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robert h.
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Posts posted by robert h.
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They are re-releases, so at mid-price. All these titles were issued in mini-lp form, with the same 20bit K2 remastering, several years ago. Some are quite scarce and go for big bucks on Ebay now, so to see them coming back is welcome.
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OK, now it's clear, not on CD, download only - which means - as with all others in the Vault download program, they have picked up the existing mastering fron Japan to use.
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Since I don't see these listed at any of the usual retail sites, I doubt they are coming on that date. Probably old dates from the very infrequently updated Verve site.
I have the Japanese For Losers and Village of the Pharoahs, neither has terribly good sound and have clearly not been taken from masters. So, even though Village of the Pharoahs isn't terribly good Pharoah, and For Losers isn't exactly on the level of Fire Music, if and when they do appear domestically hopefully they will not simply reuse the Japanese mastering but do a new one.
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Offering a very out of print Roland Kirk Complete Mercury box set, 11 CD's and booklet, discs are near mint, slipcase has some shelf wear (it's 15 years old, expected).
Fantastic box! Lots of outtakes, complete Copenhagen tapes, We Free Kings outtakes, much more. A steal at $175 pus shipping.
This box is REALLY SOMETHING!
Everybody who likes RRK must have this box. This is definitely a desert island box.
Hasn't sold after a week, so I'm reducing the price to $150 plus shipping - great, great deal.
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Now listed on Ebay, so only 2 days left if interested in buying it directly!
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Offering a very out of print Roland Kirk Complete Mercury box set, 11 CD's and booklet, discs are near mint, slipcase has some shelf wear (it's 15 years old, expected).
Fantastic box! Lots of outtakes, complete Copenhagen tapes, We Free Kings outtakes, much more. A steal at $175 pus shipping.
This box is REALLY SOMETHING!
It's kinda heavy! I would say $9 should do it.
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Excepting bonus material and such, have most of the original albums from this set each come out as individual CD releases (domestic, a.k.a. in the US) over the years? I'm so NOT on top of this material, it's not even funny.
I really don't have very much Kirk ( two or three discs at most
), but have mostly liked what I've heard over the years.Like I said, tempting...
Leaving out the Bonus material....
Disc 1 "We Free Kings"
Disc 2 "Tubby's Back in Town"
Disc 3 "Domino" and "Reeds & Deeds"
Disc 4 "Reeds & Deeds" and "Roland Kirk meets Benny Golson"
Disc 5 "Kirk in Copenhagen"
Disc 6 "Kirk in Copenhagen"
Disc 7 "45s" and "Gifts & Messages"
Disc 8 "I Talk With the Spirits"
Disc 9 "Rip, Rig & Panic" and "Slightly Latin"
Disc 10 Quincy Jones and his Orchestra and Quincy Jones Big Band. (Not sure the titles)
That's as far as I can describe it...
To the best of my knowledge, "Kings","Domino"."Copenhagen","Spirits", and "Rip Rig Panic" have come out on CD, the others haven't (at least domestically). Universal put out the original 6 cut "Copenhagen" album on CD, and the dreaded (on this board) Lonehill put out the whole two discs worth, with additional bonus material.
That's basically right - and Reeds & Deeds as well as Gifts & Messages are close to essential, while Slightly Latin is often maligned and can be a bit cheesy in spots, but is actually pretty interesting in places. Tubbys Back In Town is fun, and there is a bunch of supplementary materials that adds substantially to the core albums. The sound is good, and when you consider that it's $175 for 11 OOP discs, it's not bad - I see the sets go on Ebay for $200 to $250.
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Offering a very out of print Roland Kirk Complete Mercury box set, 11 CD's and booklet, discs are near mint, slipcase has some shelf wear (it's 15 years old, expected).
Fantastic box! Lots of outtakes, complete Copenhagen tapes, We Free Kings outtakes, much more. A steal at $175 pus shipping.
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This CD is actually a compilation with only 3 of the 4 tracks from the Newport performance. And the two best - my Favorite Things and I Want To Talk About You - originally appeared on the LP "Selflessness" which has been remastered and reissued in Japan several times, there is an easily found K2 remaster from 2001 and a 24 bit remaster from 2004, both fairly easily found. I prefer the K2.
