I've always been happy with the remasters and have never owned the old CDs... until yesterday when an old ZepII entered my collection... Listened to it once and noticed the difference right away! I want more! Great, now I have to buy these records again Great, now I have an excuse to rediscover these records again
[Mr. Burns] Excellent... [/Mr. B] Consider me another addition to the Diament-mastered-Zep club... I remember reading interviews with Page in 1990 where he was plugging the new remasters and complaining about the old CDs; I believed everything like the 15 year old fan I was... I bought the 2CD "Remasters" set then, and the Complete box some years later, and the possibility of there being any better sounding Zep CDs didn't even enter my head... Talking about the Zep II CD, the difference between the Diament and the remaster is not subtle... I didn't even compare, I just played the Diament and the difference was so THERE to be heard...
Somethin' like that. Two songs were remastered for the 10-cd set and I can't quite remember the titles, but, to my mind (and experience) these are the only 2 Zep songs that ever crossfaded on their studio albums. The others, as stated, were from the earlier remasterings. Period. Because it took George remastering the 2 tracks as one long piece, as oppsed to where in my first request he remastered them seperately, the nature of the hiss, the ambience of the two tracks were, so-to-speak, homogenized and did not sound like two seperate entities joined together with the inherrant "what was that?! result. In short, the crossfade then sounded smooth, with the additional benefit of them being the only 2 newly remastered titles for the 10-CD set.
Thanks for jumping in Zal! Tell me, I notice when comparing tracks from the 1990 crop circle box set with their 1993 counterparts on the Complete Studio Recordings that they've been boosted, often up to 2-3dB. Who would have done this, George, you or someone else?
The one I can think of is Your Time Is Gonna Come/Black Mountain Side from Led Zeppelin 1. What's the other one?
Hi Stefan The two sets which were the sources for the 10 CD Complete Studio Set were released seperately. Somewhere, either before (I believe) or after (I don't believe so) the release of the 2nd set I had a session with Jimmy Page and one of the VPs of Atlantic...on a Friday. 4 tracks were presented to me for clearing up noisy sections where the music was minimal and was therefore not masking the multitrack hiss (or the whole band wasn't playing with maybe Bonham playing drums solo) and this hiss was too audible for the likes of Jimmy. I believe these 4 tracks were included on that 2nd CD set. IF that would be the case, then the actual mastering would be the same on that set as on the 10-CD set. That said, IF levels were adjusted on any tracks, that would have been me. Theoretically, all the songs should've been matched level-wise on each of the 2 CD sets. BUT, now that the songs were rearranged into their original LP order I remember some tracks needing adjustements in level juxtaposed afresh back to where it belonged, so-to-speak, to match the impact/flow of the original release.
I have now compared Barry's version of HOTH with the Rhino set, and find them to be very similar, with a slight nod to Barry's version. The Rhino/10CD set version sounds excellent also - not sure what all the complaints are about.
Still waiting for a definitive Zep remaster collection. The Page/Marinos were a step in the right direction but I think more could be done. Some more of the original masters may have been found since then (Page only had about 85% to hand in 1990). I have a couple of Barry's and also LZ4 and for exciting rock they are a little tame/soft sounding to my ears. Too polite, very nice but polite. Zeppelin was never meant to be polite. I want them to be as loud as they can be but still with the maximum dynamic range possible. The perfect balance of both. Rollercoaster rock mastering! If I want soothing or smooth I'll pick something else from my CD collection.
This is how Barry masters his CDs. If you don't like Barry's Zep CDs, then this isn't how you want them mastered.
Stefan has posted wave shots that show the Page/Marino masterings are compressed vs the originals. If you like those, then you most certainly do not want the maximum dynamic range possible.
I have come to the conclusion that LZ1 sounds various shades of crappy for all known masterings, both on vinyl and CD. I think that's just the way it was recorded and that it's never going to sound like an audiophile release, ever.
