HW: EMI Reissues

[Jon Jarrett]

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Doug Pearson wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 00:11:40 +0100, Jon Jarrett
> <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:
> >        I think I'd agree overall, but I think a danger with _Warrior_ is
> >that in order to give it that power the bottom end might be boosted too
> >much.
>
> Yeah, the reason I used the word "power" was because there's a LOT going on
> with that album (as someone else mentioned), and I had a tough time finding
> a more specific description.
>
> >I have the Griffin CD and it seems to me that the bottom end is
> >very, not muddy, but indefinite in a liquid way, I want to say
> >swampy. Like it was recorded in less definition than the rest of the
> >tracks. That may be because of the bass-rolling you were talking about
> >lower down the thread perhaps. Either way I don't think Lemmy really
> >shines on this album but I think just bringing it up, if the CD accurately
> >reflects the state of the master, is not going to cure that.
>
> I think that's because Lemmy plays Gibson Thunderbird instead of a
> Rickenbacker bass on this album (even though his Ric had a T-bird pickup in
> it!).  You do an excellent job of describing the tonal differences between
> those two instruments.

        Well, thankyou for the credit but I wasn't concentrating on the
bass guitar to that much effect :-) I was thinking of the whole
soundscape. I mean, there are two drummers on this album, the only place I
can really tell this without sitting between the speakers and squinting is
the mid-section of `Magnu'. I'm sure it could be better than that. Lemmy
also, but not just him by any means.

> >The whole
> >low-end would profit from more definition and I think I'd sacrifice some
> >power for that. Of course it might be possible to have both which would be
> >great, but I think of the four albums _Warrior_ is the only one which
> >needs something obvious done to it to restore its intended state.
>
> That's the kind of thing that *can* be done in remastering (assuming a good
> engineer with good ears in a good room with good equipment)

        This is my hope, then, that eventually it gets that sort of
attention.

> >ASAM
> >could be made into a much better-sounding album with the multi-tracks as
> >someone said, putting back the missing centre, but this would be more a
> >remix, Zappa-style, than a remaster. Just my opinion,
>
> You may be right.  I believe that ASAM *could* be salvaged in remastering
> (probably with large amounts of analog eq and multiband compression, and,
> of course, the aforementioned engineer etc.)

        Come to that I can't really find Powell on this album either. Is
it just that he played round King so well I can't separate the kits, or is
he just not given enough space in the studio miking, or (heresy) was he
just not a very distinctive drummer? Yours,
                                            Jon

ObCD: Daevid Allen - _N'Existe Pas!_
--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)