Best Digital Versions of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

I prefer the Joe Palmaccio remaster of BSS. You can find it on the Victory issue or just buy the Castle (which uses that mastering). I'd recommend buying a 2004 pressing of the Castle as some of the early run of the 2001 issue mistakenly used a downmix of the DVD-A mastering and it was only corrected later. It beats the Atlantic. According to the liners, the Atlantic was not a Diament job, btw. It doesn't list any mastering credit. Although he did do some of the others.

Anyway, that 2004 Castle (with the Victory -- Palmaccio -- mastering) is stunning. That is the way Brain Salad Surgery is supposed to sound, IMO. The Atlantic is just too dull. And I love dull, so if I say this, trust me, it's *dull*.

 

That's probabky the new K2 "High Definition" release which will come out in December. Don't bother. It'll just be the same mastering, only it will be slightly louder and a bit more digital sounding. That's my experieince with the other K2 HDs vs. the standard K2s.

 

I am listening to my Victory (1993) copy right now, then straight on to the Castle (2002) mini-lp sleeve which was my second attempt as the first was the dvd mix and the 'new' drum sound was annoying me (this also has the airbrushed-out phallus cover, which is ironic as you would have thought the mini album sleeve would have been more true to the original!) ....and they are the same to my ears too, I notice also that the end of Toccata does not boost like it did on the album, as mentioned on a previous post.
Looking forward to WB.

 

The airbrushed version of the cover is used on every release of this album --LP and CD -- as far as I know.

And the first Victory remaster does still have a boost at the end of Toccata, if I recall --my recollection is that it was 'tamed' on the *Rhino* version that came later, when Victory went bankrupt. Howeve,r it's been years since I owned the Victory. It might be that the 'taming' happened when Victory issued their fold-out mini-sleeve version (which someone on this thread reminded me of). Yes, that's at least four CD releases of this album in the USA alone.

Has anyone compared the various Victory/Rhino/Castle #2 remasters using some sort of digital analysis, to confirm which are the same/different? (This reminds me that I have a Castle mini-sleeve version somewhere in my collection...I'll have to dig it out and see what's what).

 

Inside the Castle it states under "original CD credits" that the CD was remastered by Joe Palmaccio. It's been confirmed here that Palmaccio did the Victorys. Whether Castle rolled a DAT or CDR or if there is a slight digital variance, it's still the same mastering, ttbomk.

 

My recollection is that Victory first issued "Welcome Back My Friends' on CD in the US. And 'Works I' has always been issued with a black cover. Works *II* has always had a white cover.

The first Castle issue used the 2-channel downmix of the DVD-Audio 5.1 mix. The second one corrected that , using either the Victory or Rhino remastering of the OMTs.

 

The Rhino CD is not a downmix. Apparently the masters 'went missing' or became unavailable between the issuing of the CD, and the creation of the DVD-A, some years later. Hope they've been found again

Several early DVD-As did not feature a stereo mix, so I have to wonder if the 'missing masters' excuse is just a cover story for some cheaping-out or butt-covering on RHino's part.

 

I don't know if they found their way overseas... My Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery CDs are from Manticore/Ariola ... West German late 80s (Ariola became later BMG).
I'm not THAT satisfied with them, but never compared them to anything... Who knows these masterings AND others?

Martin

 

My Victory (1993) is not airbrushed, it's right there in your face - as it were!

 

...except I have a Rhino US copy of Works Vol. 1 that has a white booklet/cover. Was this revised in later copies to the correct black cover?

 

Quite likely you're absolutely right, but liner credits aren't always trustworthy -- sometimes they're just held over from other versions (e.g. Blonde on Blonde), or taken from wrong versions. Castle doesn't have a very good record for getting things right.

 

Hey, you're right -- my mistake.

 

Well, whatever mastering they used, the (corrected) Castle beats the original Atlantic, IMO.

 

Hey, *you're* right too. Guess I'm having a bad day. When I compare some BSS versions later at home, maybe I'll do better.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_8/002-2404712-0381634?v=glance&s=music

Certainly I never saw Works I with a white cover. Or perhaps I did but figured it was Works II. In any case mine's the victory issue, I think, in a 2-in1 jewelcase. And it's definitely black. And the cover of my CD of Works II is definitely white.

 

I am sure I remember seeing a Works Vol I&II combined with a white cover too.

 

Oh, it's the same thread where I already said they are horrible ;-) So maybe I'm right...

 

I compared the 2nd Castle version (mini-lp sleeve, no CD mastering credits) of BSS to the Rhino 'Deluxe' BSS (holographic cover, from 1996. Inglot/Hersch mastering credit) last evening. To do this I lined up the .wavs of the same track from both versions, inverted the phase of one of them, and 'mix pasted' it onto the other. If the tracks are the same mastering, they will cancel out and produce a straight, flat line instead of a wavy .wav.

In both cases -- Toccata, and KE 9 1 Impression part 1 -- the two versions cancel out to flat lines in both channels. This suggests strongly that they are essentially the same digitally and in terms of sound.

However, they certainly aren't simple digital clones, since the index points are different. I had to trim a bit of leading silence to get Toccata to line up perfectly. And the Castle KE9 is one long, 30-minute track, so I had to excise just the part that corresponds to 1st Impression, part 1, and trim leading silence to make both line up. But once those adjustments were made, the tracks cancelled.

