So I listened to Powerslave...

H

HideInTheRainbow

Prowler
And I got a headache, x5 over and over.
Seriously. Mighty good songs, but one of the worst, overcompressed remastering jobs I've ever heard in my life; on a Martin Birch production, nonetheless.

Of course I haven't heard the original pressing, but I read it was even worse on other album reissues, like a select number of Judas Priest remasters and most of Iron Maiden's catalogue.
People paid money for this? Why? Did their ears bust after listening to the original versions on max volume with headphones?  :o
I'm truly surprised nobody's announced a remastering for quality of the Iron Maiden catalogue; if they could do it with Sabbath, they could certainly do it with Maiden.

EDIT: This is about the 1998 EMI remaster, by the way.
 
I have Japanese Black Triangle edition. Good sound.
 
Zare said:
I have Japanese Black Triangle edition. Good sound.
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Pretty much this.  But because the album kicks so much ass anyway, the production didn't bother me too much on the remaster.
 
I'm rather used to heavy compression, so it doesn't bother me too much. I mean, I'm 20 years old, and over compressed remasters have pretty much been the source of music for me + new albums. And there is some really heavy compression going on with new albums since the last 10 years or so. Halford - Live in Anaheim. There's like a 2 db difference between RMS full scale and peak.
 
I have both the original and the remaster and I can't seem to hear much difference. I don't think the remaster is much louder than the original.
 
ALL of those 98 remasters are awful.  I actually think Piece of Mind and Somewhere in Time are the absolute worst ones though.  Piece of Mind sounds like a muddy mess compared to the original issue, and SIT suffers from being overloud without any of the separation of the original which really nailed that "sci-fi space" sound home.

If you are even remotely a Maiden fan search out and listen to those original issues, they are better in every single possible way.  Stereos have volume knobs, if they are too low then turn up the volume.
 
Donner said:
ALL of those 98 remasters are awful.  I actually think Piece of Mind and Somewhere in Time are the absolute worst ones though.  Piece of Mind sounds like a muddy mess compared to the original issue, and SIT suffers from being overloud without any of the separation of the original which really nailed that "sci-fi space" sound home.

If you are even remotely a Maiden fan search out and listen to those original issues, they are better in every single possible way.  Stereos have volume knobs, if they are too low then turn up the volume.
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See, THIS is why I went for A Matter Of Life And Death over those older, remastered albums; at least I knew it was going to sound loud, but natural going off of reviews.

Now if I want to have proper masters of those albums on CD I'll have to spend far more money than I would if I were going for the remasters?
What a marketing technique, EMI, God bless you. :mad:

But yeah, maybe I could either search for old vinyl editions of those, or make do with my Live After Death DVD for now; pretty pictures and a good performance to go with the music, and a 5.1 option for better separation. Already loving the Powerslave performance on that one, and plenty other good songs.
 
I have both remasters in physical form and Black Triangle rips in lossless format files. I was literally fascinated with Piece Of Mind, and how good the original LP sounds. I'm saying original LP because Black Triangle issues aren't mastered for CDs...in essence they just burnt the master tapes on CD, same way they do with vinyl. In any case, Piece Of Mind 1998 remaster sounds pretty generic, but the original has an unique '70s hard rock sound, and i've reinvented my love towards Where Eagles Dare, Still Life and To Tame A Land (this one especially, a true masterpiece!). Somewhere In Time remaster, on the other hand, IMHO has better sounding drums. They are way more clear, especially the cymbals. Of course, other elements are suffering, but i like it that way, almost like having same songs differently mixed.

Maybe I put an unrealistic emphasis on the sound. Some people won't care if the lyrics suck as long as the music is good, some the other way, for me, a masterpiece needs to have great music, great lyrics, and needs to sound great. Since that great music and lyrics are pieces of art invented by artist who wanted lyrics to interpret something, and wanted the music to play something, isn't it obvious that he also had a vision what kind of overall sound will the song have? So it's logical that the original product should be more of "the thing", than some remasters that 3rd party sound engineers worked on.

@HideInTheRainbow, go and download Black Triangle lossless rips somewhere. And no, this isn't piracy because if you own a remastered Powerslave CD, you've already paid for the artist's royalties. But because of forum rules, i can't give you download links. A funny clown just walked into room, loudly shouting his last words. Weird, eh?
 
I have some remasters but I never play them. I mostly put on the originals (not the Japanese stuff but they're good).

I do remember that a collegue of mine thought that the debut album improved with the latest remaster.
 
Zare said:
@HideInTheRainbow, go and download Black Triangle lossless rips somewhere. And no, this isn't piracy because if you own a remastered Powerslave CD, you've already paid for the artist's royalties. But because of forum rules, i can't give you download links. A funny clown just walked into room, loudly shouting his last words. Weird, eh?
Click to expand...
:edmetal:
That's a nice way of putting it. Well, see what gives.

@Forostar, haven't heard Iron Maiden yet. But I do remember reading that it already sounded somewhat muddy to begin with; maybe it has to do with this?
 
Zare said:
A funny clown just walked into room, loudly shouting his last words...
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...and is shot dead. I hate clowns. Anyone who tries to bring him back to life will be in trouble.
 
You banned him? Btw. you only erased the website name from the quote, not from Zare's original post ;)
 
NightProwler666 said:
You banned him?
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No, I didn't. Zare is as welcome as ever before. No punishment, no formal warning, I just shot his clown. This is a borderline case, so we decided to go with censoring the reference and let it be.
 
Unlike USA government in Bin Laden case, Germany has released footage of their latest counter-terrorist operation :

dead%20clown.jpg


As you can see, the Clown was unarmed and willing to surrender.
 
I've only had Powerslave on remaster. Never the original, and it sounds pretty good. The high end is a bit too over but that is easy to fix.
 
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