kinda confused because it says that the albums aren't being remastered - so why release the box again? Just for the DVD?

Thanks

 

I'm a/b'ing the original Pink Moon disc and the remaster right now...Nick's voice sounds way better on the original. There's more "ring" to the guitar on the remaster, but it sounds like they were trying to make up for something that wasn't there (treble boost). I like the original!

 

For sound quality I'd get the Hannibal Fruit Tree 4 CD set. That's all three of his albums plus a fourth CD of additional material.

 

Isn't that remastered?

In any case, I think I'm going to wait for the SACD box which should come out on Oct. 22, 2007 according to Amazon UK. It's been delayed several times already so I don't know if it'll come out as scheduled.

Cheers