The Edsel Robert Palmer remasters

"Looking" at music to judge it is an unrelated issue. This is about how reissued audio should be mastered, plain and simple.

None that would be willing to put their name on the final product. Tellingly, there is no engineer's name listed for mastering on these releases. It's obvious to me that they weren't really mastered at all, just copied from MP3 copies of whatever tapes were around in Universal's library.

 

"Ridiculing" may be a bit strong, but using "refutes" instead of a simple "denies" at least wasn't particularly clever on SDE's side.

But that's not what happened in this case. Someone immediately noticed something wrong-sounding and simply used the spectrum (not even the waveform) to further investigate.

Their releases are debatable, but it's their route of complete denial and accusing people of completely making up certain claims, that is simply unacceptable.

 

The only thing I would defend SDL for are that some people in the comments section there are saying that since these are Deluxe Editions, we should expect better. But these are clearly not Deluze Editions - they're cheap releases with two albums in one package.

I in no way agree with what has been done - but it ought to be clear given the price on these that Super Deluxe they're not.....

 

I think the Edsel guy is totally clueless. I think he was genuinely surprised to learn of the poor audio on these. I don't think Edsel intentionally misled people here. What likely happened is that they sourced the Robert Palmer CDs from CDs that they THOUGHT contained CD quality audio but in fact contained mp3s.

We like to think that these projects are managed by huge teams of people, but in these days there are just a handful of folks in a small office overseeing these releases. Quality control goes out the window because there's no budget for it. That doesn't make it ok, but then again, as Vaughan said, these are budget releases to begin with, not "deluxe editions." No one promised audiophile recordings or a thorough, professional remastering process. These are two albums slapped on one CD.

 

This is interesting:

“We were given flat transfers by Universal for all the albums and bonus tracks, on CDs with Universal’s Belsize Road Tape Library inlays. Since they came directly from the tape library, I can’t see how MP3s would come into it."

Uh...assuming they were audio CDs and not CD-Rs (data), how was the digital audio extracted from said CDs?

 

I tend to agree 100%, but still the question remains: What's wrong with simply apologizing for an oversight instead of denying and accusing?

 

Seems that this guy believes the complaints are nitpicking from a few audiophile crazies. If music is important, then how we hear it is important. When I pay for a particular album in the CD format, then I feel that the label owes me the closest representation of the original master tape possible. It is a shame that consumers have been left in the dark as it pertains to sound quality. A bit of a stretch analogy, but the contents of food are placed on labels so consumers aren't totally in the dark as to "what's inside". CDs look the same, but it is "what's inside" that matters. We should demand mastering details, etc sooner than later because it won't be long before the cloud is all we've got.

 

I guess people draw the line at different points. I do not restrict my purchases to CDs with the highest dynamic range or only to those that come straight from original tapes. I can survive with compromises. However sourcing CDs from 128k mp3 files is way beyond the line for me and, I suspect, for many other people too.

If other options were cost prohibitive then they should have published these CDs with clear information on the sources and let the customer decide. If I know what I buy I can even enjoy 128k mp3 files. If you try to con me then it's a different story.

 

Based on the info SDE got from Val, it appears that the lineage for the audio on these discs was:

Original tapes —> ??? —> MP3 files —> CD-R backup from Universal —> Someone's home PC —> Edsel's production master —> Duplication —> My copy —> Amazon returns department

 

Do the original tapes exist still? if so who has them.?
I hard a lot master tapes over years have rotted because of poor care.

 

I'd of been interested in this series but frankly it's off with this source being used and I've cancelled my preorder for the Badfinger already. I'll decide what to do regarding the Andrew Gold title in a few days I think. You'd put up with a few questionably sourced tracks on a dirt cheap 5 cd set but not for something like this.

 

These Edsel reissues are labeled as "Deluxe" but no mention of remastering. I guess the bonus tracks make it deluxe even if the CDs were made using mp3s. By contrast, I bought a mini-LP version of Sneaking Sally Through the Alley" in the Legends of Rock series that purports to be an "Audiophile recording" and "remastered in high definition 96/24". Does anyone know if any other albums in Palmer's catalogue made it into this series, and have thoughts on the "audiophile" nature of them? I bought it for the 4 bonus tracks but have yet to get it out of the stack to compare the remastering quality to my prior standard CD version.

