The Steven Wilson 50th remix of Court is due out at the end of the month. Been waiting for this one.
Have you formed an opinion on Steven Wilson remixes yet?
Yes. They are great, so far. I have both the EU and USA's versions of Jethro Tull's Benefit (the songs are different and I prefer the USA tracks and play order) and Aqualung (only one version) albums and the Yes Box Set of 5 Yes albums. I got the two Benefits first. I got the EU first because the pressings are better overall but forgot about the differences. So I got the USA version next. And the EU is a tad better but the USA copy is very doable.
Anyway, what Wilson has accomplished imho, are very loving and respectful remixes that sound like they "should". They are not earth shakingly different, just more refined and more listenable. He has demonstrated his chops with Porcupine Tree and his solo stuff ( I see that you are a fan looking at your song ratings). One may not like his music but his engineering skills are outstanding; he seems to have a gift. I just know what I've read and heard with my own two ears. It seems that he is a fan of the music he is remixing and is picking out particular albums that he thinks he can really improve and fix certain things in the way they were intended to be, not what is expedient, and make them into what he wants to hear as a fan of the music himself. I have really liked all of his remixes so far. I trust him and when looking for a replacement or upgrade copy of an album, I'll go with his efforts over anyone else's, except Bernie Grundman. Those are the first fingerprints I'm looking for when choosing. Bruce Botnik and Bob Ludwig are two other names I look for.
The Yes Box is a masterpiece of work. Chris Bellman did the lacquers at Bernie Grundman Mastering. A twofer. Win / win.
His earlier remix of Court is widely acclaimed, but only available on CD. I have not knowingly heard it yet. This 2019 50th of Court is a brand new remix and available on both digital and vinyl. He gets my benefit of the doubt with this effort and makes it worth the risk of not liking it which I believe is highly unlikely. I've been a fan of Court from day one and know all of the material very well. It should not take long to decide.
Tell you what. I'll put up the Steven Wilson remix of The Yes Album in my quiet vinyl thread Sunday. I've promised it to more than a couple of people already and have been very tardy in getting around to it. You can grab it and give it a proper listen and let me know what you think based upon knowing SW, PT and Yes so well. Let me know if you can hear what he did to it and if it makes sense to you based upon what you already know about SW.
Cheers !
So here is the SWBOX remix of The Yes Album. And The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get for something else to consider and for those who mentioned their loving of this particular album in another thread. This after 2 months and 100 plus hours of breaking in my new cartridge playing the same stuff over and over again and getting everything resolved and at peace with this new and final sound. So I really am curious about what this stuff sounds like to other ears. I played the Joe Walsh album against the CD and even with the background noise from the vinyl album, it seemed worthwhile overall. The noise at the beginning of Dreams on side 2 after Meadows is on the CD as well making it deliberate so there is a lot to take in.
Other than all of the above stuff, what ever pops up in here will still be worthy of listening to as this stuff was originally presented on vinyl under the best of circumstances. Going forward from time to time the old CLICKY may just pop up without any explanations and what is there will be there for a week or so and changed as I catch up with. If it is something that has already been done before that has been put up in the past, the new one will be noticeably improved so I am not wasting anyone's time. Also different going forward, some files are too big so rather than lower the quality, I'm busting up some sides into Part 1 and Part 2. I got used to it since getting some 45 rpm 12" copies of albums that have 4 sides rather than just 2 at 33 1/3 rpm.
Move the mouse over the title and a box with 3 dots will show up on the right. Click on it. Get them one at a time. The big box in the upper right is for a zip file, avoid.
Well, it is on translucent vinyl, so there is that. I'm curious who actually donated - I mean I'm REALLY curious who they are and how to contact them. There are a few projects I am (or could be) working on.
Well, it is on translucent vinyl, so there is that. I'm curious who actually donated - I mean I'm REALLY curious who they are and how to contact them. There are a few projects I am (or could be) working on.
I'm truly living in a world I no longer understand.
So I'm making my morning rounds and stumble on this thread ... STEALING RECORDS
I do some reading, it's kinda local, happening down Cinci way. Then I learn of this FB page, The Vinyl Vigilante that is about record thieves. OK, so in the optical business we have groups that go from store to store and rip us off and there are a couple of people who share info and pictures of known thieves operating in our area. So I guess it is natural that record stores would have the same thing going on.
But, not being real familiar with FB and the way chains work there, if I'm reading things properly, the thief who is the subject of these conversations is actually posting and communicating with his victims ... I mean ... WTF ?