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Not only has Soultrane been released as an OJC, K2 remaster, and SACD (on MFSL) - it has also been released as a DCC gold disc, a JVC XRCD (twice), a mini-lp K2 from Japan and a High Definition super K2 mini-LP from Japan...and those are the ones I know about, there's probably more.
Surely this title has been far overdone, hence my suspicion that it must be an RVG.
Right - the McDuff and Lockjaw I know and both are soul jazz classics.
If these are RVG's there's lots of hope, particularly since they are only a few months removed from the first batch of Prestige RVG's (which were much more plentiful than the over conservative BN would offer).
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Just noticed some new reissues from Prestige up on CD Universe for June 13 - looks like 6 titles - among them John Coltrane's Soultrane, and since that old warhorse has been done umpteen times, I'm wondering if this is another batch of Prestige RVG's....anybody know?
Hoping it is because Jack McDuff's Honeydripper with the great Jimmy Forrest and Lockjaw Davis' Cookbook Vol.1 are in the group - two killer titles.
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Just noticed some new reissues from Prestige up on CD Universe for June 13 - looks like 6 titles - among them John Coltrane's Soultrane, and since that old warhorse has been done umpteen times, I'm wondering if this is another batch of Prestige RVG's....anybody know?
Hoping it is because Jack McDuff's Honeydripper with the great Jimmy Forrest and Lockjaw Davis' Cookbook Vol.1 are in the group - two killer titles.
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I agree with Lon on this one. I see nothing wrong with using a similar visual design for the two series, I mean honestly, these reissues push "RVG" as the brand (that's where the marketing focus is). The labels are a secondary factor.
I couldn't agree more.
You've gotta try very hard to find fault with these new RVG's, but some people are going to find something they can complain about one way or another.
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and robert h, maybe in theory that is how japanese discs work-but the fact of the matter is-if you try finding a disc a year or two after it was issued-you can't. and it will be a long time before you see it again. there are a number of japanese discs i have been searching for for years (a mikio masuda disc and a terumasa hino disc and a masabumi kikuchi disc and a george ohtsuka disc, for instance) and they never reappear. maybe i am looking for obscure stuff and there isn't a demand for it-but as far as i can see, once something is out for a bit you can forget about seeing it again. you need to jump on japanese discs ASAP or lose the opportunity.
It's not in theory.
It's REALITY.
If you read my post at all, I said - repressings are based on DEMAND - only when the order level reaches the point where it's needed.
The stuff you are looking for is without a doubt obscure, and as such there is likely no demand past the first pressing. I can assure you - Dark Side of The Moon does not stay out of print long in Japan, nor does Giant Steps.
In that sense you are correct - for oddball stuff, get it when it's released. Then again, that's true outside of Japan also. Difference is - and the greatest thing about the Japanese market - that kind of stuff gets released in Japan at all. There's piles of stuff there that will never make it out domestically.
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"The original sound of the master as it was intended." I think RVG is in a better position to know that.
The odd thing then is that RVG CD remasters often sound very different from the original LPs. It could be that Lion and the artists would have wanted the music to sound like the current CDs, but that it was impossible to achive this particular sound in those days. ("Rudy, ain't there no way to make the music sound... a bit louder?")
But even if that's true, does that make narrowing the stereo spread and using compression any better? I'm not pro- or con- any of the mastering engineers by priciple. I've just observed that I like the sound of the original LPs, and that non-RVG CD remasters (Japanese pre-compression era remasters in particular) are generally closer to that sound - based on listening experiences from several hifi setups.
Yes - the RVG's sound nothing like the original LP's. I doubt he even tried to use any LP's as a reference.
There's nothing wrong with a preference for the original LP's and no one could argue with that.
What your very valid comments bring up in my mind are two questions:
First - should we adhere to the original vinyl as some arbitrary reference, or should we try, as apparently RVG has, to simply get the most out of the tape? It seems to me that RVG has in some ways exceeded the limitations of the vinyl - and although I love the tonality and presentation of his remasters, I would have to agree that it is not the tonality originally conceived.
On sheer musical terms, the RVG's work big time for me, and that view seems to have some currency as the RVG's are a big success worldwide. But as a historical artifact, they are not accurate - if the position is that the ultimate arbiter of historical accuracy is the vinyl.
