Blondie Greatest Hits - a question about NR

I hadn't played this in a while. I decided to give it a spin. I don't know, to me it seems analog hiss is missing. I tried Rapture, it sounded a tad muffled in the beginning.

Can someone who has this tell me if this is more due to eq choices, or is there NR present on this?

I know other past threads have said that all Blondie comps have issues, what Blondie comp is the least problem oriented of the batch and should be the one to settle on until (hopefully) somebody remasters one right?

 

The 1980's "Best of" CD has the least of these issues.

 

Brian, I have either made in Japan for UK or for USA and it sounds fine to me. I'm not at my collection right now so I can't confirm on Rapture. I do seem to recall the muffled beginning though from days gone by and I don't believe my copy has it.

 

Suffers from some serious wow though - I start to feel sea-sick after a few minutes of listening to it.......

 

Thanks, Mal.

I am having a tough time finding this in my local used Cd shops. I still have Platinum Collection (though I have read threads here that mention the inconsistant volume levels from track to track). Keeping it because it is OOP.

Frustrating to find a decent sounding Blondie comp, though.

 

I never noticed any NR or wow before... the only issue I have with Blondie's Greatest Hits is that Rapture is shortened, just like every other comp.

 

Dave,

You are referring to Best of Blondie, is that right? I can try on half.com. Funny I saw this at Best Buy not too long ago, now they're scarce.

My Greatest Hits on Capitol has better source material that was used. It is a tad loud though it doesn't hurt my ears. Good track selection (no remixes or mashups). Your thoughts on this?

 

Thank you Mike. Minimal hiss might be from eq'ing.

 

The wow is on "Best Of Blondie":

 

Oops, sorry. Actually, I never noticed any wow on Best of Blondie either, but it's been years since I played it.

I always wished they (whoever they is) would have thought to put the full length "Rapture" on a comp. I eventually broke down and bought Autoamerican which not only has the full length version but it also has a 10 minute extended version..

 

I wouldn't expect to hear much (if any) tape hiss on recordings of the late 1970s and beyond. Just because there isn't audible tape hiss doesn't mean that noise reduction was applied.

Is there actually a good sounding Blondie compilation? I was just pondering this issue this morning when listening to some tracks I had ripped from one of my cds because I was terribly disappointed with the EQ choices made by the mastering engineer. (I don't even remember which disc I ripped the tracks from, but it was probably the European-issued "Atomic" compilation from about five years ago.) Apart from the DCC "Parallel Lines," is there any good sounding vintage Blondie on cd?

 

I've been very curious about the sound on these also. I grant it that the other CD releases don't sound too hot? I've seen a bunch of old or first original CD pressing's but have'nt taken the plunge because I don't know the sound quality.

Has anyone compared it to the lp?

 

Analog noise reduction was pretty much standard by the 70's, with Dolby A and Dbx being the big two, so no, Blondie recordings shouldn't have much hiss.

"The Best Of"... does indeed suffer from serious wow. Mal has nailed it - seasickness is exactly what you are rewarded with. This also contained some remixes done specifically for this compilation. From Wikipedia:

"Mike Chapman remixed four tracks on this album. "Heart of Glass (Special Mix)" is a version that is more like the video version than the original album version. "In the Flesh (Special Mix)" is a Phil Spector-eque mix, with lots of echo. "Sunday Girl (Special Mix)" mixes vocals from the previously released French language version of the song with the original English version. "Rapture (Special Mix)" includes an extra verse that did not appear on the album Autoamerican where the song originally appeared."

"The Platinum Collection" is very inconsistent soundwise; some of the songs don't appear to have the noise reduction decoded correctly and can be heard better elsewhere - the biggest example being (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear. It DOES have treble, but only on the leading edges of sibilants, cymbals, and hihats etc; in between all this stuff, you get muffled sound ("Parallel Lines", I suspect, has issues of it's own; more of this in a bit).

The compilation I'm enjoying right now, is this one:


It uses the same mixes as The Best Of Blondie, and is mastered quite loud, so becomes a bit fuzzy in places, BUT - the sources are good, there's no wow, and I like the eq on this set. The best of a bad bunch. If Audio Fidelity are still active, I will buy a Blondie comp from them should they do it.

Now then; Parallel Lines. I've got the Capitol remaster of this, but haven't heard the DCC version. I've noticed something odd with it; it seems to have noise reduction problems - while voices and instruments sound gated and muffled, any reverb added to them seems to be perfectly intact. It's as though they did the basic tracks in one studio, took them elsewhere to mix, and didn't line up the NR properly on the multitracks. Pure speculation of course, but that's what it sounds like to my ears. Anyone else hear this on their copies? Which ones do you own? If it really is a mix issue, can you hear it on the DCC?

 

I've never noticed.

 

Yes, the Best Of Blondie like Mal shows us. I found the Capitol bright/harsh in comparison.

 

Mal,

Forgive this question. By WOW do you mean that the songs speed up or slow down in places. IIRC, Phil discussed this in a thread a while back with regard to that comp. He did valuable legwork on these Blondie comps.

 

I don't have the DCC of this, but to my ears, my original Chrysalis CD seems to exhibit the same quality you describe. It's always sounded kind'a odd to me.

As noted on previous threads, Blondie never seems to get a good consistant mastering in CD. I have the original CD issues, and several comps (but not the newest GH release). I also have the singles boxed set so that I can finally play the full-length version of "Call Me" without having to look up the movie soundtrack. But even there, sound quality is all over the map. So are the levels from track to track - some tracks look smashed to heck while others look like Steve could have done them... go figure.

 

The DCC 'Parallel Lines' sounds fantastic. Not cheap these days, but definitely the version to own.

 

Which Blondie comp is this - I can't find it on AMG.

GM

 

It's this one here, from 2002:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-Hi...f=pd_ka_1/026-1108202-7122826?ie=UTF8&s=music

I guess the US release features different artwork (as shown on the AMG guide here), but the track lineup looks the same.

 

Thanks!

GM

 

However, Phil you did say that it contains the same remixes from Best of Blondie? So, even though the tracks may be the same, not all are the same mixes as the US Greatest Hits?

How does the loudness compare with the Capitol Greatest Hits?

 

Thank you. That answered my question as to what WOW meant.

 

Oh, I'd love to get it someday. Just not real soon...