Nice work Kurtster! I always look forward to the results of your projects and appreciate the time you spend doing this.
Thanks.
Stay tuned, got a couple more nuggets nearing completion now that I have gotten somewhat caught up on other things.
Just picked up a rare NOS Audio Technica Precept cart and preparing to get the tonearm on my SL1200 rewired. The stats for this are about the same as my AT15SS so I'm pretty stoked to set it up and start breaking it in.
so this is the album I've spent about 30 hours working off and on over the past 10 days. Stevie ~ Innervisions from a 1973 1st US pressing. Did a lot of looking around about the album along the way and found out that it is one of those where the 1st's were the best and everything since the represses done after the 70's, including the CD's with the exception of the MFSL in 1991 have been pretty crappy, even the current 21st Century stuff. I haven't listened to the whole album in nearly 40 years. I'll put it up to desert island status for me. This effort came out so good that I even gently remastered the whole album. Hard to do on a global basis, but it worked out pretty nice breaking it up into 3 pieces and putting it back together again. No clipping. All the settings are built around Living For The City. The bass / keyboard bottom end riff was the focus. That whole vibrating bottom end thing is real ear candy to me.
So here it is. One of those that truly are worthy. I'll even dare to suggest that it will sound really good with headphones. Don't let this one slip away.
Yeah. That was the most important one of them all. I'm not biting into this apple.
I just recently learned about Roon, too. Thought it had something to do with Led Zep ... silly me.
That looks interesting. iTunes is unwieldy and slow and unpredictable so I'd switch to something else but it's so hard. Roon needs to get picked up by a computer brand. If Dell offered them $5 a unit they'd make a lot more money than hoping to get $500 per user.
So as I recently surfaced from under the Luddite rock where I live, I just discovered the existence of a new to me but not so new Hi-Res digital format, MAQ. Not sure what to think about it. It is said to compare with SACD. It is proprietary which means special equipment / decoders and more $$$. Seems like it is geared more for streaming but there are also some CD's coming out in this new format. I will admit that I bought The Beatles White Album Japanese CD SHM box set just to see what SHM is about. But it still sits unopened, the 50th Vinyl is killer enough for now.
I dunno. I'm pretty much done chasing my tail in the pursuit of the better sound. I've settled on 16 bit / 48 khz for ripping my vinyl. The only things on my immediate horizon is getting my tone arm rewired and maybe an ultra sonic cleaner. Sigh ...
Anyway here are some links to explore in case this format is new to you.
so this is the album I've spent about 30 hours working off and on over the past 10 days. Stevie ~ Innervisions from a 1973 1st US pressing. Did a lot of looking around about the album along the way and found out that it is one of those where the 1st's were the best and everything since the represses done after the 70's, including the CD's with the exception of the MFSL in 1991 have been pretty crappy, even the current 21st Century stuff. I haven't listened to the whole album in nearly 40 years. I'll put it up to desert island status for me. This effort came out so good that I even gently remastered the whole album. Hard to do on a global basis, but it worked out pretty nice breaking it up into 3 pieces and putting it back together again. No clipping. All the settings are built around Living For The City. The bass / keyboard bottom end riff was the focus. That whole vibrating bottom end thing is real ear candy to me.
So here it is. One of those that truly are worthy. I'll even dare to suggest that it will sound really good with headphones. Don't let this one slip away.
You in particular have contributed to me getting to my final approach with my remastering techniques via your youtube and other posts regarding aspects of audio engineering. They helped to gel my understanding of the various tools I have to work with and especially how not to use them more than anything else. I'm now 12 years into this and what I do now is light years from what I did in the beginning working with CD's and mp3's. Vinyl seems to be the source for the highest dynamic ranges to be found in recordings, even today. Keeping levels lower and things from clipping was the most important realization in preserving the dynamic range that vinyl has to offer. I have more to work with and the effects and tools work better and ironically get louder without blowing out the fidelity and permanently killing it off with clipping.
Granted, not everything needs remastering, but in the case of this particular album, I knew what I wanted to do before I got started after listening to it raw and flat on the computer studio speakers, headphones and finally the big rig in the living room and what I thought was lacking. And I actually achieved what I wanted to do. That does not always happen. The big rig as I call it matters most because it is plain old stereo with an old fashioned unpowered inline subwoofer in front of the mains. These days with powered subs and separate volume controls for them, figuring out the bass lower end is a big guess. The inline unpowered sub let's me hear what the bottom really sounds like and how loud it really is with all things being equal and therefore how to better adjust EQ's.
