When did you first notice something was 'wrong' with a remaster?

I was just thinking about this. I remember quite well.

I'd bought Ziggy Stardust, the old W. German CD with the purple-on-white 'face' disc, and some time after got either Aladdin Sane or Hunky Dory (never mind which, they're both the same butcher job).

The Ziggy disc is far from perfect. It's probably NOT a first-gen tape and it sounds like it's either EQed more than a bit, or an LP production dub. But it doesn't sound like they used NR on it.

Those other discs however are something else. They are the latest EMI remasters, whatever the series is called. I remember popping the disc into the stereo, sitting back, and .. yeeech.

Everything sounded so DEAD, coming out of a zero-fill vacuum. That was it for me. Sure enough the booklet boasted about the latest Prism No-Noise technology.

What about you people?

 

Well, the Beatles Live at the BBC always bothered me even though it's not a proper remaster. It just had a weird sound to it.

And going back to a thread I started earlier, a couple of the Genesis remasters really bothered me. Particularly "And Then There Were Three" and "Duke." They sounded too bright and a bit narrowed.

 

When I first listened to Bob Seger's Live Bullet remaster in my car.


Also right after George Harrison died I made a CD-R of all his Beatles tracks which I sequenced chronologically. I used the two tracks from the Yellow Submarine Songtrack and when I listen to the disc I noticed how much louder they were compared to the others.

 

THIS IS KINDA LONG...



The first time I noticed was when TM Century (then Century 21) of Dallas, TX started advertising their new Generation 3 CD collection with No Noise. They said they wanted to build the largest library of songs that no one had on CD and invited radio station people to contact them with their lists. TM would pay to overnight the album to their studio for dubbing and cleaning and then return it to you.

They then sent out a sampler CD (which I still have) with songs like "Kiss You All Over" and "Still The One" and even "Day Tripper". They played part of the song from vinyl and then the song after it had been "corrected".

At first I was amazed at the clean clear sound-- especially in comparison to the ones fixed with the Waring FDS system. Then one day I got CDs with Still The One and Kiss You All Over mastered from the real tapes-- and I was blown away by the bass and fullness that was missing from the No-Noised ones. That's the signature I listen for on remastered CD's.

Later after I learned to recognize the sound of how the noise-- and life-- can be sucked out of a song, I then started hearing the maximizing of the volume that makes my ears burn-- but that's another thread...

 

Didja notice they fixed the dropout in Day Tripper, too???

 

Eric Clapton - "The Cream Of Clapton"

 

The first bunch of remastered Elton John CDs made my ears hurt - at about the same time, ELP did the same thing. WAY too much high treble.

I'd have to say that the only remasters I've really liked recently were the Dylan SACDs. The Stones post-71 stuff on Virgin were the last ones before that. Everything else since then has sounded so damn loud and compressed...

 

Yeah, the 1993 UK McCartney remasters. No life to 'em whatsoever.

Fortunately Steve gave us the real deal with 6 of the best titles on DCC.

 

I would say it was the probably the UK remasters of Paul McCartney's catalog. It took a few years for me to learn exactly why though.

 

I had some help, the packaging, notes, gave away the use of No-noise on one copy of Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland. But after listening to it I realized I liked my WG original copy much better, hiss and all.

I didn't know it then that some would use that without noting it, but it is pretty obvious when it is used.

 

When Universal released the "Deluxe Edition" of my absolute favorite CD, Gin Blossoms New Miserable Experience, I knew something was wrong when I put it in to listen on an unfamiliar (but hi-end) system.

I started to turn down the treble, but that didn't help so much. A short while later I realized it was maximized to all heck and my original copy (channels reversed and all!) was still the best way to experience this classic.

 

I'll have to give mine a spin, then. But I'm 90% sure there can't be any NR on it.

I think mine is an EMI job .. unless my mind's playing tricks on me.

 

Was it one of the newer remasters by Eddie Kramer? 'Cause I was thinking of getting AYE, which I still don't have, and all that's around these days are the Kramer discs.

