1-0-0-1-0-0-1 Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 QUOTE (Pags @ Mar 16 2009, 03:56 PM) QUOTE (savagegrace26 @ Mar 16 2009, 01:30 AM) Well everyone keeps comparing these tracks to the original versions when of course they would have taken these them from the remastered versions and not the originals. Question is, were they changed at all from the remastered versions or are they the same? You nailed it with the two words "of course". It really goes without saying. That's why I didn't say it. But since we're talking about the Atlantic remasters now, there is no difference to the originals, aside from the CD packaging. And besides, when speaking about the "originals", we're simply using that as a reference to the album in comparison to the Retro 3 tracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagegrace26 Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 Yes there are differences between the originals and remasters. They are subtle but they are there. Presto and Roll the Bones are louder and have a little more bottom end. Test for Echo is a little cleaner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyswing Posted April 11, 2009 Share Posted April 11, 2009 Hey folks! Long time, no see! Haven't been around much, just busy with a lot of stuff. But anyway, I haven't heard the new "Earthshine" mix yet but I got the Retro 3 disc and have heard the "One Little Victory" remix and I think it's stellar! You can really hear the raw instrumentation of the song, probably something they intended with the original recording but didn't achieve, for whatever reason. Looking forward to hearing "Earthshine" and hoping these two songs are a sign of things to come! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vital signz Posted April 11, 2009 Author Share Posted April 11, 2009 QUOTE (savagegrace26 @ Mar 16 2009, 06:54 PM) Yes there are differences between the originals and remasters. They are subtle but they are there. Presto and Roll the Bones are louder and have a little more bottom end. Test for Echo is a little cleaner. subtle? Try your headphones....You will be amazed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Presto-digitation Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 I'm not so big of an audiophile that I can hear all of this to the degrees that some of you can. I find the entire listen of Retro III to be enjoyable and quality. My ears aren't quite that atuned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaun3701 Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 I like the Atlantic remasters except for Counterparts. The sound was perfect already, I don't think it needed to be messed with. The remaster sounds a little thin and hollow, compared to the original. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulio91184 Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Sounds interesting...I love the songs on VT and would love to hear a remixed version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rushman14 Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 after checking out Pearl Jam's new reissue of Ten, I think Rush needs to do the same with VT. They need to release a 2 disc special edition of VT. Disc 1 should be the original mixes remastered, and disc 2 should be the Rich Chychi remixes. I believe that would rule more than anything has ruled before. One can dream. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1-0-0-1-0-0-1 Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 QUOTE (Rushman14 @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) after checking out Pearl Jam's new reissue of Ten, I think Rush needs to do the same with VT. They need to release a 2 disc special edition of VT. Disc 1 should be the original mixes remastered, and disc 2 should be the Rich Chychi remixes. I believe that would rule more than anything has ruled before. One can dream. I like that idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulio91184 Posted April 18, 2009 Share Posted April 18, 2009 Just pick up R3 yeasterday and was floored by the remixes!!! I would love to hear Vapor Trails, Peaceable Kingdom and Secret Touch Remixed too!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 The two remixes do sound better, but it would have been really hard to make them sound much worse. Unfortunately no lessons seem to have been learned here, as the real story about this CD is how they made the other cuts sound more like Vapor Trails. The entire CD is highly compressed. Look at the song Presto. The Altantic remaster is very good. The version on Retro 3 is so compressed and at such a boosted volume that it is as bad as the cuts on the original Vapor Trails and possibly worse. All the fine details of that recording have been destroyed. I will try to post some graphs later if I get the chance. I had hope for this CD that the sound quality would be at the level of S&A. I never even thought of the possibility that they would take previously well recorded material and destroy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rushman14 Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 QUOTE (Dave @ May 15 2009, 02:45 PM) Look at the song Presto. The Altantic remaster is very good. The version on Retro 3 is so compressed and at such a boosted volume that it is as bad as the cuts on the original Vapor Trails and possibly worse. All the fine details of that recording have been destroyed. As far as Presto is concerned, I can't tell the difference between the original release and the remaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 QUOTE (Rushman14 @ May 15 2009, 04:56 PM) [/quote] As far as Presto is concerned, I can't tell the difference between the original release and the