Grateful Dead - The Warner Bros. Studio Albums Vinyl Box (Exclusive Edition)

I think Pallas pressings suffer from static and I have been conscious of this for a while. I was playing my Allen Toussaint 2 LP 'The Bright Mississippi' last night and I did hear a few minor pops here and there, very minor really. In my case it's a static issue most definitely as the pressings are very good indeed. RTI produces nice quiet pressings too but I think the Pallas LPs just look and feel better? The labels on the RTI LPs, are, for instance, very often not centrally stamped on the discs amongst other minor gripes I have had with RTI vinyl.

Neither manufacturer however is as consistently good as the Warner Pioneer manufacturing facility in Japan, long since closed of course, in my experience.

 

I agree about the static on some Pallas discs. Even though I use replacement anti-static inner sleeves a few records must have collected a significant amount of dust very quickly, with a corresponding increase in noise. A wet wash restores them and seems to reduce the static.

With regard to the music, the only other Grateful Dead I have are the Filmore West 1969 and Fillmore East 1971 sets, so I assume they are a fair representation of what I might expect from the studio albums?

 

Thanks for the link, Billy.

As far as the studio albums go... American Beauty and Workingman's Dead are very song-focussed albums, much tighter than either the preceding studio albums or the live albums. They are the high watermark (IMHO) of the Dead in the studio, and of their songwriting chops.

The first album sounds to me like quite primitive psychedelia; mostly old folk and blues covers; I'll duck and cover after posting this, but it's not an album I go back to much.

Anthem really lets the cats out of their respective bags, and sprawls accordingly. It will be closer to your Fillmore West 1969 experience.

Aoxomoxoa is the beginning, for me, of the songwriting talent really emerging - it is where Hunter comes fully on board... St Stephen, Chinacat...

I still don't find I return to the three first albums all that often, which is why I am hesitating over this box. I love Beauty and Workingman's, though, and have to decide whether it's worth pushing the boat out for (hopefully) nice vinyl, or whether I should stick to my DVD-Audios...

 

I got an e-mail stating mine's shipped as well. Of course, since I opted for the "free" shipping option, I'll probably be waiting for mine to arrive for a while ...

 

Yeah, I chose the free shipping option as well. Maybe I'm being a little over optimistic expecting it on Tuesday.

 

I also got an email saying it had been shipped Saturday. I'm looking forward to doing an A/B test between my MFSL vinyl American Beauty and this new one. Since I'm so familiar with it and think it was very well recorded, my original copy of Workingman's has been one of my sound system reference discs. And Anthem and Aoxomoxoa were studio psychedelia at its best.

 

Please post your impressions.

 

Clearly this wasn't meant to be complimentary, but to me you've made it sound intriguing, as I like the Little Schoolgirl/King Bee stuff on Fillmore West.

If you can resist the temptation for a while perhaps the albums will be released individually, as with the Doors vinyl. Although the set is good value compared to importing a Mosaic box, for example, it's still a lot of money for someone like myself with a casual interest in the band. At least it would be new music to me, and perhaps make more sense than buying a third or fourth copy of something, like I've just done with the Rhino Moondance and Astral Weeks.

 

I'll be interested in hearing others' listening impressions, particularly comparing these reissues to the Rhino reissues of American Beauty and Workingman's Dead.

 

I hope they will be better than the Rhino reissues, but bettering the originals will be the real test.

 

I have the Rhino American Beauty and really love it. I've read around here on other threads that the Workingman's Dead reissue wasn't so hot though.

 

I did not love the reissue. My original was, to my ears vastly superior. I'm not one of those "originals are always better" guys either

 

The UPS guy just dropped off my box set. Nice looking box. Each album is extremely faithful to the original release. Each slab of vinyl looks very clean!! Will start listening later this evening.

 

The first two albums, "Grateful Dead" and "Anthem", sounded excellent to my ears on my system. Nice flat quiet vinyl (only a few minor ticks here and there). I was clearly impressed with the sound. RTI did a real nice job pressing these, and Chris Bellman did a real nice job mastering.

Even the bonus 45 of Dark Star/Born Cross Eyed sounded darn good also.

Tomorrow night, the next three albums in the box.

 

Is Anthem the original mix? (Quick way to tell: in the original mix side one ends by fading out as Weir repeats "by and by." In the remix there is a sustained E chord after this. The single mix puts in a live "feedback" jam in this spot.)

 

It's the original mix. Yes Weir fades out when repeating the words "by and by". And a sticker on the outside of the box, as well as the liner notes, indicate the original mix was used. So I doubt they would lie (I hope they wouldn't).

 

It's a great set! The RTI vinyl is HEAVY and pressed quiet! I've just listened to Anthem of the Sun and American Beauty and they sound fantastic! More later, back to the music!

 

Glad to hear the positive reviews so far! Can't wait to receive mine.

 

I figured they wouldn't, but wish they would have realized that it was the remix, not the original mix, that was rare in this case.

Looking forward to your impressions of Aoxomoxoa.

 

Re: Anthem of the Sun & Aoxomoxoa. When they remixed, they removed the sonic magic. The originals were always vastly superior.

 

Believe it or not, I have been a Dead fan since 1974.. saw my first show in 1976... and I can't believe I never heard the original mix of "Aoxomoxoa" until today!!!

The sound quality was great on the new vinyl issue, but I could tell from the minute that St. Stephen started that something was "weird" and that was the mix was pretty much different from what I ever heard before.

I actually ran to get the original WB CD version to make sure that the weirdness to the music was the mix... and yes it was. St. Stephen, which I listened to on the CD and then on the vinyl again, was more or less a "different" song from the studio version I knew (the re-mix).

So I finally get to hear the original mix. I can't say it's superior to the re-mix, since the re-mix is what I am familiar with... and the original mix sounds pretty much different in all respects. I will have to do more listening to this mix to get used to it.

 

The remix of Aoxomoxoa makes the record sound more like the "polished" Dead of 1971/2. The original mix has a lot of bizarre charm but I can understand the band being embarassed by it down the road.

 

Yes exactly what I was thinking.

The funny thing was I could actually understand the lyrics to What's Become of the Baby on the original mix version... and it resembled more of a "song" than it did on the re-mix. I actually was digging it a lot on the new vinyl... where I usually got bored with it on the re-mix.

The thing I noticed about St. Stephen on the re-mix (on the CD) is it sounded like the "familiar" version they would play live, while the original mix on the new vinyl sounded like an aural "experiment" of sorts.

 

Interesting comments on the differences between mixes. Anyone had time yet to dig deeper into the box? How does the vinyl of AB or WMD compare with previous issues?
TIA