I would say that the only true original was what happened live in the studio on that date - but since RVG was the only one there still involved today for the most part, and his recollection is personal and not verifiable, it will remain a matter of opinion.
Second - even if we agree there is some reference standard, should we not try to improve or (more controversially for sure) reinterpret from that standard? The medium is the message as Marshall McLuhan said, and vinyl had it's own unique message and so does CD. I think it's a mistake to try to turn CD into vinyl, it seems to me to be a route to misery (as I see on that ...board...all the time - people expending a lot of negative energy and, as Nessa says, horseshit on trying to turn CD into something it's not, instead of encountering it on it's own terms) - instead of enjoying it for what it is, and the unique things it brings to the table, all too often the music- and the wonderful opportunities to re-examine and re-encounter the music anew are being lost in a pointless quibble about historical accuracy (as if that ever existed - artists in the vinyl era were just as frustrated with how vinyl distorted their intentions as they are with CD today) - and audiophile-obsessive concerns.
My take on this - the CD medium has given new life to massive amounts of music that we would never have had come to our attention again in the vinyl era. In certain genres, it has virtually rescued from oblivion - the massive resuccitation of the classical genre in the 80's with the rush to re-record for CD, and the massive amounts of previously unrecorded music that came with it - the massive reissue campaigns that have brought obscure and previously buried work to light and allowed a re-examination of many artists, both pivotal and peripheral - the indie movement that brought power to the garage bands again - and so on.
Simple fact is, so many people of an older generation who can't stop living in the past pine after that vinyl era and it's particular sonic palette as if it were some type of golden age - when the real evidence before us is that the golden age is RIGHT NOW - today - here and now - where we have vastly more music available, from a much more diverse artistic base, more accessible, and in general, sounding better than ever before. Not even at the absolute peak of the vinyl age was there anywhere near the amount of music available in any genre as there is today. Not even close. People tend to forget - for two decades now we have been bringing back stuff that went into the remainder bin in the early 70's and had been consigned to oblivion. And there are many, many artists for whom CD has revived a for all intents dead career.
Personally, I have too much fun enjoying it all to worry about the things that Hans and some others worry about, and would rather spend my time digging the music than bitching about whether I can hear any no-noise or not.
My two cents on a Sunday morning.
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sheesh robert, what bug crawled over your liver then? Cool down man!
Venting your frustration with the "Hoffmanites" on Hans isn't fair. Particularly also because Hans obviously had some difficulties expressing his problem, which - believe it or not - are unlikely to stem from his having a below average IQ, but rather from his being a non-native speaker. It is really very sad to see native speakers punch on people for not grasping all the finesse of what is being written (often between the lines) or for not being able to express their thoughts with all the right adverbs and adjectives.
anyhoo, thanks much for your insights (really).
Hey, I appreciate your comments and coming to Hans defense - really, I do.
But this has nothing to do with his not being an english speaker, I think that actually doesn't give him the credit he's due - he has many, many posts here and his communication skills in English are actually much better than many native english speakers do.
My beef is continually not being able to get out of reciting the same (wrong) stuff over and over that he gets off someone's publicity board. Hans brought up the Hoffman stuff here, not I, and since he did, it's fair to comment on it.
Anyways, I get your point - probably no point in more venting over this one.
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(...) But I only upgrade discs that are from the old 80's masterings.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most 1980s Blue Note CDs are just transfers from analog to digital, nothing else/more.
This is what it says on many 1980s Blue Note CDs that Ron McMaster transferred:
The classic Blue Note albums which span the mid 1950s to late 1960s were recorded directly on to two track analog tape. No multitrack recording was used and consequently no mixing was required. Therefore, this CD was made by transferring the one step analog master to digital and Digital transfer by Ron McMaster.
Sheesh Han, I hate to keep harping on the same line, but you are really struggling to get this.
1. In ALMOST EVERY CASE a straight analog master to digital will be TERRIBLE.
Let me say it again in big easy letters.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A STRAIGHT TRANSFER.
It's a myth largely created by someone for marketing purposes.
Those old tapes were never meant to be transferred to anything straight - if they were they would have been done differently. They were made in an era when they were the precursor to an eq'd master.
Why do you think Hoffman (correctly and to his credit) looks for original LP pressings, and first press matrix numbers at that, as well as various CD editions, to verify how a record should sound? It's to help him make the right choices, bud. And the fact that he has to do that should tell you that there are no "straight" transfers.