remaster. On my system the difference is so strikingly night and day that there is no question of what has been done to the material. However, my system is very revealing, true to the recordings and far from the average. I will see if I can load in sections of both recordings that show visually how bad it really is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 16, 2009 Share Posted May 16, 2009 Here is the Atlantic remaster. Notice the nice musical waveforms with no clipping or saturation. http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k42/housteau/Prestoorg.jpg Now here we have the same song on Retrospective 3. It doesn't even look close to the original song. Just look at all the clipping and distortion. You don't even need ears to tell there is something very wrong going on here. http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k42/housteau/retro.jpg My ears tell me that this horrible distortion exists all the way through the CD with every cut, but I have not charted the others yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Yes, it is official as far as I am concerned. This CD ranks as one of the very worst produced for Rush as far as absolute sound quality is concerned. It is right up there with the VT release. This thread was started with such optimism for the future. That is what originally caught my eye, as I do not often post. I also had not picked up R 3 until recently. But, without a doubt I hold no such optimism for future Rush releases, as no lessons seem to have been learned at all from the VT release. The two remixes from VT are still at their saturation points, but they did manage to make them sound better. The S&A cuts are basically unchanged here and also at saturation limits. It is amazing to me that the original S&A CD could be mastered in that way and still sound decent. However, we will never get to know how much better it could have been. Just like we will never know how good VT could have been. This is where the good news ends. The rest of the cuts, such as Presto shown above, have been mastered to to VT quality standard instead of going the other way around. It would have been one thing to release entirely new material this way, still unforgivable, but at least somewhat understandable. But, to take previously well recorded and produced material and dumb it down stripping the musicality from it, is just criminal to me. I have read in some posts above the complaints that several of the songs sound thin. That is what compression will do. This process saturates the recording to boost volume levels. This saturation rounds off the waveforms eliminating the low lows and the high highs. The resulting sound is averaged out to a rather bland louder level minus all the intricacies that make good recorded music sound like music. I think this reflects the state of the recording industry as a whole outside of the specialty labels. The bulk of music sales goes to those that don't really care about the real quality. Most cannot tell the difference anyway. I mean if it sounds good on an I-Pod, or in the car then it is good enough. Many just use MP3s anyway. It is sad. It really is. The fact is that a well produced product will still sound great on an I-Pod, or in the car, but can also be more future proof for someone when they decide to move on to a nice playback system. They will have a music collection that actually sounds like music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeminiRising79 Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 Did Alex mix the originals himself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 QUOTE (GeminiRising79 @ May 17 2009, 10:43 AM) Did Alex mix the originals himself? I didn't see his name listed where I looked, but there are several mixes made. For example there is the studio mix and there is the CD mastering mix. The CD mastering mix is what they are talking about when a CD is remastered. They are taking one of the studio mixes and creating a product for the market with it. Many times the remasters are worse sonically than the original. That happens when the producer does what was done to songs like Presto here on R 3. They boost the volume, because they equate louder to better as is competes with other overly boosted releases. They don't want their product sounding quieter than someone elses when being played side by side. It is a marketing thing that becomes a downward spiral. Most of the time and ideally remastering is a good thing, because better equipment is used to get better transfers from the older analog tapes and digital recordings. It is just that sometimes the focus gets removed from actually improving the sound to what can I do to repackage and sell more. This is not an artistic choice. The good news is that most of the older material has already been released being properly remastered. We will always have that. It is the new material and what they decide to repackage that we need to be concerned about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerofthor Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 You guys do realize that you can move those little knobs on the front of your stereos? They are not just there for show. My stereo also has this thing that has lights on it in two rows, and when you move the lights up and down amazing things happen to the sound. I did not know you were allowed to touch them at first, but I'm glad I figured it out. There is also a loudness knob that really scared me at first, but it really helps to listen to VT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaun3701 Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 I don't notice any difference in sound between Retro 3 and the Atlantic remasters. They