From: les@jmdl.com (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V2004 #331 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/onlyjoni Websites: http://www.jmdl.com http://www.jonimitchell.com Unsubscribe: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe onlyJMDL Digest Saturday, November 20 2004 Volume 2004 : Number 331 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- RE: Hello ["Maggie McNally" ] Dog Eat Dog, was Re: Hello (The Box Set and The Answer) [] Re: [] Re: Subject: Re: Hello (The Box Set and The Answer [Randy Remote Subject: RE: Hello I just bought The Beginning of Survival and am won over to Joni's campaign to make us all take a second, third, whatever look at these songs, particularly in the context of our times. I have only listened to it on my little computer speakers, but very much look forward to digging deeply into the sounds and messages on my home system. Were these songs also "remastered," or do you have to buy the boxed set to get them in their most sonically brilliant form? The liner notes on TBOS reference additional engineering and recording and the masters, but not remastering. Maggie - -----Original Message----- From: Mark or Travis [mailto:mark.travis@gte.net] Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:06 PM To: Steven Polifka; lacyslvs@juno.com; joni@smoe.org Subject: Re: Hello Steven Polifka wrote: > Hi Ruth! > Welcome back! Nice to see you posting about DED! > From another Dog Eat Dog lover... > Steve > and Ruth Davis wrote: > I think Joni predicted Americas disturbing transformation in Dog Eat > Dog. Ive been playing that a lot lately. I know from past > discussions that many people have stylistic objections to that work, > but I have to say go back and read the lyrics, if you cannot stomach > the music. The snake-fired evangelists and racketeers have all but > taken over, as she warned about almost 20 years ago. I'm beginning to count myself among the 'Dog Eat Dog' lovers. Since getting TBOS and then purchasing the Geffen box set, I have come to a new appreciation of DED. I always thought the lyrics were brilliant and relevant and that the production suited them very well. But the remastered reissue in the box set has led me to believe that it is equally as brilliant musically. Some of the arrangements are quite intricate and have a complexity and even delicacy in some parts of it that I find to be truly wonderful. DED has definitely moved up in my ranking of Joni's albums, none of which are 'bad', in my opinion (whatever that means). Mark E. in Seattle ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:13:14 -0500 From: Subject: Dog Eat Dog, was Re: Hello (The Box Set and The Answer) I'm not a technical expert but until one checks in, here are my 2 cents: The difference between my store-bought LP of "Wild Things Run Fast" and the GEFFEN box version is small to none. (The piano still wavers on the sustained notes at the beginning of "Chinese Cafe". Too bad she didn't use Fred Simon's engineer, Ken Christianson, on that one.) On the other hand, the difference between my LP of "Dog Eat Dog" and the GEFFEN box CD version are not small at all. As far as I can tell from interviews and credits, the same re-mastering was applied to all of the titles in the GEFFEN box. Mike Ragogna said he "hardly did any remastering". That doesn't mean that DED was mastered superbly to begin with! In fact, his opinion is that the original master tapes weren't used by GEFFEN originally on any of their titles. (MFSL wasn't part of GEFFEN so their mastering of WTRF is beside the point for most customers). This business about which tapes they used originally may be the whole story. As I understand it, records were made from "production masters" which are *dupes* of the 2-track master. If they made those production masters on a very crummy machine (as bad as my computer's built-in sound card for example), it would have made the original DED sound murky. It could lack detail. Now that Ken Christianson has made flat transfers *using a great system*, DED is transformed. The differences I hear on DED are not just differences from the old sampling rate vs. the new sampling rate. To me it sounds like the original job was botched and now we have a "proper" transfer as the Brits would say. About 96/24: Until Simon M. checks in, I'll take a stab at the technical difference between a 96/24 transfer and whatever they did way back in the 1st generation. I think the 1st generation CDs sound so bad because the conversion from analog to digital was done 44,000 samples per second, using a 16 bit word length. (44k/16-bit) Both of those numbers are low compared to the the 96,000 samples per second and the 24 bit word length cited in the credits of the GEFFEN box. (96k/24-bit) In my living room, the differences between 44/16 and 96/24 are better dynamics, a less gritty sound, smoother low treble, better detail in tambourines & cymbals, and the high vibrato thing that Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris do. Dolly has a fantastic voice which sounds like s-h-i-t in 1st generation digital. People who have classical collections talk about truer sound of "massed violins" too. As I've already impiled several times, equipment differences alone do not explain why WTRF sounds about the same (great) while DED is lifted out of the murk. I know the GEFFEN box is expensive but it was worth it to me to finally have a complete instrumental-and-scat version of "Speechless". Joni doesn't throw us many bonus tracks so I jumped at it. Finding the transformed DED was a bonus. All the best, Jim L'Hommedieu Covington, KY mark.travis@gte.net quotes >from the BOX SET CREDITS: 96K/24-bit mastered from the original master tapes @ Universal Mastering Studios West - North Hollywood, CA Somebody else with greater technical knowledge will have to explain exactly what that means.