DCC Archive Rolling Stones CDs

Thank you for thinking of me and attributing the post, but it wasn't me. And I still prefer the London CDs to the SACDs, including Beggars Banquet, even though you may not approve.

 

Sorry, pulled the wrong quote string.

The London CD of Beggars Banquet comes from an LP production tape that runs at the wrong speed, has reduced stereo separation, and just generally doesn't sound as good. The SACD is from the master.

 

Could you please tell me which these bootlegs might be? I cannot find Time Trip 5 anywhere...

 

Key To The Highway
Reel Time Trip
are the ones to seek out.

 

Thanks, found 'Reel Time Trip' - never heard of 'Key To The Highway'.

Is '2120 South Michigan Avenue' a good alternative?

 

This question was posed in this thread fifteen years ago but never answered, so I thought I'd throw in what I know. Sorry I can't remember more details, but maybe someone else can fill in the blanks.

Someone from the Stones camp was in the MFSL facilities to review their remastered tapes for the upcoming LP box set. Knowing that London was going to be putting the catalog out soon on CD, he stayed there all night long madly making surreptitious copies of the tapes, without MFLS's permission. So the tapes London used for that first batch of Rolling Stones CD were stolen property.

 

That's incorrect. ABKCO paid MFSL to make digital transfers of the tapes. While it seems at least some tapes were digitized overnight one night, that was done by MFSL. Nothing was stolen. Decca was then sent transfers which were used for the London CDs. ABKCO used some of the same transfers for their CDs, albeit usually with additional processing.

 

Fake news is all the rage these days...

 

That's good to know. I wish I could remember where I read my version of events so I could at least quote a source. It sounded pretty incredible, but if it's in print, it must be true, right?

 

The overnight story is in our FAQ:

http://lukpac.org/stereostones/stones-cd-faq.txt

Different details though.

 

Lukpac, I went and read your piece (Q2.8.3) and I do believe that it was actually my original source. Maybe "stolen" was too serious a word, but Gary Giorgi's account certainly sounds like the copying was done without permission. And MFSL was pretty unhappy about the use of the tapes.

 

Reading through this for the first time in a decade (thank you, lukpac!), still no answer as to why those early CDs had fade-ups on songs. Absolutely baffling to me these were released with such blatant errors.

 

Gregg Schnitzer (whose account it was, not Giorgi's) was unhappy, but not Giorgi or MFSL in general. MFSL's only qualm was that they were credited when they felt that changes had been made to the sound (which was apparently not actually true):

"The British CDs have their origins in a lavish boxed set of ABKCO Stones LPs distributed by the audiophile-oriented Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 1984. MFSL, Inc. president Herb Belkin says his company produced a set of digital masters, at ABKCO's request, while MFSL was in possession of the stereo master tapes. The digital masters went to Decca Records in England for a series of LPs and CDs; MFSL itself didn't have CD rights.

Belkin claims that Decca ran Mobile Fidelity's digital tapes through the Decca Digital System, "which changed the sound." He was so chagrined by the result that he asked Decca to remove the credit line - "Analogue to Digital mastering by Mobile Fidelity Sound" - from the CD packaging. Tony Hawkins, manager of the transcription department at Decca Recording Services in London, remembers receiving the digital tapes from MFSL. He says, though, that the tapes went straight through to Hanover for CD mastering. (PolyGram manufactured the British as well as the U.S. CDs.) Hawkins acknowledges that Decca Digital is an "in-house" system not compatible with the more standard Sony technology used by MFSL. However, "we couldn't even play [the Mobile Fidelity tapes] at that time 'cause we didn't have Sony equipment.""

New/Old insight into ABKCO Stones RE-Issue »

Note the *early* London CDs didn't, it was the later batch that did. I haven't heard anything first hand from those involved, but I've been told it was kind of a primitive form of noise reduction. Definitely baffling.

 

Thanks for clarifying that for me.