Remastered Versions

[Deleted]

Having only recently come across the Robert Johnson Centennial Collection, which features newly remastered versions of his material, I thought it would be interesting to start a thread listing other remastering projects and people's thoughts on them. I know there's a recent Son house remaster out there, and ones for Charlie Patton and Skip James too.

Anyway, the Centennial Collection is great. Interestingly, not everyone appears to feel this way -- I came across a rant in the Amazon.com comments claiming another RJ remaster -- King of the Delta Blues -- was superior. So I've spent the day A/B'ing the songs from both. My preference remains with the Centennial Collection.


That said (and I KNOW I'm poking the hornet's nest here, but well, I'm kind of bullheaded that way, my apologies in advance!), I also came across criticisms that the Centennial Collection still didn't get the speed issue under control - and postulates that the 78s were prepared from masters sped up to 81rpm. Part of the dispute comes from whether the Centennial Collection's background frequency hum correction was based on the correct electrical equipment used way back when!

I love this.

Now, I know a lot of people are of the opinion that there is NO speed issue. And since most of these people are far more expert on this subject than I am, I'm not going to argue with them. I do think the Centennial Collection sounds great.

Nonetheless, for curiosity's sake, I used software to adjust the speed/pitch of the Centennial collection according to the 78 v. 81 rpm idea. And I have to say, I really do prefer Johnson's voice in these slightly slower, slightly lower versions. To my ears, he sounds much more human (there's a brief passage where he speaks in Come in my kitchen -- you can really hear the difference there). I think this slight difference -- less than 3.5 percent -- sounds more natural than the more heavily processed "corrected" versions (which range up to 12 percent I think)  I've found on youtube. In any event, the Centennial Collection really lends itself to this kind of experimentation since the sound quality is so clear and stable.

I'd be willing to upload one of these mp3s, if anyone's interested. I'm thinking of preparing an A/B mp3 too.

[Pickers Ditch]

Bluntly, I'm not too fussed about the speed issue.
However, youse guys made me shell out for the RJ Centennial Collection.
It's arrived and having just listened to it I think it's great.
My 11 year old grandson arrived whilst it was playing, it gets to "They're Red Hot" and he pipes up with "That's a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song, Grandad."
He's had a kick up the airse and been told to wash his mouth out with carbolic soap and learn "Preaching Blues" on his acoustic.
I have supplied a bottleneck and restrung his guitar with 56-15s.
He's fascinated with the whole idea. He's gone home clutching copies of RJ cds.
I await the result with baited breath.........
Guess who's getting my 1931 Triolian when Satan comes to get me?

[Deleted]

Yes, I love the definition of the guitar and vocals that come through on the Centennial Collection. I like it that they kept some of the hiss in -- there's a lot of information in that 'cloud' that got lost in the King of Delta Blues versions.

[Michael Messer]

No matter how clever the software is, when you clean up old recordings you erase some of the music. Using clean 78s and not trying to overdo the clean-up is the best

Regarding the pitch & speed issue; as well as the voice, I listen to the guitar and the speed of the vibrato. I haven't compared the Centennial Collection with the Pristine Audio remasters, but am fairly sure that the pitch is correct. I will have a listen over the weekend with fresh ears and let you know what I think

Shine On
Michael

[Deleted]

I find that after the treatment, his voice sounds richer and (dare I say it) "blacker" -- and it loses the distortion.

On the other hand, I think I prefer the guitar sound when it's untreated - that might be the software I'm using (which is very old), makes the guitar sound a bit slurred at times.

[slide496]

What I have never been able to understand on this sound issue is first - the numerous other recordings from the exact same equipment in the same studio have not been scrutinized the same way, and I believe Johnson recorded 2 days, so the devil came in and screwed up his two recordings? Or one if he recorded one day.

Secondly - unless they developed their own same generators at some point the electricity was not the same so I would be skeptical about the 60 cycle hum- maybe back then it was a 40 cycle event.

Thirdly - I guess if you accept that good judgement has been shown, and your taste is to prefer isolated music as if the person was in the room with you etc, it still is an enhanced product like a retouched, airbrushed photo that eliminates blemishes and its really Robert Johnson as redefined by another person.

[Deleted]

If you slow down Jolene by Dolly Parton, it sounds MUCH better (blacker.?.).

TT

[Deleted]

I wish someone would reprocess and de-kazoo the Tampa Red catalog. So much for purism in that case...

[Deleted]

May 28, 2015 23:20:04 GMT slide496 said:

What I have never been able to understand on this sound issue is first - the numerous other recordings from the exact same equipment in the same studio have not been scrutinized the same way, and I believe Johnson recorded 2 days, so the devil came in and screwed up his two recordings? Or one if he recorded one day.

Secondly - unless they developed their own same generators at some point the electricity was not the same so I would be skeptical about the 60 cycle hum- maybe back then it was a 40 cycle event.

Thirdly - I guess if you accept that good judgement has been shown, and your taste is to prefer isolated music as if the person was in the room with you etc, it still is an enhanced product like a retouched, airbrushed photo that eliminates blemishes and its really Robert Johnson as redefined by another person.

