Is Caress of Steel in your top 10 Rush albums?

[blueschica]

58 minutes ago, Rush Didact said:

Fly By Night is a masterpiece of production.

 

The problem is that the master tape was lost sometime in the late 70s or early 80s and every subsequent release of that album, from the first CD to the latest vinyl remaster, has been sourced from what sounds like a cassette duplicate.

 

Get your hands on an early vinyl copy mastered by Gilbert Kong, which comes from the original master tape. (Or torrent it, since I'm sure everyone here has already paid for the album many times over. A rip by PBTHAL is readily available and sounds excellent.) The difference is like night and day. All kinds of new details pop out of the mix. The guitars sparkle, the drums pop, the bass bites.

 

Believe me, I used to think FBN was a dull sounding album too, until I learned this a few months ago and heard it for myself.

 

To be clear: there is no digital version of FBN sourced from the master tape. None, period.

Thank you for the explanation,  I hadn't realized that. I have an album copy from 1975 and it's one of my favorites. I had noticed that the songs don't sound as good other places, but thought it was my ears after so many years of headphones!  

[Entre_Perpetuo]

On 10/9/2022 at 3:25 PM, Rush Didact said:

Fly By Night is a masterpiece of production.

 

The problem is that the master tape was lost sometime in the late 70s or early 80s and every subsequent release of that album, from the first CD to the latest vinyl remaster, has been sourced from what sounds like a cassette duplicate.

 

Get your hands on an early vinyl copy mastered by Gilbert Kong, which comes from the original master tape. (Or torrent it, since I'm sure everyone here has already paid for the album many times over. A rip by PBTHAL is readily available and sounds excellent.) The difference is like night and day. All kinds of new details pop out of the mix. The guitars sparkle, the drums pop, the bass bites.

 

Believe me, I used to think FBN was a dull sounding album too, until I learned this a few months ago and heard it for myself.

 

To be clear: there is no digital version of FBN sourced from the master tape. None, period.

Hmmmm I had never heard of this. Perhaps I’ll go on the hunt for it…

[JARG]

On 10/7/2022 at 10:16 AM, Entre_Perpetuo said:

Triple AAA through Signals for me. Grace I’ve come to love production wise but it was a turn off at first. Anyway.

 

Yes, totally agree about CoS’s and FBN’s production, not surprising they were released in the same year. The Didacts and Narpets section of FoL makes it especially apparent how much room they still had to grow with Neil’s drum sound. That all changes on 2112, where the guitars are thicker (and so think Alex first introduces some kind of phaser/flanger which really enlivens his playing), the drums feel real, and the bass is deeper. 

 

There's some phaser on Lakeside Park.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

47 minutes ago, JARG said:

 

There's some phaser on Lakeside Park.

So there is! I forgot!

[TheAccountant]

No way does it make my top 10.  Only VT is worse.  

 

That being said, it has been a while since I listened to it and recently I watched some youtube video's of Rocky Kunar, when she was with YYNOT, doing some of the songs I don't like from it (The Fountain of Lameness & The Necromancer) and that gave me a better appreciation of those dogs.  Perhaps its time I gave it another shot.  Lakeside Park & Bastille Day are very strong songs however.  Pitty the 2 long songs have historically not thrilled me (to say the least).

 

Note - I like Rocky's work a lot more now that she is with Mood Lifters - who I like a lot more than YYNOT.

[grep]

On 10/9/2022 at 3:25 PM, Rush Didact said:

Fly By Night is a masterpiece of production.

 

The problem is that the master tape was lost sometime in the late 70s or early 80s and every subsequent release of that album, from the first CD to the latest vinyl remaster, has been sourced from what sounds like a cassette duplicate.

 

Get your hands on an early vinyl copy mastered by Gilbert Kong, which comes from the original master tape. (Or torrent it, since I'm sure everyone here has already paid for the album many times over. A rip by PBTHAL is readily available and sounds excellent.) The difference is like night and day. All kinds of new details pop out of the mix. The guitars sparkle, the drums pop, the bass bites.

 

Believe me, I used to think FBN was a dull sounding album too, until I learned this a few months ago and heard it for myself.

 

To be clear: there is no digital version of FBN sourced from the master tape. None, period.

 

 

I didn't know about this. Thank you.

Will be hunting this down soon.  AARRGGHH!!

 

Edit: PBTHAL. Second US pressing.  Mercury ‎SRM-1-1023 .

Edited November 7, 2022 by grep

[Alexmai]

It's a great album, with high peaks... probably in my top 10 also!

[grep]

Holy shit - that second FBN pressing sounds amazing!!! 

I even converted the flacs to 320 mp3 just for fun, and even they sound superior to any other version.  Wow.

[Rush Didact]

31 minutes ago, grep said:

Holy shit - that second FBN pressing sounds amazing!!! 

I even converted the flacs to 320 mp3 just for fun, and even they sound superior to any other version.  Wow.

 

Yeah, there's no competition, eh?

 

I would really love to know what the story is there.  How did the master tape get lost?  Who made the copy of it that everything else has been mastered from?  My ears are saying it was dubbed with the levels set way too high - it sounds like saturated tape.  If that's the case, it's a total rookie mistake.  I mean, at that point in their career Rush were still a small name and no one was thinking about the long term significance of their music, but man you really have to be bad at your job to cook the tape like that...