Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality and General Discussion: "Nice 'n' Easy" - 1960*

OK -- slow day today, so what the heck, I wrapped up the Nice 'n' Easy pages. See new page here: Nice ‘n’ Easy - 1960 .

Again, there are lots of good masterings of Nice 'n' Easy out there, so don't take this as "these masterings are great; those other masterings suck." Not at all! It's a matter of degree and preferences. I went with this:

<<To my ears, there are MANY “basically quite good” masterings of the original stereo mix floating around out there. With the goal of finding “the best” versions, my personal recommendations are:

1. A clean, original USA “D” pressing -- at least some of them. I almost always like original USA pressings, but I rarely find them to be “the best,” but in blind listening, that’s the one that struck me as having the best overall tone and presentation. I liked it! I call ‘em like I hear ‘em. This is my favorite.
   
2. I was also very fond of my 1970s USA yellow-label stereo LP, 1980s USA green-label stereo LP, and 1984 UK “Dell” stereo LP, not necessarily in that order.
   
3. For original-mix CDs, I prefer the 2008 MFSL CD over the 1998 UK boxed set disc.
   
   If you have any of those editions listed above, you’ve got, in my view, a very good version of the album’s original mix. Congrats!

4. If the original mix is just too soupy for you -- and I think a very good case can be made that it’s too soupy -- pick up the 1991, 16-track CD release, mastered by Larry Walsh. It’s very nice on its own very good, very different terms, and some may even argue that it is superior. Heck, I may even argue that.>>

That's my list of personal preferences. I also posted the collective results -- minus my own views -- from the "blind listening jury" on the webpage at the same link, and I want to again thank all the people here who volunteered their time, ears, and opinions to take part in that.

Also, I've added, at the bottom of that page, clips from "She's Funny That Way."

Please chime in with your views. (I really hate when this becomes The Matt Lutthans Show. I'd cancel that after about 3 episodes! Everybody's views are valid, right? Don't be shy.)

 

That's not quite right. Here's part of the original post about the "by the numbers" scores:

So....in the totals above, which include my own votes, the MFSL CD was fairly well represented in blind listening. It's a good mastering. As I mention on the website, *I* think that it's superior to the UK 1998 CD, but in terms of raw numbers and "number of mentions," the UK CD had more gravitas in the comments by those involved.

 

I've enjoyed your Julie London threads, so I'm glad we can reciprocate a bit.

The MFSL LP is on my webpage and was part of the blind listening. Two clips from the site:
http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/1960_-_Nice_n_Easy_files/NiceEasyClip1983MFSLLP-GAIN_01.wav
http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/1960_-_Nice_n_Easy_files/NeverthelessClip1982MFSLLP-GAIN_01.wav

Again -- lots of good masterings out there! For the record, when comparing something like 17 album versions of the title tune (as opposed to compilations where that song appears), in blind listening, I chose that 1982 MFSL LP as my top choice. One kind of odd thing: it's cut at a pretty low level, so even though the Supervinyl (which I often praise) is whisper-quiet, there's still some noise that comes through, just because it is not masked by the music, which is at low level. It's a good pressing, though, of course. (Broken record comment: There are LOTS of good versions of this one.)

 

Scorecard updated to include Nice 'n' Easy: Capitol Scorecard .

It's funny.....this album and its predecessor, No One Cares, seem to have a larger number of very pleasant masterings than other titles, and relatively few sub-par or "dud" masterings, so it's really challenging to come along and try to say anything even close to "I really strongly recommend edition x over editions y and z." I think that, for the vast majority of listeners, any of the editions listed as good, very good, excellent, or "top choice" will prove to be "just fine" -- but the ones marked as "excellent" may be worth investigating if you are curious about possibly upgrading what you have. Just don't look for any "vastly better" releases, as you may be disappointed. One last time; repeat after me: "Lots of good choices on this album!" Enjoy what you have! If you've only had the soupy original mix versions, the 1991 CD may be worth getting for what proves to be a very different approach to the sound of this album.

 

Thanks, guys! @rxcory - I think the links are working. (???)
Here's the link you are after: Frank Sinatra - Come Fly With Me - Come Dance With Me .

 

Alternate shot:

 

It looks like maybe it's "Lady of" something......Lady of Spain? Here's the best close-up I could get:

Also, here's the un-cropped version of the photo:

 

It may have also been something that was included in, say, a part of the overall stage show, but not part of the Sinatra material, per se. I have no idea.

 

For these original Sinatra releases, I pretty-much agree. Any -1N, -1u, and -1s cuts I have are in the sub-par to poor range. (Many later versions are a-okay.)

 

No; the Australian CDs use the original 1960 stereo mix -- incredibly poorly mastered, though -- that was used for virtually all releases down through the years. The 1988 (non-Australian) and 1991 (ditto) CDs use a 1988 remix, and the 1998 "Entertainer of the Century" CD uses a 1998 remix. The 1998 UK CD and 2006 MFSL CD reverted to using the original stereo mix.

Axis released Nice 'n' Easy on LP around 1982:

.....about six years before the Axis CD release. My guess is that the cassette was released in conjunction with the LP and that both may, as you suggest, have much better sound than the later Axis CD (and its audio clone on EMI Australasia [not a typo] -- with no "Axis" branding -- that was released later).

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I do not own the Vegas box, but was thumbing through the accompanying book at a record store yesterday, and noticed that there's a photo taken during the same session near the front of the book. Any chance something can be definitively made out from that photo? (Maybe if scanned and enlarged?)

 

Yep! If somebody has the book, a scanner, and some spare time, I'm guessing the titles are visible. (Not enough resolution on the MPTV version.)