 

If I'm not mistaken those mini-LP remasters were all done by Culture Factory, and they received mixed reviews on this site.

 

Thanks for that. By forum search, I figured out at about the same time that what others here were calling the "Culture Factory" remasters were the same as what I was just mentioning. It's too bad there have been 2 recent attempts to market this catalog and both have apparently been misses. Since the holder of these recordings appears motivated to market the catalog, would it be too much to hope that either AF or MFSL might take an interest and actually do these properly with the correct tapes (as opposed to tackling the same reissues we've seen over and over again such as Billy Joel)?

 

Define "Deluxe".

 

Well, they tend to have "Deluxe Edition" written on the outside - and cost more than £8 for two albums.

 

Well actually these new sets have "deluxe edition" written on the external sleeves.

 

They do?

 

Back to topic please; it really doesn't require a "Deluxe Edition" to be entitled to non-MP3 sourced music on a retail CD!

 

I am fairly sure deluxe is written in the back or on a shrink wrap sticker. I can't check because I don't have them anymore.

 

A question that has not been answered is why Island/Universal decided not to release these a few years back. Press releases had been done and they were even announced in the music press.

Maybe there was such a thing as quality control back then and they decided not to release them due the poor sound quality.

Either way, the new Edsel cds sound really off. I am not sure that the fact they are mp3 is the only problem. I think it is more than likely the original source tapes as well.

 

What most people don't realize is that when a 3rd party, like Edsel, license from a major, they are often provided a basic CD transfer of the tapes from the label, not the tapes themselves. They are not necessarily involved in the tape transfer process. Unless the 3rd party label specifically requests, and likely pays for, a new tape transfer, you are going to get what transfer the label may have already done at some point. In most cases, the only new tape transfers the label will receive are the tracks, such as B sides and alternate versions, that may not yet have been transferred from tapes. Sony does this all the time.

But then it is up to the 3rd party label to review that master and address any possible issues. I'm not a Robert Palmer fan, but I've been following this thread because of how many botched reissues there has been over the last decade, and the fault lies at various levels. In fact, I just found today that the upcoming Tears for Fears 'The Hurting' set is highly brickwalled and disappointing. They posted a track on SoundCloud, and the graph showed it all. Who needs dynamic range anyway?? This sucks...

For example, someone was greatly screwing up at Warners in recent years, and when they would license catalog titles, they would provide highly compressed MP3 sources. Edsel released some Blancmange titles primarily consisting of MP3 from Warners. Cherry Red re-released The Monochrome Set's album 'The Lost Weekend' with bonus tracks, licensed from Warners. I was all ready to dispose of my rare Japanese CD until I got Cherry Red's in my hands and found the entire thing was MP3. Warners eventually figured out their fault and recent reissues, like the Fuzzbox sets on Cherry Red, were all from .wav files, though with some heavy brickwalling on one of the sets.

But 3rd party labels do take less concern with quality control, and just trust it will be good. I remastered about 20 titles for Cherry Red, and even one for Edsel a few years ago, and can tell you that it seems to be more an assembly line rather than projects being handled with kid gloves to ensure quality all around. In fact, I was pressured to skimp on quality of one title to make the release date. I refused to have my name on a CD that didn't meet my standards of quality, so they suggested I leave my name off. I was remarkably offended and refused. In the end the projecct was delayed but released with the quality I insisted on. They do pay attention to the visuals, i.e. how does the packaging look, but often times do not make efforts to ensure sound quality or track versions are correct. And good luck EVER getting them to advertise when a lesser quality source is used.

In the end, this was the fault of both Universal and Edsel. Universal provided a shoddy transfer, which I don't doubt is exactly why everyone at the label has amnesia as to why the project was shelved back in 2006, and Edsel made no attempt to verify quality or versions being used. For a better guarantee of results, you will always need at least some fan involvement, and it's not hard to find it. That's how I got involved in my past projects with the aforementioned labels.

Scott

 

I think one of the most disappointing things about this whole mess is that Edsel haven't even accepted there could be a problem. If they had responded by saying they would investigate the issue then I think people would be happier. Maybe they could have got some expert advice from the industry. If the master tapes are ruined and this is the best we are going to get then fair enough, at least give consumers the information to allow them to make an informed choice.

 

G E T T H E ORIGINALS!!!!!

 

The original CDs sound great. But I want the single versions, too. It's like hunting for hen's teeth tracking them all down on compilations.