Usually I only remaster individual songs and leave the albums alone and just deal with the pops and ticks, but this one hit me as a whole. FWIW, the bulk of those 30 hours were spent with the pencil tool editing out the pops, ticks and some scratches and even fixing some recording glitches in the wav form manually, thereby avoiding altering the sound with programs that can do some of the click removal. It's tedious, time consuming and boring as hell but worth it imo. I wish I had some google glasses to make a video of that process in real time with live sound. But I don't.
Finally just to restate why I do this and remind myself why I do this ... Years ago when there was so much music that was out of print and the only source for this music was vinyl, I learned of this guy in Hong Kong in the 90's who was ripping albums and making digital copies of his rips available. They were so well done that he actually made some good money as there was an audiophile market that wanted his needle drops. Now everything is being re released so most of the OOP music is once again available, albeit with not so good results more often than not. That's why I started. (for the sound, not for the money part) I wanted to try and preserve great mastering efforts of people who have since left this planet but left behind masterpieces of work, on vinyl. Not all vinyl is equal, so when a great copy of a great pressing comes along it's just a simple joy to discover and hear. It's been said that analogue is less fatiguing to listen to than a digital file. I'll say that a good digital rip of a great vinyl mastering effort is also not fatiguing because the analogue mastering was accurately captured in a high enough resolution. Digital mastering from a master tape for a digital release is different than mastering for vinyl. Feel free to reply with any thoughts on this conclusion or anything else as you are indeed interested in this stuff having following your posts over the years. And anyone else as well.
Meanwhile, I'll leave this up through the weekend and get back to work on my music project for my wife's friend in Puerto Rico. She leaves 2 weeks from yesterday for PR and I also have a mixtape to get out at the same time. And I'm agonizing over adding an ultra sonic cleaning system to that part of the process. I love my wife who let's me do this.
so this is the album I've spent about 30 hours working off and on over the past 10 days. Stevie ~ Innervisions from a 1973 1st US pressing. Did a lot of looking around about the album along the way and found out that it is one of those where the 1st's were the best and everything since the represses done after the 70's, including the CD's with the exception of the MFSL in 1991 have been pretty crappy, even the current 21st Century stuff. I haven't listened to the whole album in nearly 40 years. I'll put it up to desert island status for me. This effort came out so good that I even gently remastered the whole album. Hard to do on a global basis, but it worked out pretty nice breaking it up into 3 pieces and putting it back together again. No clipping. All the settings are built around Living For The City. The bass / keyboard bottom end riff was the focus. That whole vibrating bottom end thing is real ear candy to me.
So here it is. One of those that truly are worthy. I'll even dare to suggest that it will sound really good with headphones. Don't let this one slip away.
so this is the album I've spent about 30 hours working off and on over the past 10 days. Stevie ~ Innervisions from a 1973 1st US pressing. Did a lot of looking around about the album along the way and found out that it is one of those where the 1st's were the best and everything since the represses done after the 70's, including the CD's with the exception of the MFSL in 1991 have been pretty crappy, even the current 21st Century stuff. I haven't listened to the whole album in nearly 40 years. I'll put it up to desert island status for me. This effort came out so good that I even gently remastered the whole album. Hard to do on a global basis, but it worked out pretty nice breaking it up into 3 pieces and putting it back together again. No clipping. All the settings are built around Living For The City. The bass / keyboard bottom end riff was the focus. That whole vibrating bottom end thing is real ear candy to me.
So here it is. One of those that truly are worthy. I'll even dare to suggest that it will sound really good with headphones. Don't let this one slip away.
so this is the album I've spent about 30 hours working off and on over the past 10 days. Stevie ~ Innervisions from a 1973 1st US pressing. Did a lot of looking around about the album along the way and found out that it is one of those where the 1st's were the best and everything since the represses done after the 70's, including the CD's with the exception of the MFSL in 1991 have been pretty crappy, even the current 21st Century stuff. I haven't listened to the whole album in nearly 40 years. I'll put it up to desert island status for me. This effort came out so good that I even gently remastered the whole album. Hard to do on a global basis, but it worked out pretty nice breaking it up into 3 pieces and putting it back together again. No clipping. All the settings are built around Living For The City. The bass / keyboard bottom end riff was the focus. That whole vibrating bottom end thing is real ear candy to me.
So here it is. One of those that truly are worthy. I'll even dare to suggest that it will sound really good with headphones. Don't let this one slip away.
y'all
