| Through the eons... 08.09.2009 22:05 |
I'm very sure that this has been hugely discussed, but it will take me forever to research it. The question: Why are those darn remastered cds so expensive, and is there a big difference in sound quality compared to the regular cds, and can they be played on regular cd players or computer cd drives? Appreciate your input. Thanks! |
| FlorianS 09.09.2009 10:17 |
Amazon claims that the remastered edition is strictly limited. (They say that only 5.000 copies of each album are available for Germany.) I don't know about the quality, but the limitation will be an explanation for the high pricing. |
| FlorianS 09.09.2009 10:17 |
One thing I forgot: And they say that the CDs are running on all regular CD players. |
| Jjeroen 09.09.2009 11:15 |
Which pressing do you call 'the regular'? You mean the first, 80's EMI pressings? Hollywood Records remasters? The 'Digital Remasters collection' remasters? And which of the many Japanese remasters are you referring to? The cardsleeves from few years ago? The jewel case remasters from some years earlier? Compared to the first EMI pressings - ALL remasters sound better. In case of the cardsleeve remasters though, it differs very much from album to album. Some sound fabulous (QII, SHA), some sound horrible (Innuendo). Well, not in audio quality - the quality is fine on all- , but in the sence of the actual mix of the music. Some of those releases are very UNfaithfull to the original (vinyl) releases. About prices: in general things from Japan are expensive because they are things from Japan. Even in Japan itsself, things from Japan are expensive. That's why they put extra tracks on them most of the time. To persuede their own people to buy their own product and not the cheaper imports. The cardsleeve remasters were not expensive. But they were intended for the non-Japanese market and probably not even manufactured in Japan. At the time of release in German shops they were piled up to the roof and you could buy all titles for 12.99 euro at first and 6.99 euro's a month later. |
| catqueen 09.09.2009 14:30 |
Jjeroen wrote: At the time of release in German shops they were piled up to the roof and you could buy all titles for 12.99 euro at first and 6.99 euro's a month later. Queenonline seem to jack their prices up, pretty much everything on the site is expensive. But I haven't seen any of the remastered ones for sale anywhere. Although, in fairness the cd shops near me are fairly pathetic, theyr'e tiny. But I was in a huge one recently and they also had very little Queen, although they had one of the 'old' Magic cds for E16.99 (or maybe it was more, can't remember. Maybe TCR was E16.99 and Magic was E18.99). At least i think it was an old one, didn't look like the Japanese ones on the website, and didn't say it was. I'd love to get them, but its a lot of money. |
| pittrek 09.09.2009 16:32 |
link |
| Through the eons... 09.09.2009 20:24 |
Thank you very much for your responses. I asked the question because I was browsing through the Best Buy website and found the following and was curious as to what the difference was. link link |
| Adam Baboolal 09.09.2009 20:59 |
Yup, must be that time again. The short version? The 1994 remasters of Queen are arguably the best available. Although, the 2001 remasters (japanese card versions) are kind of good, as mentioned above, they are flawed. The first few albums up until Hot Space seem to be ok. But after that, it all falls down with the above mentioned "unfaithful" sounding albums. In fact, I think I remember that even the earlier albums were a bit hit and miss. Hmm... It's hard to explain without getting into the nitty gritty here. As I said, this is the short version!! If you want real detail on 2-3 releases, search the forum for my old 2007 reviews. I went into detail about what I heard. I'm an audio engineer and really wanted to sit down and A/B the 1994 cd's with the 2001 Japanese ones. Something I did because this question was always popping up on the forums here. Here's a post I found to get you started -[url=http://www.queenzone.com:80/forums/999554/which-album-editions-are-the-best.aspx%5B/url] http://www.queenconcerts.com/queenzone/999554.html[/url] - Sheer Heart Attack Hopefully this helps! Adam. EDIT: A little note of unhappiness from moi. I guess the forum has changed the amount of words you can have on here because both my reviews get cut off! The SHA album at She Makes Me and the NOTW album at Get Down Make Love! I do have the NOTW review somewhere...but I didn't save the SHA album review I did. God damn... |
| Through the eons... 09.09.2009 22:33 |
Thanks Adam. Spoken from the horse's mouth.....a sound engineer. Doesn't get any better than this. Will do more research over the weekend when there's more free time. |
| pittrek 10.09.2009 01:46 |