 

I'll second the nomination for Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band's "Live Bullet." Upon first hearing the '99 remaster, I thought it was a CD-R copy of an analog rip through the converters of an 8-bit Soundblaster.

 

For me it was the original 1990 Beach Boys two-fers (and the 1990 'Pet Sounds' CD). Someone had given me a handful of these (1990 was the year I finally bought a CD player and some discs). I couldn't figure out why they sounded so flat, brittle and dead, though the mention of "No-Noise" in the booklet made me suspicious about this then-mysterious process.

Damián, I know this comes up at this forum every so often, but I still say that the "ugly cover" MCA CDs of the first three Hendrix albums are the best sounding ones out there. The covers are ugly as sin, but the sound is very good (and not compressed!)

 

Oh, and the all-time most gruesome example of No-Noise excess I've ever heard is "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" on the Beatles Live at the BBC disc. It ends up sounding like a badly encoded mp3 at 96 kbps, dragged underwater and then the corpse drifted onto the beach to rot.

Actually, the entire disc is unlistenable due to over-zealous use of No-Noise, but this track in particular is a real lulu of mangling/strangling.

 

IIRC, couldn't you flip the booklet around to display the original cover?

 

No, it is Reprise 6307-2 re-mastered by Joe Gastwirt assisted by Dave Mitson under the direction of 'Are You Experienced? Ltd.' Nice booklet and notes and posted in BIG letters, almost boasting, using the Sonic Solutions NoNoise System.

I never bought the Eddie Kramer re-mastered Electric Ladyland CD, but bought all the Vinyl, as I was satisfied with the Polydor WG release, with the Naked Ladies on the cover.

I don't think you'll run across this one unless you find it in the used bins as when the Hendrix family took over the rights, and put Kramer back to work, all the Reprise stuff was sold or taken off the shelves.

I often thought about getting rid of this disc but it is good to have around to show how noise reduction can ruin a disc.

Regarding the later AYE you mention, I got both the CD and the Vinyl (double album) and both sound ok. And both have the original running order and more cuts. I also have the original AYE CD and kept it. The new Eddie Kramer one sounds fine to my ears.

 

The Animals - The Complete Mickie Most Years on EMI. No Noise'd - House Of The Rising Sun with all its body removed from it. Probably at its best on 24 No 1's of the 60's (EMI/MFP) and on The Northern Beat (Polygram)

The Jam box set - bass heavy, no top end, absolutely dreadful compared to the first issues of their original LP's on CD. I just put the discs back in their silly cardboard sleeves, put the box on the shelf, and there it has remained ever since.

 

Those '98 Essential Kinks discs were mostly utterly wretched. I can deal with lousy remastering in many cases, but those just plain *hurt*, especially Village Green.

 

Good thread, I was going to start one similar.

For me, it was "Foxtrot" by Genesis, the UK Definitive Edition remaster. NoNoise is the buzzword these days, but in this instance it sounds like a Dolby A problem. Any quiet trebly sounds (and Foxtrot has a LOT of those), are obliterated. Didn't anyone listen to the drumming in Watcher Of The Skies?

There's no point running everything through the latest 20 bit/24 bit whatevers if you can't play back the mastertape properly.

 

RE: Ugly cover Hendrix MCA discs:

Exactly. That's what I did. It's a drag, though, that you get only the (original) front covers and nothing else (besides ugly "new" stuff you wouldn't want to look at anyway). But then 5 x 5-inch CD booklets being the visually handicapped, teeny-weeny medium they are, I suppose it doesn't matter too much after all.

 

Damián, all of the Bowie EMI/Virgins use NR. The only good Bowies (IMO) are the RCA Vinyl and CD's. Like Gary, it was Ziggy Stardust on Virgin that was my first taste. Blech! Even though the Au20's had the use of the master tapes they just couldn't help themselves with the maximization button, and leave well enough alone.

 

You mean the 'purple and gold' covers? I have Ultimate Experience from that series.