Since the indexing of the Castle is different from the RHino, but similar at least one of the old Victory versions, *and* the tracks I sampled cancel out, I suspect that the 'remastering' of the Rhino consisted simply of re-sequencing/indexing the Victory version. Any signficant difference in level or EQ or effects during remastering would have shown up in such a comparison.

I actually went looking in in 1995/6 issues of ICE to see if there was comment on the Rhino editions, but didn't see anything except the release date in 'from the Vault' (July). I seem to recall there's discussion of them somewhere, perhaps in a later CD watchdog.

Also, a track from the Victory 'Trilogy' and the Castle Trilogy -- 'The Sherriff' -- also cancelled out using this procedure.

By comparison, the first track of the new Winterfold remaster of Bill Bruford's 'Feels Good to Me' does NOT cancel out the previous EG version. What's left when you do the cancellation procedure is mostly high-frequency sounds like xylophone. This agrees with claims I've seen that the new one has a different, less trebly EQ. In fact it look like the highs have been rolled off on the new one compared to the EG version when you look at the frequency response. This to me is a good thing, since the original CD always sounded unnaturally bright to me.

The remaster of the first Earthworks CD, however, cancels out -- it is exactly the same as the EG version. Not much of a 'remaster', then.

 

Nice work!

Yes, the Victory issued Trilogy is the same as the Castle. Whether EAC would show them to be the same, I don't know. I recently picked up the Victory. I compared it with the Castle but didn't even bother comparing waves. I put one on and then the other and knew right away they were from the same mastering even if not digitally identical. Both of them are slightly inferior to the original Barry Diament mastered Atlantic, IMO. On the Victory (Castle) the treble is rolled back slightly. But all of these blow the K2 completely away. I'll try to post samples of the K2 vs. the Victory vs. the Atlantic in the K2 thread I started later tonight.

 

"The Sherriff' required no editing to get the two versions to line up, so I suspect that EAC would
show them to be bit-identical.

 

So have we come to a conclusion yet about Brain Salad Surgery?

Is the Rhino holograph version the best?

 

I've just a/b'd the S/T Atlantic/Diament that dropped through my letter box this morning vs my Victory (1993), and while I agree with Jeff that the treble is nice, I find it a bit lean in the mid range area, and the Victory has better bass and a more balanced sound overall. I was never keen on the Victory "Tarkus" and "Trilogy" and replaced them both with MFSL which I find superior - the strange bass was there on the vinyl when I bought the vinyls on release so I suppose I'm well used to that. I'm leaning towards Victory for BSS although I don't have any other to compare except the Castle mini lp which we have concluded is the same, and my dvd which is that horrible remix.

 

I have to correct an earlier post -- 'The Sheriff' *did* require a little editing to make the
two versions line up peak-for-peak. They're slightly different lengths. This means that, for example, an EAC comparison of the two waves, *without length editing*, would show them to be different too.

I also dug up the ICE article about the Victory remasters of ELP, and the contact there -- perhaps it was Palmaccio, I don't have the article in front of me -- says that original masters hadn't been used before the Victory series. Also notes that the Victory issue of BSS is the fold-out cover replica. So now I'm not sure if there ever really *were* two different victory remasters of this CD...anyone have more info? I also still can't yet find any ICE info on the RHino reissue other than the release date (I certainly wish there was a way to search the text of all old ICE articles... )

 

Well my BSS Victory (1993) is in a standard jewel case and the inlay states 'Remastered by Joseph M. Palmaccio at PolyGram Studios". I also have the Castle cover replica version from 2002 which sounds the same to my ears, and only has original album credits. So I don't know if we are any nearer to a unanimous BSS issue fave!

 

Personally, I have found the following when it comes to BSS:

Palmaccio - Stunning! Almost exactly as I remember the album.
K2 - Almost exact same as the Palmaccio but cut a bit louder.
Atlantic - Good but just too freaking dull. The punchy bass tone that comes through at times doesn't sound right to me, for instance. Not enough cut through the mix.

Note: The (corrected) Castle uses the Victory (Palmaccio) mastering and that's what I have as my source for the Palmaccio.

 

Posting this on both ELP threads.

The ICE article announcing hte 'Return of the Manticore' boxed set and the Victory remasters
is dated Nov 1993.

It says this:
ELP's back catalog is also receiving first-class treatment, the result
of an intensive search for master tapes initiated by [Bill] Levenson.
"I would say that half of what did came from tapes that hadn't been used
since they were recorded," he says. "They all sound better; every one is
an improvement . We've gone throuhg the world's ELP archives and come
up with masters to everything. It's actually pretty amazing what the
stuff sounds like."
Most of the original packaging has been restored to the reissues as
well, with special attention paid to Brain Salad Surgery. That CD
featres "a digipack which opens like the album did," LEvenson says.
"The poster will fold out -- a replica of the original album."

So it sounds like the Victory digipack BSS was planned as part of the first Victory release series.


I have it on good authority that the Inglot/Hersch remastering credit for the Rhino BSS is a mistake, that Rhino confirms this, and that Rhino also confirms that all their ELP re-releases used the Victory remastering (except for the 'I Believe in Father Christmas' single, whihc was done by Inglot/Hersch).