Through the eons... wrote: Thank you very much for your responses. I asked the question because I was browsing through the Best Buy website and found the following and was curious as to what the difference was. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=13837002&st=queen&lp=73&type=product&cp=1&id=1363209 link 47 USD ? What a rip-off ! Get it here : link for 2600 yen (according to google it's cca 28 USD). BTW Made In Heaven is one of the albums which sound worse on these remasters |
| pittrek 10.09.2009 01:53 |
Adam Baboolal wrote: Yup, must be that time again. The short version? The 1994 remasters of Queen are arguably the best available. Although, the 2001 remasters (japanese card versions) are kind of good, as mentioned above, they are flawed. The first few albums up until Hot Space seem to be ok. But after that, it all falls down with the above mentioned "unfaithful" sounding albums. In fact, I think I remember that even the earlier albums were a bit hit and miss. Hmm... It's hard to explain without getting into the nitty gritty here. As I said, this is the short version!! If you want real detail on 2-3 releases, search the forum for my old 2007 reviews. I went into detail about what I heard. I'm an audio engineer and really wanted to sit down and A/B the 1994 cd's with the 2001 Japanese ones. Something I did because this question was always popping up on the forums here. Here's a post I found to get you started - http://www.queenconcerts.com/queenzone/999554.html Hopefully this helps! Adam. EDIT: A little note of unhappiness from moi. I guess the forum has changed the amount of words you can have on here because both my reviews get cut off! The SHA album at She Makes Me and the NOTW album at Get Down Make Love! I do have the NOTW review somewhere...but I didn't save the SHA album review I did. God damn... Wow, you REALLY like the Abbey Road remasters ? I consider many of them garbage, but OK. And THANK YOU very much for the thread, I've been searching for it for a long time ! |
| Benn 10.09.2009 08:27 |
My personal preference is for the Japanese re-masters - I've only ever had one issue wit the mix on the discs in that "Queen" sounds overly harsh - for example, the cymbals on "Liar" are WAAAY to bright. Having said that though, they have been like this on ALL other versions of the album I've ever heard so...... The packaging is absolutely delightful and much more enticing than the standard '91 re-issues, to the extent that I threw all the '91 releases in the bin once I'd completed the Jap set. |
| Adam Baboolal 10.09.2009 08:29 |
Hey Pittrek. Yes, the 1993/4 ones are top for me. I've heard the 1980's ones were pretty blah. And the 1998 ones had extra compression and noise reduction added. They didn't seem that great, but not that bad tbh. And as mentioned before, the 2001/4 versions are quite frankly...awful. If you have a decent hifi and speaker setup, i.e. separates. You'll have a good platform for hearing things that I talk of in those old reviews. Now, this isn't to say that someone isn't gonna like the newer ones over the old. Not at all. But technically speaking, I'm appalled by all the newest ones in comparison to how the music was presented. It's like they went in and changed things so much that you might think it's a different mix altogether. Pretty shocking and damned right sacrilege. Now, that's all I know about cd versions-wise. If you know of better remasters that I haven't listed, I'm all ears! I would love to find out that along with the 2005 NATO disc remaster, they did the rest. My dream come true. To actually have someone with real mastering experience (NOT JSS), would be very important. Adam. |
| Adam Baboolal 10.09.2009 08:39 |
Benn, you say that the cymbals on Liar are harsh? I don't hear that at all on my 93/4 re. Sure, they're not the best quality drum recordings. Poor Roger. :( I'm quite puzzled by this as I read my old reviews and I seem to mention a lot of e-ss-y sounds being accentuated on the 2001/4 remasters. I haven't sat with the 2001/4 version of Queen, but I could actually do a review if need be. I'm actually curious to hear what you mean now. *listens* Just had a quick listen and they don't really sound that different. They show off a lot more of the distorted sound, but not smoother or less harsh. In fact, after a 2nd A/B, I actually think the 2001/4 re seems to be slightly more 'harsh'. It's definitely pushed forward more. Adam. |
| Benn 11.09.2009 10:53 |
Hi Adam, You know what, I think the *problem* with the Queen catalogue, in terms of sound, is that they actually weren't RECORDED all that well. For example, when you compare early Who recordings against early Beatles recordings, you have a band who were cracking musicians against a band who were average at best (Who / Beatles). When you listen to them, you have a band that sounds great almost all of the time against a band that get's caught properly only twice or three times throughout their career (Beatles / The Who). Queen, Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack sound absolutely terrible in comparison to ANATO, ADATR and NOTW - then, they get to Jazz and it's back to bad times again. All down to good old RTB IMHO. |
