My feeling is Chicago was simply recorded kind of oddly for some reason, and that Wilson tried to improve upon the original mix but didn't want to turn it into something it wasn't. The DVD-A remix does the latter to my ears. I know a lot of people like it, but to me it still doesn't sound like a great recording, it sounds like an odd recording that was heavily tweaked to sound "good". It still sounds odd to me, just in different ways. Wilson's sounds more organic to my ears. What is that in reference to?
I really wanted this to be good. I really wanted the gold LPs, they look great. I am so glad I didn't pre-order this POS!!!
I'm in agreement that the Chicago II Steven Wilson remix CD I purchased last year isn't that much of a pronounced improvement compared to my early '90's Group Portrait 4 disc CD comp. It appears to be dependent on the studio that originally recorded them to tape back in the '70's. Because I can't get much headway applying an EQ on any of Chicago's CD files compared to how much I can improve for instance Capitol Records' "Best Of Sweet" comp CD which lacks umph in the bass and kick drum with a bunch of "too many layered instruments playing at the same time" room gain. I went from tall narrow ant hill roll off in the kick drum spectrum to a nice half dome with 50Hz peaked at -10db. If I did that on the Chicago albums, Cetera's walking bass would spike at around 60-80Hz requiring selective edits just on that frequency. Not worth the trouble and impossible for a compressor to deal with. I've found a lot Chicago's songs sound their best needing no edits with the fewest instruments playing at the same time like "Color My World" and Pankow's Ballet suite.
Not to go off track, but I've noticed that a number of us are ending up with our posts appearing multiple times.
Yeah, I tried to delete my second post but the site slowed to a crawl after I had trouble posting the first one. I ended up clicking "Post Reply" twice. I gave up and took a break for several hours until it got fixed which obviously it has or I wouldn't be able to post this response.
You mentioned remixes which means Steven Wilson had all the original tapes to mix with so why didn't he boost the kick drum's bottom end that would prevent Cetera's walking bass from spiking in the same frequency range? That's the advantages of having the original tapes that I'm assuming have individual instruments and vocals to edit separately and mix each tape with a good balance to bring out added detail and ambience. Something has to be quiet so something else can be heard as loud. I can make a lot of headway just with an EQ on already cooked mix of whatever I want to improve on from a CD file. I would expect a huge improvement in sound if I had the original separate tapes to mix with and then balance blend to finish.
Just to add as an example I've been working on Stax Record's "Soul Finger" which is in mono. It already has a pronounced kick drum and bass but the female chorus that sounds like a party going on in the background while a brass section wails on top of the chorus becomes mush or like a crowd roar. It's a very loud song with a lot of competing sounds played dead center on top of each other. I applied a delicate amount of AUmatrixReverb that just opened up and provided separation between the brass and female chorus where I could hear individual girls enunciating "soul finger" with a pronounced 'R' sound where before it sounded "Soh fingHUH". If I can squeeze out that amount of detail from a much mushier mono mix then an engineer with the original separate tapes should do a lot more with Chicago II.
Listened to the remix for the first time since it came out a year ago out of morbid curiosity. As Anthony fantano would say..."...it's NOT GOOD." *EXPLOSION* I'm guessing this Tim Jessup's idea was to try and apply modern 2019-2020 pop production onto an album from 1969? The overcompression, the "making everything sound so crisp and high fidelity it comes out sounding distorted/saturated/muffled" type thing? I think it's just fine sounding like a record that came out in 1969 because that's what it is....and for it's time, it sounds already very clear and I say this as a gen z kid. The worst part is the autotune on "Someday". And why only that song? You could sort of interpret that as being that an insult on Robert Lamm's singing....that it had to be corrected. Pointless... I'd prefer a Steven Wilson approach...recreate the original mix and make it clearer and defined. But the original mix is already good enough.
For whatever it's worth, the recent Chicago Christmas album which Jessup engineered sounds pretty bad too. Vocals weirdly distorted, and no presence on the drums (which is usually a sonic trademark of theirs). Not bad musically though.
Leonid & Friends used to sell physical CDs of both of their Chicago covers albums on their website. Now it's downloads only. Amazon has about 20 copies of each CD available for $21 each. Links: https://www.amazon.com/Chicagovich-...inements=p_32:Leonid+&+Friends&s=music&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Chicagovich-...inements=p_32:Leonid+&+Friends&s=music&sr=1-2
Those vocals do sound horrid. Sounds like a social distancing special--one of these things they do now where nobody's in a studio, they're doing all the bits in their homes, sending files here and there, and someone cobbles it all together in a computer.
I decided to purchase the 50th remix version of this album a few days ago. I have to say that the remix version sounds OLDER than the original mix. In other words, the remix sounds like the album was recorded A LONG LONG time ago. Does it sound good? To my ears it sounds like a really old record boosted on stereoids. I don't dislike it, but I do understand that it's not an audiophile sounding album (like an 80's Supertramp CD for example ) The music is really good though!!! Tx
I also wanted to add that this 50th remix version sounds better with headphones......in my car it sounds only «OK». Tx
The discussion here seems to suggest the people think this album was recorded all in one place… I remember reading that they recorded it in pieces on tour, so it was in a bunch of different studios across the country. I figured that’s why the sound was so inconsistent. It always seemed a shame that the ballet often sounded like it was recorded in a shoebox. I do think the remix improved upon it.