2. EQUIPMENT HAS BEEN HUGELY IMPROVED SINCE THOSE EARLY REMASTERS.
So in many cases the early remasters were done with a lack of knowledge of the medium and how to best prepare the tapes for transfer and were done on inferior equipment.
I know...I know. On the Hoffman board there are many people who claim a preference for the early remasters. I guess eventually there's a 'good old days' for everything. Despite a tendency to over compress and even some questionable EQ choices I can very rarely think of a case where an earlier remaster is superior on GOOD equipment - I note with some amusement that the Hoffmanite who most aggressively promotes this notion is using a $99 CD player as his reference, so from that perspective I suppose a sort of generally soft, diffuse, rolled off on top presentation is preferable. That's how I find the early Blue Note CD's , by the way. And as far as TOCJ's go - I think it's pretty well taken now that they could not possibly have been mastered from original tapes - eq'd cutting masters probably.
But... flat transfer? Straight transfer from analog to digital? I suppose the two track Blue Notes are as close as it gets to a master that requires little to no tinkering, but still, it doesn't take much knowledge to see that those are generally myths and extremely rarely possible, except on a wanker board!
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If I may speak for Hans - and explain to Robert H. - the problem with "modern mastering techniques" (and how it's different from, say, ten years ago) is not in the compression per se - for both Robert and Chuck are absolutely correct in that virtually all music is compressed, at least as recorded and often as it's mastered onto vinyl and/or CD as well. The problem is that over the last decade or so there's been a "loudness war" going on - mostly in rock/pop, but now creeping into jazz/acoustic music as well - that's caused the mastering engineers (either on their own or in service to the artists or labels) to essentially make the CDs "louder" in order to punch through the crowded marketplace and/or play louder on some kid's boombox. One way of doing this is to compress the music during the mastering stage, squashing the dynamics and taking a very natural-sounding waveform and effectively evening out the highs and lows. If done well, this can impart a "punchy" sound to rock music, but if done to excess (imo) it can ruin the sound of more acoustic material, such as jazz and classical. I dunno, maybe you guys can't hear - i often can't unless it's extreme - but a waveform like Couw posted earlier is a perfect example of how the music is compressed to the point where the dynamics are squashed and the transients destroyed.
Noise reduction is another thing entirely, of course. Like any tool (even compression), it can be a force for good or a force for evil. Personally I prefer less NR in theory, though I hold to the belief that it's overused only when I can actually hear it in action.
Ray - great job of restating exactly what I said before (and obviously I don't need you explaining anything to me) - it's the EXCESS of EQ, NR, compression which is bad, not some blind dogma like Hans recites.
Exactly what I said earlier. Nice to see you understood and internalized it!
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akanalog, thanks for your inputs. my expectations about those websites was really low
here is the correct link for the first one
Marcus
Mundo is very good, but always check the date of last update for the artist page as that will give an idea whether he still has it or not. If it hasn't been updated in a long time, likelihood goes way down.
As to the comment that in Japan CD's are sold like magazines, well...that's not very accurate. Magazines have a set shelf life, when it's expired (a month for monthlies) copies still in circulation for the most part get returned and scrapped. The print run attempts to estimate that month's demand for the issue. In Japan CD manufacturing and marketing is not like that at all. A CD in Japan is assigned a catalog and issued a catalog number, the production quantity is usually limited to that run (although not always) and the size of the run is estimated either to pump up sales via exclusivity (ie - it might have sold 500 copies if it had been released as a standard issue, but because it is a limited edition not to be repressed they make and sell 5000) or to be sufficient to fill demand until that demand starts to taper. Once that run is sold out, clients can still order the title, but not until there is sufficient new demand does it get repressed again - and then, it will be assigned a new catalog number and resolicited all over again - because the resolicitation gives the manufacturer an estimation of the required size of the production run.
In this way, the need to maintain large inventories stretching over several years, or to be constantly pumping out smaller, inefficient runs is avoided. It makes sense, because if they only make enough to fill reasonably imminent demand, they aren't held back by slow moving catalog inventory when there is an opportunity to reissue a title with improved mastering.