sound exactly the same to me. Maybe I need a better stereo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 QUOTE (shaun3701 @ May 17 2009, 12:53 PM) I don't notice any difference in sound between Retro 3 and the Atlantic remasters. They sound exactly the same to me. Maybe I need a better stereo? You may not be able to tell any difference depending on what you are listening through, how you listen and where you listen. That is what they are banking on. However seeing is believing and that is why I posted those graphs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 QUOTE (hammerofthor @ May 17 2009, 11:56 AM) You guys do realize that you can move those little knobs on the front of your stereos? They are not just there for show. My stereo also has this thing that has lights on it in two rows, and when you move the lights up and down amazing things happen to the sound. I did not know you were allowed to touch them at first, but I'm glad I figured it out. There is also a loudness knob that really scared me at first, but it really helps to listen to VT. Once a recording has been destroyed in production all one can do is minimized that damage the best one can, as you are trying to do. But, that doesn't change the fact that it is a very poor production to begin with. There is nothing that can be done to restore the music that has been truncated. It is similar to having a hand hand with several fingers chopped off midway in a horrible accident. The lost fingers are smashed and cannot be re-attached. You can use the hand the best you can and make the best of it with what is left, but there is no growing the fingers back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCFIELDS Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 I finally heard the remixes of Earthshine and OLV.......and was pretty disappointed. The sound weaker and "less heavy". They needed someone to do these properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ May 17 2009, 01:10 PM) They needed someone to do these properly. Personally, I think the best hope of getting to hear a good production of VT will be piecemeal when they do the individual songs live, and IF they get recorded and mastered properly. However, so far that hasn't happened. Most bands record every live event for themselves. I have no doubt that some of the best recordings can be found there, still pure and without the money changers messing them up. That of course means it is doubtful they will ever get to see the light of day. Right now R 3 shows me that there is no willingness at the top for those that make such decisions to improve upon anything. Why should they? The feedback they get is people are still buying the music, praise from a few that actually think they are doing a good job of things, and music critics that couldn't tell what good sound was if it was force fed into them. Rush is not generally considered an audiophile sort of band by audiophiles, but I am one and find that their older music sounds just fine. I know that I am in the minority of Rush fans carrying as much about the sound as the music. It is personnal to me and I don't expect everyone to understand. It just makes me angry because the only reason for the sound to suck is that those in charge decided to make it happen. It was a choice to do it. A choice between putting out a good product and one that is truly wretched, because it sounds louder and the stupid public might just buy a few more of them because of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCFIELDS Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 QUOTE (Dave @ May 17 2009, 04:22 PM) QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ May 17 2009, 01:10 PM) They needed someone to do these properly. I know that I am in the minority of Rush fans carrying as much about the sound as the music. It is personnal to me and I don't expect everyone to understand. It just makes me angry because the only reason for the sound to suck is that those in charge decided to make it happen. It was a choice to do it. A choice between putting out a good product and one that is truly wretched, because it sounds louder and the stupid public might just buy a few more of them because of it. I think that VT is the best thing they've done since HYF (including S&A)........and it was kinda frustruting to hear it all f'd up. I highly doubt we'll get a PROPER remaster of it. By proper, I mean not Rich Chycki......someone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goose Posted May 17, 2009 Share Posted May 17, 2009 QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ May 17 2009, 05:58 PM) QUOTE (Dave @ May 17 2009, 04:22 PM) QUOTE (WCFIELDS @ May 17 2009, 01:10 PM) They needed someone to do these properly. I know that I am in the minority of Rush fans carrying as much about the sound as the music. It is personnal to me and I don't expect everyone to understand. It just makes me angry because the only reason for the sound to suck is that those in charge decided to make it happen. It was a choice to do it. A choice between putting out a good product and one that is truly wretched, because it sounds louder and the stupid public might just buy a few more of them because of it. I think that VT is the best thing they've done since HYF (including S&A)........and it was kinda frustruting to hear it all f'd up. I highly doubt we'll get a PROPER remaster of it. By proper, I mean not Rich Chycki......someone else. I'm with you: Love the material - hate the production. The material overcomes it, mostly, for me. But it's not a disc I'll leave in for a long time, because of the sonic quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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