New Update on Genesis 5.1 Reissues

Maybe the band was tired of hearing the same mixes over and over for the last 30 years and figured it was time to "freshen"them up,kind've like if you live in a house for umpteen years and you decide it's time to repaint/re-wallpaper etc....they decided to "redecorate"their musical"house"so to speak.

 

Great! Let's slap a new coat of paint on the Mona Lisa! Maybe give her a new blouse and a better hairstyle... I never liked that one anyhow.

 

Hey Josh,

Welcome!

I'm a big Star Wars fan. I was in kindergarten when the first movie was released and it had a great impact on me throughout my elementary school years. I love those movies and they hold special childhood memories for me.

When George Lucas tweaked, changed, and re-invented those movies saying he will never rerelease them in their original form again many fans were highly upset. He took away part of our childhood with those changes. Thankfully he conceded and gave us the originals on DVD.

What about the 1987 remixes of Rubber Soul and Help? People are paying hundreds of dollars to get those Canadian CDs that have the original mixes on them. There's a reason.

Same goes with the John Lennon catalog. However, unlike these heavily compressed, EQ'd and somewhat altered Genesis remixes, the new Lennon mixes are actually better than the originals yet for some reason we all still want to hear those albums as they were originally released. Nostalgia? Stubbornness? Innate sense that the subtle musical balances are different? Who knows?

We're about to deal with the same issues from the Doors, saying only the remixes will be issued from now on.

I hope this is just a phase Genesis is going through. In a few years these thoroughly modern sounding remixes with their heavy compression and EQ will sound dated. Hopefully Genesis will realize this and will finally give us properly mastered versions of the original mixes.

 

See to me the cymbals and hi hat on this track are an example of a common problem in drum miking where there's too much of them. The old mix ameliorates this while the new mix exaggerates it because the high end on them is significantly tweaked compared to the old mix. To me they are now 'featured' in the mix (versus the vocal). It's not horrible and I don't disagree that it 'works', just another engineering based perspective. I'm a drummer too though so I can get into it as a positive thing as well.....

I'm exclusively interested in the 5.1 mixes and am hoping they will be less hyped in terms of compression etc.

 

I also have to question the need for this to be an SACD release. The added resolution of DSD is there not only to capture the overall tonality but also the subtle details that are lost with lower quality digital like CDs. These mixes are very much in your face. Not many subtle details in there. Releasing them in Hi Res has to be a marketing scheme.

No doubt many fans will be fooled to think the format will magically make these brute force remixes sound better than they do just as mot people think loud, heavy handed remasters sound better. Steve started this forum to combat these very issues through education.

 

I just want to hear the first group of sacds on my system before I make any judgments on sound quality. I don't want to box myself in to a certain attitude before I give them a chance.

 

I heard the same thing on Turn It On. The hi-hat is very loud and isolated sounding.

But, my attention is drawn to the compression on the vocal. Phil's voice is so squeezed. It's completely unnecessary except for aesthetic reasons. This will date these mixes in a very short time.

 

Even with these downloads I can already hear it.

 

Probably true, but only can listen off a Gateway laptop, with no bass -- so I can't tell jack from jill on the downloads.

 

well listening to turn it on again on my laptop with the crapy speakers. it sounds not so good.

collins vocal is too loud, too upfront.
the cymbols are too pronounced.
can barely hear the synth at all.

something sounds wrong overall. just doesnt sound smooth or natural.

hope the actual disc sounds better.

 

Sheesh! Go to the HMV Japan website and check the status of you order. HMV in Japan wouldn't be in business very long if they jerk customers around.

 

I can handle some compression, as long as the EQ isn't so bright that I have to go run screaming from the room.

The downloads don't sound to bright.

 

Folks,

I've been playing with my new toy. . .Audacity. . .looking at different waveforms from multiple albums. As an experiment, I practiced capturing the audio from the genesis-box website for Turn It On Again. What I am posting below is the waveform for Turn It On Again from the box website (TOP IMAGE) and the same song from the DE pressing (BOTTOM IMAGE). If I understand things correctly, am I looking at an example of loudness? Where does compression fit into the waveforms I see?



I admit being a little nervous now. . .surely the version we hear on the website was tweaked for a "WOW" factor (I now know loud does not equal better) by "Turning On" the loudness. . .this cannot be a fair evaluation of the work Nick did for the SACDs. Right? Thoughts? Am I providing a fair analysis?

For the record, I admit myself the very first thing I said when I went to www.genesis-box.com for the VERY FIRST time was WOW. . .Turn It On Again sounds FANTASTIC! Only after repeated listenings am I doubting my first reaction. The DE doesn't sound as obnoxious to me, and that's a good thing. There's your "WOW" factor! It doesn't last long!

