A report of the Salvo label reissue of "Procol Harum"(debut)

digital transfers by Rob Keyloch
mastered by Nick Robbins

 

Ahh - I'll probably pass then. Don't care at all for the (generally) loudness-button e.q. approach those guys took on Secrets Of The Hive.

 

i've got one of the cheaper tascam cd players w/ pitch control. so speed corrections can be made by myself. i've no intention on comparing pitch when it's literally 3 or 4 seconds a track. many of the fades aren't the same. i've got a digital piano and a korg c3x organ by the system in the same room. i find lots of records don't align perfectly w/ A 440, especially Beatles records. Unless noticeably so.... like the 45 version of Byrds' "Jesus Is Just Alright" which is almost chipmunks, I figure it's a production decision to speed 'em up. I would imagine all these DOZENS of Procol Harum mixes are victims of bad copy masters, and misaligned tape machines, disc cutting gear, and possibly the artists/producers themselves. There have been so MANY Procol Harum reissues on lp I can't remember what the originals sound like any more. I listened to the Deram rechanneled lp, compared it to the Fly twofer w/ Salty Dog and they are identical to my ears but do sound SLOWER to me compared to the Salvo, (using the organ as a guide) which is the only one I'll buy, as it skips on the last track and when i make a dupe, that skips as well. I have a Technics turntable w/ strobe pitch control, so I'm taking it on faith it's speed is correct. By the way, I HATE the pkg on the Salvo reissue... it's too tall for my CD cabinet unless i put it in the top space. Starbucks make theirs too tall as well, so they end up in a special place away from the rest of the dozens of reissues or horizontally crammed in there. And I had to crimp the the cardboard cover to get the disc out, which tore the damn thing immediately. I'm not impressed overall w/ their packaging, but I'm a weird one when it comes to packaging consistancy. I don't like having to slide discs out from a right hand pocket. Reminds me of those AOL discs you couldn't get rid of... I think they should mention something about the tall packaging. But that's just me. I have bad luck w/ mail order and am not gonna ask for a replacement. In an email they said I'm the first to mention any skipping, but both the Tascam and a cheap Philips do skip. I won't trust 'em again. Home is redundant, anyway. Salty Dog would be nice but I can live without it. I have the Westside issues of all of them. I admit I'm ob/com on some of these things, but I can't afford 'em anymore. No offense is meant to anybody! I truly love PH's music, and was surprized when I learned it wasn't Trower on one of those many versions of "Repent..." or much of the 1st Lp if I read the liners correctly. There's my tuppence worth!

I find it strange no one has talked about the Broken Barricades CD on Rizza or Razza or whatever it is. I got that one too as it was just $11 despite the questionable artwork and my LP is shot. Played to death. The CD sounds wonderful to me... it's only 34 min long or something, though. And the folks at the BtP are so darn nice.

rick harper

 

"Gazza" is Gary Brooker's label. He reissued Broken Barricades.

Paul

 

they did a real good job with it. i understand there were other cd versions but are now out of print. of course it may just be a clone of one of the others, but so what? i s'pose a major issue w/ correct pitch etc is the folks compiling these things weren't around when they were first issued, nor do they care! they got a job. i'm certain a few of the yardbirds tracks phil cohen worked on have made their way onto other comps, as have small faces, humble pie etc. i'd be willing to bet you can't copyright a mono mix!

 

Here's a zipfile with ~10 sec from the beginning of the title track of the older (Castle?) Shine On Brightly CD, versus the new Salvo remaster. No processing or level matching etc added.



http://www.mediafire.com/file/kmt3wluim2t/SoB.zip

 

here's a zip file of short flacs from the title track of 'Shine On Brightly, containing the old CAstle CD and new Salvo CD versions.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kmt3wluim2t/SoB.zip

The pitch/speed diff is easy to hear.

Also, I made a mistake earlier in calling the notated key of "In Held Twas I In' as Bb major -- it's really the relative minor key of three flats, G minor

On the old CD, the opening drone is heavy on the G (according to Audition frequency analysis) ...and the new one makes it G#, suggesting it's at the wrong speed compared to the notated music.

Not sure why BtP reports it as a Bb chord (with F on top), live, though.....that would make both CDs wrong, but that part sure doesn't sound major-key to me.

 

This brings up an important philosophical question, one which applies to the Doors first album as well. Let's say the master tape is at a faster speed than the eq'd lp master. The original LP, singles, and all subsequent LP's and CD's are at the eq'd lp master speed. No one in the band, the producer, or engineers notice at the time of release or subsequently that the album is playing at an incorrect speed.

Wouldn't that make the original release speed the "correct" speed? The one that all the listeners on the radio and buyers of the albums and CD's have become familiar with and loved all these years? Is it "revisionism" to now change the speed to a master tape that no one has heard before now in a release? wouldn't the original speed be an alternate version to the classic hit version which should continue to be available, as that is the version we all know and love?

 

That philosophical question applies to all or part of several classic albums -- Miles Davis Kind of Blue , and Genesis Foxtrot and Rolling Stones Beggar's Banquet to name three.

 

Thanks for posting that. Just gave it a quick listen on my PC and I think the speed difference was fairly easy to notice.

