barry123

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but... The ESL version of Tom Sawyer appears on Rush's vhs "Through the Camera Eye" ('TTCE'). The sound of Neil's snare drum there is just as tight and normal sounding as it sounds on the ESL album itself. Check this out at time-code 5:46 But on the the ESL version contained in Rush Replayx3 ('RRx3') , the sound of Neil's snare during that concert has an aggressive echo, sounding more like he is hitting an empty garbage can than a snare drum. Check this out at time-code 7:05 I have not been able to verify the sound of the audio in the VHS version of ESL. I assume the audio heard on RRx3 is the same as the audio track originally present on the VHS release. The ESL video itself was released in 1982, obviously before TTCE, released in 1985, meaning somebody, for purposes of the TTCE video, tinkered with the ESL audio to remove the trash-can echo effect. Why this change? This becomes a bigger question because the ESL video contained in RRx3, released in 2006, has restored the original trash-can snare drum sound effect. Does anybody know why Rush made the change (TTCE), then undid this (RRx3)? I personally find the trash-can effect distracting from the song itself. What's really interesting is that the tone of the snare also seems different between the two versions, despite the fact that the video in both cases was showing one and the same identical performance. It therefore appears that the "tinkering" consisted of taking an isolated snare drum hit recorded at another time and splicing it into the original ESL audio, doing this for each and every snare drum hit Neil made during that performance. In other words, not a typical remix or remaster, but more of a 'chop up broadway' job. That's an awful lot of post-recording studio work, the purpose of which many Rush fans would love to hear about. Indeed, how could the original snare drum echo effect be "removed" by studio processes available in 1985, without very extensive and invasive editing? Please provide a true and correct copy of any doctor bills which were occasioned by your lack of sleep over these daunting questions.

In 1976 my older brother used to blast "2112" all the time. I was scared of the beginning outer-space sound effect from Overture, and Geddy's shrieking on "Temples of Syrinx", and also the ending scream from Cygnus X-1. Then there's this repeated sort of half-assed fire truck siren sound effect from Michael Jackson's "Heartbreak Hotel", when he sings "We walked up the stairs still concealin' gloom There were two girls sittin' in my room...". More scary than a post-op Michael Jackson. Then there's the unexplained industrial sound effect at the beginning of Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs", this is something my step brother would play and then tell me that this was an old man in chains escaped from the looney bin and headed my way (stupid, I know, but give me a break, I was only 28!). Now that I'm older and wiser, I recognize that the sound was simply furniture movers with a lot of change in their pockets, scooting couches around on a hard floor. And of course, Robert Plant's yelling at the beginning of "Immigrant Song", sounding like somebody very angry was galloping toward you.

Iron Maiden famously or infamously chose to avoid mastering "A Matter of Life and Death", and most people to have commented on the audio quality give it rave reviews, including me. The audio on that album is a refreshing change from the ceaselessly beefed up remastered "wall of sound" garbage that we seem to be getting every time we pop in a cd from any band. I'm wondering what others think about a new wave of Rush reissues in which the Rush albums contain no mastering, they are just straight from the master tapes with no compression, EQ, analogue widening, etc, etc. The advertising would say something like "Rush believes that remastering has lost the Loudness War", with commentary on the back about how Rush has come to agree with the audiophiles that this whole business of making things sound brighter and punchier than the sound produced when originally played, is just silly. I don't like the concept of marketing gimmicks just to convince people to buy the same single album 5 different times, but removal of mastering might actually be a step in the right direction. Of course, from what I've heard about Vapor Trails, this is not possible.

Everybody agrees that Presto is overwhelming in treble and lacking in bottom end. The first two seconds of "Chain Lightning" nearly made my eardrums bleed. I wonder if anybody here has used wavlab or similar to tone down the treble and beef up the bass for that album, and if so, did the results sound acceptable or did it just turn into a muddy mess.

Back around 1990, I was about to board a Greyhound from California north to Washington, and spent $13 in the coffee shop for the double-tape set "Chronicles". When I read in the liner notes "it was time to stop the concept stories", I just laughed for about 5 minutes. People sitting around me looked at me funny, but I was just thinking of how much argument amongst themselves and their producers there must have been around 1976 on whether to push the 20-minute opus stuff, or drop it in favor of more radio-friendly stuff.

I've always preferred treble to bass, and I remember hearing 'Tom Sawyer' on the radio on the way to school in 1984 and being amazed at how the fm radio gave a major boost in the treble response without making everything sound hissy. The walkman I heard it on didn't have an equalizer or "tone" button. In the part "The world is, the world is Love and life are deep", Peart's hi-hat cymbals sounded perfect, as if they had been separately recorded. I am also aware that FM degrades the sound quality, so I'm just wondering how the rock stations of pre-CD 80's were able to beef up the treble and punch in ways that we never could, and still can't, with our cd's and 7-band equalizers. Can we open up a Rush wav file in wavlab and make some changes that will cause the sound to jump out like it once did? For example, make the cymbal crashes and sizzles shine with more billiance without creating hiss? Also, I remember that when listening to my 'moving pictures' tape in 1985, the treble-quality upon turning the treble knob up was much more pleasing sounding than when I do the same on a cd player. For some odd reason, I feel that the tape made things sound more realistic, and the cd sounds too sterile.

Around 1984, my sister, seeing that I wished I could play drums (seeing that I was beginning to master "three's company"), had me listen to "tom sawyer" on the radio. I couldn't believe somebody could remember all the moves and hits necessary to play that song all the way through. When I went to the record store to find out what album it was on, they were all out of 'Moving Pictures', but had 'Exit Stage Left'. That was my introduction to Rush and for the next 3 years I wore that tape out learning every song. For my 15th birthday she bought me 'Power Windows' and 'Grace Under Pressure', which I initially disliked due to the major change from the ESL sound. But you know what repeated listenings do for dedicated fans :) I've noticed a change in the sound of the snare drum during Peart's YYZ solo from ESL. Between time-codes 4:27 and 4:56, the snare has nearly no echo and has the characteristic slightly higher-pitched or 'tight' sound that it does in the very beginning of the solo. But starting at 4:56, the snare has a deeper tone and more echo. Is this solo really just a montage of different solos recorded on different nights? One of the biggest disappointments in my life was around 1987, when I rented the ESL videotape, expecting to see this drum solo, and found out it wasn't there, and the video was quite different from the album. Peart's solo is a staple of live Rush, difficult to believe they'd rather scrap the footage than release it, especially since the bootleg 1983 videos which show him playing virtually the same solo are great.