Someone PLEASE help me

[sal]

Good morning everyone....

I recently picked up at a used CD store a copy of Coltrane's "Heavyweight Champion: The complete Atlantic Recordings". Upon listening to it, I noticed that some of the songs have a soft "hiss" sound in the background throughout the duration of the song.

What my question is.....do any of you who own this box set experience the same thing? Is this part of the box set's remastering? Or could my problem be my CDs in particular? Its not too bothersome, but its seems that with modern remastering, that this doesn't really happen anymore in most cases, which is why I'm wondering if this is the way the set is, or if I have a defective copy?

If anyone could offer any advice, it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much.

[jazzbo]

I'm just operating from memory, but I think that is on all copies. I remember reading a talk with Dorn where he said that they just took the analog reels straight into digital 16bit, with no audio cleansing, etc. which is not a bad thing to do in my opinion. I don't think they "de-hissed" or "de-noised" these, and I think they sound pretty darned good overall (perhaps as a byproduct.)

[David Ayers]

Yes - it is good old fashioned tape hiss!

[sal]

Excellent....thanks jazzbo and David!! That's what I figured it was...just wanted to be sure. What a great sounding set regardless!

[Claude]

The tapes are not in a good shape, even the MFSL Ultradisc of "Giant Steps" sounds hissy and dull.

About tape hiss and remastering in general: With the newest remasterings you will problable have more tape hiss than with the first CD reissues. At the beginning of the CD era the engineers tried to eliminate tape hiss by all means, cutting off treble with an equalizer or using Nonoise processes that render the music lifeless. The later remasterings had to objective of transferring the tape "as is", including the hiss that also contains musical information (overtones): Most people prefer to have the unmanipulated sound, as one can get accustomed to constant tape hiss very well and not notice it anymore.

[Daniel A]

I'm not entirely sure, but weren't the original session tapes lost in the Atlantic fire, and the source for the Coltrane box in fact safety copies of those tapes? That would perhaps account for an extra dose of hiss.

Edited May 15, 2003 by Daniel A

[jazzbo]

That may be true of some of the tapes. Some however are master tapes, especially those that contain alternates and alternate versions if I remember correctly.

[chris olivarez]

Worth every penny hiss and all.