> Nuriel Tobias wrote: > Does the boxset says "remastered" - cuase the main reason i > didn't buy it was that guy's note at jonimitchell.com that > no remastering was done. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:23:58 -0500 From: Subject: Subject: Re: Hello (The Box Set and The Answer Uh oh. Randy Remote didn't say "maximize the volume". He's a musician and a recording engineer, so he wouldn't make that mistake. He was probably trying to simplify a technical discussion because you read and write English as a second language. It was a gesture of kindness to you, Nuriel. All the best, Jim >From: Nuriel Tobias >Maximizing the volume isn't remastering, Randy. It's an EQ work. > When the bass is a bit distorted - compression is used. When > the high sounds reach a hissing- like level - it's fixed. > It's decreasing the dynamic range. The carefully > layered sound quality of a remastered album/cd means that > you can now easily focus on a specific instrument and track > it easily while still enjoying the sound of the whole group. What RR DID say was, >>When Ragogna says "We hardly did any remastering", that means >>it was remastered. Mastering involves putting finishing touches on >>the master tapes that have been delivered by the mixing engineer. The >>mastering engineer listens to them and decides what needs to be done >>to them to maximize the sound. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:57:25 +0000 From: Subject: Re: I changed my email address on the JMDL site to revrvl@comcast.net and even subscribed at that address but I have got nothing at that email address. This email address will be gone in a few days and I may never get a chance to check back at this old address again. So this may be goodbye forever. If it is, Goodbye! And if it isn't goodbye forever, it is because maybe pity will be taken upon me and I will be allowed to get JMDL mail at my new address and very soon only email address. Vince ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:33:19 -0800 From: Randy Remote Subject: Re: Subject: Re: Hello (The Box Set and The Answer I was just trying to explain what mastering is for people who might not know. Making EQ changes, sequencing the songs, matching the sound and volume of the songs, and adding compression or limiting are some of the operations-but the most important ingredient is the mastering engineer's ears. Joni has used Bernie Grundman for years, and he is considered by many to be the best in the biz. Jim, what you said about the box set makes sense. And I know what you mean about Dolly. I have one of those Trio CDs and it sounds terrible. I bet I could run it through some tubes and make it sound more natural. RR ps remastering is taking the final mixes and mastering them again, which assumes there is a reason to expect an improvement in sound. In the early days of CD, the big record companies rushed to press their catalog for eager buyers without much thought about the source tapes, another reason the quality often suffered. jlamadoo@fuse.net wrote: > Uh oh. Randy Remote didn't say "maximize the volume". He's a musician and a recording engineer, so he wouldn't make that mistake. He was probably trying to simplify a technical discussion because you read and write English as a second language. It was a gesture of kindness to you, Nuriel. > > All the best, > Jim > > >From: Nuriel Tobias > >Maximizing the volume isn't remastering, Randy. It's an EQ work. > > When the bass is a bit distorted - compression is used. When > > the high sounds reach a hissing- like level - it's fixed. > > It's decreasing the dynamic range. The carefully > > layered sound quality of a remastered album/cd means that > > you can now easily focus on a specific instrument and track > > it easily while still enjoying the sound of the whole group. > > What RR DID say was, > >>When Ragogna says "We hardly did any remastering", that means > >>it was remastered. Mastering involves putting finishing touches on > >>the master tapes that have been delivered by the mixing engineer. The > >>mastering engineer listens to them and decides what needs to be done > >>to them to maximize the sound. ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V2004 #331 ********************************* ------- Post messages to the list by clicking here: mailto:joni@smoe.org Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe ------- Siquomb, isn't she? (http://www.siquomb.com/siquomb.cfm)