Hopefully this can add to the discussion!?

Thanks,
Josh

 

Surround sound will help sales.

 

Funny, I always found the vocal mix on Trick of the Tail to be too quiet and hard to understand the words. I frankly am looking forward to a remix of this one and Wind and Wuthering. Just me though. I can tell you that I also liked the special edition Star Wars and a lot of the Lennon remixes. Just me though. I would also like to see all of the Beatles albums remixed. Some of their stereo mixes never sounded as goood as the mono. Rubber Soul in stereo drives me nuts with the vocals in one side. People shouldn't panic. I am sure that you will be able to get the original Genesis cds pretty easy for years to come. The original Lennon cds certainly are not hard to get. Nor or the Dement Zeppelin cds which I mostly do prefer.

 

Right Click, Save As:
1 - Squonk: http://www.genesis-box.com/media/1.mp3
2 - Your Own Special Way: http://www.genesis-box.com/media/2.mp3
3 - Follow You, Follow Me: http://www.genesis-box.com/media/3.mp3
4 - Turn it on Again: http://www.genesis-box.com/media/4.mp3
5 - Abacab: http://www.genesis-box.com/media/5.mp3
6 - Bonus Track: http://www.genesis-box.com/media/6.mp3
(128 mp3s, in case you haven't figured that out yet)

Do not, I repeat do not, play Squonk at the same volume you were just listening to the '84 WG CD at! Yikes!! That's loud!!! I'm talking 12 o'clock is still a comfortable volume to listen to the original, I can't go above 9 o'clock on the new re-mix.

It's certainly different. Everything is a lot clearer, bass especially. Like a better generation tape. But, yeah, screechy brittle loudness war stuff, only not as extreme as we're used to. The vocals especially are completely changed in character. The new mix loses all the subtly, not that Squonk is a subtle tune. I hear a weird harsh digital hiss too. Listen fairly loud, if you can stand that, at the beginning between the guitar parts. Really noticeable swirly digtial dither kind of sound. Amazing that you can hear any hiss at all when the band is in full cry like that! It is not present at all on the original mix. That could be some mp3 conversion artifact, or not, I don't know.

Squonk clips at 0db, a lot. Maybe 20 times or so. Only very brief ones, not big shaved off peaks. So it's not quite brick-wall stuff, but still maximized. The '84 WG peaks at -0.9dB, the '94 DE at -0.4. Again, who knows if this is what the final wavs will look like, and whether any maximization was done for the website.

2007 .mp3 from www.genesis-box.com:




1994 Definitive Edition:




1984 Original Virgin/Charisma West German:



(zoomed 1:512 in SoundForge)

 

Thanks for posting this Dongle and for finding the hidden links to the MP3s. I had to record from my sound card and obviously I had a setting wrong. . .turns out it was my Wave control. Still learning I guess. . .forgive the newbie. Either way, the "loudness" is there, but it wasn't as bad as I was showing.

Best,
Josh

 

Yikes, I'm suddenly not all that excited about these.

 

Arghhhhhh damn this forum for exacerbating my OCD! Now I am very worried....

 

Let's wait till they come out. Nick said here on this board that he isn't a big fan of loudness, so maybe it's just the posted files that are extra crappy. Once we get them in our smelly hands we can judge them a bit better.

 

Which of these albums would you reccommend for a Genesis newbie, who knows and likes the hits, but wants to hear more (in 5.1!)

I may well get 'A Trick of The Tail', as I'm loving listening to squonk on the box set website. I've always loved 'Turn It On Again' too, so maybe I'll also get 'Duke'. I think that album may be a little to 80's for me, though, as I'm no fan of the 80's 'sound', generally

 

The 5.1 mixes of the Trick tracks that Nick did for the Video Show were fantastic, so that would be a good place to start. I ordered Trick, Duke and ... And Then There Were Three.

As far as Duke, it doesn't have a real 80's sound. Invisible Touch has an awful 80's sound with electronic drums and gated snares and stuff.

 

I agree. I just hope they sound a lot better than the Video Show DVD because that is crap.

 

If you're recording what your browser is playing you won't be getting a true copy. The overall volume will depend on your player/windows/soundcard volume settings. Also, my shots are zoomed in, that's only about 17 seconds of music in mine. Yours was the whole track. The way you show it is the way folks here usually post screenshots, but it does make it look more compressed zoomed out like that.

 

I agree, mine was not meant to be a final judgment. However, these are the files they are choosing to showcase the release with. . . .