New 2cd Phil Spector import

If & when they get around to remastering the complete Phil Spector catalog, they will put out the complete Bobby Soxxx & the Bluejeans album on Cd. Also add I Can Here Music on the Ronettes Cd & put asterisk showing that Jeff Barry produced it. And on the Darlene Love Cd add Johnny Please Come Home& some of the other songs they left off.

 

I need to redo this - I did that Eq pretty quickly, and it's not right yet...

 

Holy cow! It's like I've never heard these songs before this! I really wanted to avoid this set given the slim number of tracks but it's well worth it. Hopefully just a preview of a complete collection with this quality of sound.

 

I imagine that hits set is probably just a tease for more to come out in the not too distant future.

 

Yeah, that, or Allen Klein decided to pay Bob Ludwig and a small army of archivists and collaborators for a one-off UK-only budget anthology.

 

Anyone else noticed the DSD logo on the back of this set? Just like the Cameo-Parkway set it seems this would have originally been a hybrid SACD release had the format taken off after the Stones and Cooke discs.

How frustrating to think these latest ABKCO releases exist in DSD but all we get are the downsampled CD versions

I am holding out for a box set for now - anyone know if and when this might happen?

 

The Ronettes tracks have been released on CD in stereo. There is the 95 collection called "All the Hits" on the Cedar label from Germany, that has the tracks from "Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes" in stereo. It's all I listen to. There is currently available something called "Ultimate Hits" or "Ultimate Collection" (can't remember which) that purports to have 29 tracks, all in stereo. I am thinking of buying it -- it's on Amazon. BTW, I humbly disagree that the mono mixes are the best. I think that the Christmas album sounds glorious in stereo -- I think that it loses all of its magic in mono.

 

Quick! Put on your flame retardent jump suit!

 

You done gone crazee!

 

Yes. That stereo Christmas album is a strange mix. I do not enjoy it at all and I'd love to hear a proper stereo mix of a Phil Spector production.

 

Which issue of the mono are you listening to?

 

This sounds right to me now, as far as fixing the sound off this disc. As is, basically I don't think the mastering has enough tubey juice, enough oomph/authority to the bottom, and isn't "together" enough rhythmically. Also, it had some excess glare that was IMO unnecessary...

What do you think? These clips are WAV files...


Be My Baby flat clip

Be My Baby Eq'd clip

 

I think you talked me out of buying it

 

I prefer the stereo too. Even something simple like the way the steps walk across at the beginning of "I saw Mommy...":

http://www.onlyonline.co.uk/spector_stereo.mp3

(I may have left and right transposed, not sure!)

Tim

 

Well, again, I only listened through my computer speakers but I think what you did improved the sound quality. Care to share with us what your EQ fixes were?

 

Interesting.

I just happened to have a needledrop handy from the London single of Be My Baby that I was given for Christmas in 1963.

It was done entirely via solid state equipment (as in my profile) yet sounds very close indeed to your eq'd version.

I wonder if the CD sounds like the master tape and maybe you are trying to achieve the sound that you remember from the 45?

 

I tried to make it sound "right" - fix was wrong with it to my ears that I mentioned before. Just used the parametric Eq I have in my laptop.

I might as well post what I did - no one's going to be hiring me for mastering anytime soon...

+0.30db @ 50hz/2
+0.08db @ 250hz/6
+0.43db @ 500hz/1.87
+0.03db @ 6khz/6
-(0.36)db @ 8khz/6

The last number in each adjustment after the slash is the slope. Every song isn't going to need these exact same adjustments though...

 

I finally played some of this cd on my main rig last night. I was actually surprised by the inconsistency of tonal balance from track to track. For example, the vocals on "Be My Baby" definitely sound a bit bright/harsh. This afflicts some other tracks as well, but then there are other tracks that sound better.

 

I wonder if the inconsistency from track to track was from the original tapes.

 

I have to agree.

 

Some songs really seem to have some life in them - worthwhile if you like Spector's work and don't really need a whole boxed set worth.

 

I bought this from something called CD-WOW, I guess a GB or EU concern. It was shipped from Hong Kong (??) but appears to be the set everyone is talking about. Was VERY disappointed to find the Christmas in mono, but the second disc sorta made up for everything. CD-WOW indeed. The Pavillion stereo Christmas LP is amazing. Maybe next year??

 

I spoke to a few people at Abkco just before they left for the holidays. about the songs they left off various CDs. I was told that the entire Phil Spector Catalog is being remastered, I assume by Bob Ludwig who did the recent 22 track set.They said to E-mail [email protected] to recommend additions.

 

This is great news.. I have yet to hear the 2cd set but I'm about to break down and buy it.

Has everyone in the States been relying on web merchents to get this set? Are there any record chains that seem to be stocking it (Best Buy?...)