| Adam Baboolal 12.09.2009 17:15 |
You are absolutely right, Benn. I remember hearing my brother say the same thing about the early Queen stuff. And as we know from some documentary (I forget which), Brian mentions how they wanted a room-y sound, but were told it could be added afterwards with reverb. And of course, it didn't work. So yeah, it's true. Queen didn't get the best treatment at the start. But they got more as they progressed and worked hard to move onward. And ain't we glad they got there? :) Adam. |
| Benn 14.09.2009 10:57 |
The interesting thing would be to set someone up in the job of engineering and producing a new set of remasters who has absolutely no connection to the band other than the love of the music and giving them access to the master tapes. I just wonder whether the quality of the raw recording is there on tape to actually enable a DEFINITIVE remastering of the catalogue once and for all. I.E. can the harshness of the cymbals on "Liar" be brought down to render it listenable at volume? My feeling is that, simply. it was all recorded badly because, in all honesty, why would so many re-masters and re-issues contain all the familiar bad points. Unless, of course, the recording quality WAS good, but the ORIGINAL mastering SO bad that subsequent re-masters and re-issues have DELIBERATELY been sub-standard in order that the original production team were not overly embarassed..........? |
| Negative Creep 14.09.2009 11:12 |
Benn wrote: The interesting thing would be to set someone up in the job of engineering and producing a new set of remasters who has absolutely no connection to the band other than the love of the music and giving them access to the master tapes. The whole back catalogue needs re-mixing from the multitracks - not just remastered! And by someone who really knows what they're doing, not Justin "jack of all trades, master of none" Shirely Smith or the drummer from the Cross who's been kept on the pay roll. |
| pittrek 14.09.2009 11:44 |
F* JSS . Why are all drums on the live recording he remixed sounding WORSE than on bootleg versions of the same songs ? They should really hire the man who remastered ANATO for the 30th anniversary, give him all master tapes and LEAVE HIM. |
| Benn 14.09.2009 13:11 |
I'm not sure it all needs re-mixing. In fairness, who is anyone else to *mess* with what the artists originally wanted everyone to hear in the manner they wanted them to hear it? Unless, of course, the remaining members of Queen had issues with the original mixes themselves - in which case, it's still an unbalanced view as one of the band is dead. And, if done, it absolutely HAS to be taken away from anyone with a vested interest in it. Someone coming at it from a completely new and fresh perspective who has no preconceptions about how Queen should sound. I.E. a professional engineer / producer, NOT a Queen-related lackey. |
| Adam Baboolal 15.09.2009 08:53 |
As a sidenote, I think Brian is more open to remixing things. Not all things, but certainly, I could see Queen and QII being remixed. Brian had the team dust off the cobwebs on Teo Torriate and gave it the "HiDef" treatment remix. Now, if he didn't mind that, it makes me wonder what else he wouldn't mind doing. It could be akin to Paul McCartney's need to "fix" Let It Be. I think there's a case to be heard here, imo. Adam. |
| Benn 15.09.2009 11:46 |
I'm hearin' ya - what we want is for the best *sounding* and *available* versions of Queen albums to be as close to the way they were ORIGINALLY meant to be heard as possible using the best technology at their disposal, but keeping faith with the original mixes as the band TOGETHER meant for us to hear them.. |
| Adam Baboolal 15.09.2009 17:18 |
Pretty much. And I'm sure with the technology available to the guys right now, it would be a very good idea to remix those first two albums. The 2nd less so, but definitely the first one. Especially in light of Brian's comment about the room sound and how they were not pleased that it couldn't actually be added after the initial recording, then. But now... The amount of times I've sat down with impulse reverbs (special reverb recordings of actual rooms/halls/places) and made a limp sounding vocal, guitar or drum kit suddenly gain depth is phenomenal. I'm not talking expensive gear here. I'm talking very widely available and cheap plugins. God only knows what the big boys have!! So, ya know what? I think this is an idea that needs to be presented to Brian. Seriously, this is the kind of stuff he'd take a liking to. Hmm... *goes off* Done! Sent an email to his soapbox. Whether he actually gets it or not, who knows. But it's something that needs to be checked out. Adam. |
| Benn 16.09.2009 13:12 |
Good on ya Adam. I've sent countless things like that to his soapbox and had the response back that "it's not on his radar at the moment". Perhaps if you mention that the covers could be stereo images, you'll have his ear. Here's hoping he takes it on board.... |