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Unfortunately Hoffman's site - VERY heavily censored and controlled to favor Hoffman - is a fountain of misinformation and just plain flat out wrong attitudes that have one sole purpose - to promote Hoffman and his particular views. It's also getting to be a fairly mean spirited site too often.
Nessa is right on here. I always laugh when I see these posts regurgitating the Hoffman mantra verbatim. It's all about HIS own needs and agenda. As Nessa says, it's about the music and these attitudes that the Hoffmanites recite like Moonies are simply anti-music.
Hoffman uses EQ, will do compression, and so on. It's all a matter of CHOICES when presented with a master - as Hoffman has admitted in the past, there are virtually no masters that require nothing to be done.
Here we go again... This is exactly what I was afraid of, that this discussion was going to turn into a pro- or anti-Hoffman debate or worse. Again, that is NOT the point, I'm NOT discussing Steve Hoffman and/or his site here, I'm talking about how I feel about "modern" mastering techniques. What is it you people don't understand about that?!
By the way, I think Kevin put it very well.
Well, there is no such thing as "modern" mastering techniques, at least not as a homogenous thing as you imply. And EVERY recording is compressed!! Did you know that a classical recording without compression is virtually unlistenable? indeed, a jazz recording that is not compressed would not be terribly great either. And before anyone jumps in and points out cleverly the handful of recordings in those genres not compressed - great, I know about thm, in reality, the miking techniques used are a form of natural compression.
Every time I hear someone cry "compression" I just want to scream, it's NOT a bad thing, just like it's not a bad thing to have a drink or to have a candy or a burger for God's sake - it's EXCESS - of anything - that is bad, but that's so obvious it's not worth even talking bout, a bloody schoolkid knows that. Every time Is see someone post a waveform it makes me laugh - there's one knob on the Hoffman board who must spend more time doing wave comparisons than just enjoying music (actually, his equipment is so bad it's no wonder he just looks at waveforms! But he follows the party line VERY strongly so Hoffer love him!) - it's sad.
I know why there are a bunch of lemmings that pass around this notion that compression is bad, noise reduction is bad, eq is bad, etc. - they just blindly follow that silly breath of life poser.
Like I said - almost all CD's must be eq's and compressed. Hoffman uses EQ and compression. They all do because they all have to. I don't dislike Hoffman's mastering style but it is far from neutral (whatever that means) - it tends to be a bit tubby and too fat sounding, but that's his style and choices and I respect it, nobody can please everyone, and his stuff is generally very musical - why quibble about style? But the self serving dogma passed around like this - it's just plain wrong.
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Unfortunately Hoffman's site - VERY heavily censored and controlled to favor Hoffman - is a fountain of misinformation and just plain flat out wrong attitudes that have one sole purpose - to promote Hoffman and his particular views. It's also getting to be a fairly mean spirited site too often.
Nessa is right on here. I always laugh when I see these posts regurgitating the Hoffman mantra verbatim. It's all about HIS own needs and agenda. As Nessa says, it's about the music and these attitudes that the Hoffmanites recite like Moonies are simply anti-music.
Hoffman uses EQ, will do compression, and so on. It's all a matter of CHOICES when presented with a master - as Hoffman has admitted in the past, there are virtually no masters that require nothing to be done.
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Mint condition out of print Japanese mini-LP 24 bit remaster Roland Kirk "Domino" with 3 bonus tracks, no obi, hard to find title - $25 plus shipping - thanks.
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FS - complete with obi, STAN GETZ "The Soft Swing" 1957 quartet session, 5 extended-ish tracks, nice session, mint - OOP Japanese Verve 24 bit remaster in mini-LP sleeve for $25 plus shipping.
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I second the Here to Stay requests, and the more Sam Rivers and Bobby Hutcherson - but overall - my hugest hope:
NOTHING THAT IS ALREADY OUT AS AN RVG IN JAPAN!!
Japanese re-issue schedule for May-August
in Re-issues
Posted
Now we're getting into the arcane culture of Japanese reissues!
Those ones issued at full price last fall were Super HD-K2 24 bit a supposedly higher definition remaster that JVC rolled out. It seems to have fallen pretty flat with most preferring the older K2's, so here we go with the older versions coming out again. But they are now at mid-price, I suppose the Super HD versions they now consider the top line.
Such is the world of Japanese reissues, it's not uncommon to have two or three versions of a title on sale at the same time competing with each other!