 

ah, crap , I keep posting and editing in haste and this is what happens. I meant TWO flats; the relative major/minor key signatures with two flats are Bb major and G minor.

Anyway, I hope to try speed correcting the new remaster this weekend, and will post results.

 

Anyone else listen to the clips SiriusB posted?

 

By the way, my Salvo CD of "A Salty Dog" has arrived, and I can recommend it without hesitation. No speed problems, and the live concert bonus tracks sound significantly better than the bootleg releases.

 

Since no one else appears to have listened to the clips I'll post my .02. I listened on the main rig with my Sennheiser HD600's while mildly drunk and at fairly loud levels.

I'm far from a musician but the speed difference was easy to notice. I'm not sure which one sounds right or wrong but they are noticably different. The Salvo is a bit louder (which is not to say compressed or brickwalled). I also thought the Salvo was a good bit brighter and after the comparison I found the Westside seemed dull. Hard to say without hearing the vocals though (the clips stop before they come in)

I didn't listen under ideal conditions but I thought the Salvo was possibly a different mix. I could be totally wrong but that was my impression. It seemed like something was mixed center left on the Salvo where it was more hard left on the Westside.

I did get the impression the Salvo used a better source. More detail, I could hear easily hear the 3 piano/organ tracks on the Salvo compared to the Westside.

 

Have you heard the BGO 2fer with "A Salty Dog"? If yes, how does it compare?

 

The Salvo isn't brickwalled, but is louder. Also some visual evidence of noise reduction, if you use a spectral view (at least on the beginning of 'In Held' -- it's more apparent in headphone listening than over loudspeakers, to me. And that has benefits -- faint cowbell or perhaps it's a Tibetan bell hits are mostly hidden in the old version, but can be heard easily on the new one, with headphones. Meanwhile, what sounds either like a very faint tambourine, or perhaps some sort of click track or recurrent glitch, appears to have been digitally edited out of the new one. Listen for these things during the stable drone in the few seconds before the talking starts)



Here is a ~7MB zip file containing flacs of the first 30 sec or so of "In Held Twas I In",

-the old Castle CD cersion (the one with the naked green girl on the cover :>)

-the Salvo version at delivered speed

-the Salvo version resampled to match the Castle version pitch/speed (specifically, pitch was shifted down 4.5% with Audition's 'Stretch' tool -- matched by ear and frequency readout. Doing it as a resample, rather than pitch or tempo adjust only, means both pitch and tempo get adjusted, as is necessary if the 'problem' originated at the tape deck. I *presume* the tempos now match better, but I haven't actually checked that, as it would also require editing out start/end silences. These manipulations were all done at 32-bit depth and the final file was converted to 16bit)


http://www.badongo.com/file/15197131

 

First your Castle version seems to be made from the same digital transfer as my A&M CD.

Yes there is definitely no-noise (IMO far too much) on the Salvo sample.

I also notice at the beginning of this track the left channel seems to have a lot more hiss than the right one. This seems to be the case with the Salvo source also (most of it is filtered out though). Maybe they are mastered from the same source?

I also compared the dynamic range of the posted samples. The Dynamic range of the samples is very close with the Castle/A&M being a tad more dynamic.

The Salvo seems to have a better low end than the Castle. IMO the A&M is a bit too bright/thin sounding.

 

Yes, that was my impression of the "Shine On Brightly" A&M CD as well.

 

Actually I need to check the packaging -- I might actually have the A&M rather than the Castle. Either way I bought it used some years ago, in the late 1990s.

 

Here are some statistics about dynamic range between the original Cube CD and the Westside CD of the first album.

IMO the original Cube CD is superior to the Westside CD. I just don’t understand why the Westside CD gets the praise that it gets on this forum when the Cube CD is an alternative. The Westside CD is way too compressed to my liking.

The Westside may be mastered form a better source but what’s the point when they wasted around 4-5 db of the dynamic range in the mastering process.

This is from the tracks A Christmas Camel and Something following me. 1 and 3 is from the Cube CD. 2 and 4 is from the same tracks on the Westside CD.

 

What is hard to understand? the dynamic range that you have shown to be reduced in the Westside track is not necessarily audible to many of us with less sensitive hearing, consequently some of us actually prefer the extra detail we can hear in the Westside version.

 

I only have the Repertoire & Westside editions.

 

Ok. I see your point. Still I find it strange that you hear the extra detail that I highly doubt are apparent compared to the Cube CD (when level adjusted I don’t hear any extra detail), and not the compression that at least to me makes the Westside CD unlistenable. My guess is that the Cube CD is mastered from the master tapes themselves. At least there is more tape hiss on the Westside CD than on the Cube CD. But again this could be caused by the compression and EQ choices used on the Westside CD.

 

Can you post level matched clips? I can't imagine the Westside is that loud. I hate it in my changer last night with a few DCC's and I thought the volume was about the same.

 

Here it is. Hiss level on the original Cube CD compared to the Westside CD when level adjusted. The track is again Something following me. Black is no sound or hiss at all. The slightly darker tone on the first picture tells me that the Cube CD actually has less audible hiss than the Westside. Usually this means that a better source is used (if the recording is not no-noised) or that the recording is less tweaked.