I thought RJ was recorded a couple of different hotel rooms, not in a studio?

Apparently, for some of Woody Guthrie's recordings, they were able to find the exact generators, which were allowed them to identify the exact frequency of the hum and therefore calculate the exact speed the recordings were meant to be. I don't know if they were able to go that far with the Johnson recordings. I did come across mention that Eric Clapton went to the same hotel room to record the same songs on the same (type of) guitar. Which... well, I dunno. That's taking things a bit far for my taste.

For what it's worth, it wasn't until I started listening to the Centennial Collection that I really started appreciating RJ's guitar playing. (And when I slow down the recordings a fraction, I definitely appreciate his singing - he has a nicely nuanced voice, that doesn't really come through at the higher speed.)

In that sense, think of this as a restoration project -- they're still only just discovering the actual colors used by the old master painters.

[Deleted]

May 29, 2015 4:43:36 GMT @fredcapo said:

I wish someone would reprocess and de-kazoo the Tampa Red catalog. So much for purism in that case...

I agree, it's really frustrating to listen to him, because the guitar is often pushed so far back.

[Deleted]

Okay, I took a moment this morning to play around (the benefit of being my own boss!) and prepare a few A-B comparison clips. The B version is always the treated version. I took 2 songs from each of RJ's sessions, because it seems to me there's a difference in speed between the two sessions -- I used the same percentage to treat the pitch/speed, and it seems to me the songs on the second session ring less "true" that way.

I also tried to use songs that have distinct features -- RJ speaks on Come in My Kitchen, for example, and I looked for sections where the guitar comes through really well (without vocals).

The mono version has shorter clips:
www.mediafire.com/listen/bdtccy15amwlgts/RJ_A_B_speed_test_mono.mp3

The stereo version has longer clips (full verse for each song)
www.mediafire.com/listen/lyz4hcz033mlaba/RJ_A_B_speed_test_stereo.mp3

Note: I'm using ridiculously old software (Cool Edit Pro!) to do this, so more modern software may have more convincing results.

Also note: I'm not doing this to start a polemic -- it's just out of curiosity. I have no desire to be "right" about this.

[Pickers Ditch]

Thanks Mickeyz.
FWIW my own humble opinion having listened and my curiosity whetted.
I think the "faster" versions are more likely to be "right".
Reasons? 2 of 'em.
1) The "slow" versions seem to be a little too deliberate / less feel to me.
2) Bearing in mind that RJ was normally playing in the street and in juke joints he had to entertain and I think that he would need the speed, liveliness and urgency as demonstrated by the "fast" versions to attract and hold an audience which would want to move and dance.
I can't really see him slowing his stuff down just because he was recording solo in a room without an audience.
Just my tanners worth and I don't want to start a row.....

[AlanB]

May 29, 2015 4:43:36 GMT @fredcapo said:

I wish someone would reprocess and de-kazoo the Tampa Red catalog. So much for purism in that case...

You and me both and all fans of Tampa Red, I should think. However, back then it was their culture, their era and their music. Between 1939 and 1942 kazoos were the rage in black "popular music" - Bluebird jumped on the bandwagon with Tampa.  Hopefully one day Jim O'Neal will finish his book on Tampa. Sorry to ramble on (sounds like a song title).

A belated irony: In 1993 Document released the entire prewar Tampa in 15 CDs. The first 5 were issued with booklets written by Teddy Doering. One evening I received a phone call from Johnny Parth of Document in panic mode. For reasons not given Teddy had failed to supply the remaining 10 booklets. Old Joe Soap in England stayed up most of the night, knocking out 500 words for each booklet. When I got to work at 8am I faxed him the lot. To his credit Johnny turned them around in next to no time. 

www.document-records.com/fulldetails.asp?ProdID=DOCD-5206

[Deleted]

May 29, 2015 9:05:21 GMT Pickers Ditch said:

Thanks Mickeyz.
FWIW my own humble opinion having listened and my curiosity whetted.
I think the "faster" versions are more likely to be "right".
Reasons? 2 of 'em.
1) The "slow" versions seem to be a little too deliberate / less feel to me.
2) Bearing in mind that RJ was normally playing in the street and in juke joints he had to entertain and I think that he would need the speed, liveliness and urgency as demonstrated by the "fast" versions to attract and hold an audience which would want to move and dance.
I can't really see him slowing his stuff down just because he was recording solo in a room without an audience.
Just my tanners worth and I don't want to start a row.....

My own experience is that playing live, we always sped up our material, no matter what group I was in, simply because of the adrenaline rush. Made it kind of difficult when the set we'd planned for 40 minutes only lasted 20!

[Pickers Ditch]

[/quote]My own experience is that playing live, we always sped up our material, no matter what group I was in, simply because of the adrenaline rush. Made it kind of difficult when the set we'd planned for 40 minutes only lasted 20!
[/quote]

Ain't that the truth - makes this bass players fingers sore, too!