Contemporary Records "Art Pepper + Eleven": Which is BEST VERSION?*

Yes, thanks much, I understood that ... except in which remastering action lies the improvement you did e.g. on the Blue Notes, if all the bad influences are already on the mastertape. Is it, that RVG added even more of that limiting during the disk mastering process, which you don't do or at least you do tonal tweaking only but no reverb and compression anymore?

I'd also still be interested, how analog tonal remastering is done (with a kind of analog mixing console?), or if digital equipment is partly used for current reissues? You don't have to name anyone, just interested if digital tweaking is known to be used on some otherwise "analog" reissue projects.

Remembering the Classic Records statement, that on the (Bue Note) record they just transfer what's on the mastertape (meaning imho without any treatment), this seams not always to be the ideal way, as I clearly prefer your comparable Blue Note reissues. I don't think that the boost of treble extension on some CR Blue Notes makes sence in terms of a natural sound. And also their sometimes ping-pong sound compared to RVG's, Cuscunas or your more center filled "room" is not a real advantage to me (althought I also really like many of the CR reissues of different labels). Besides the Fantasy, I really like your Blue Notes very much. They lack all the disadvantages of the Mosaic (dynamics) and the CR (ping-pong, sometimes overextended treble). And I very rarely see any advantage in a Blue note original over HQ reissues (one of the exceptions for me is Midnight blue), I like RVG more for his work on other labels of that time.


And if in theory every HQ reissue should be better than the original in terms of "uncompressed, unlimited, no reverb", I'm also still wondering how sometimes also some loss of information especially regarding pace and ambience on remastered issues occurs compared to the originals then. Just take Armstrong/Ellington Reunion as an example. IMO the CR issue is slow in the bass lines, unlively and dull at the voice in comparison to the original. I'm reluctant to believe I'm just a victim of the tweaking of past sound engineers in these cases ... what I must say is, the better and more lively/open sounding my hardware got, the more I heard the often also positive aspects of originals...at the beginning I liked reissues better than originals in every aspect because I couldn't hear i.e. pace and ambience differences enough and mainly took notice of tonal aspects that time.

 

Steve, would you comment on the following thread regardig your own reissues (digital or analog EQing)?

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=186446