Definitive Audiophile pressings

[Ghost]

Somehow still available:

GRANT GREEN - Sunday Mornin' [Exclusive]

CATALOG: SDS-84099 RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2019 Grant Green is a jazz guitar legend with dozens of releases and was the “in house” session guitarist during the magical years of Rudy Van Gelder at Blue Note Records! Sunday Mornin’ was recorded in 1961, released in 1962 and this is the first reissue...

www.coleminerecords.com

This pressing is awesome. My boy KG + RTI + AAA.

Can’t believe this is still available, just picked up a copy finally, so stoked.

 

[MikeH]

Can’t believe this is still available, just picked up a copy finally, so stoked.

Yea--you'd think with the crazy demand for Blue Note represses that this one would have sold out a loooong time ago.

 

[Mather]

Just catching up on all this. Its a good job im not in the US otherwise I would be up for this. As an international, I can imagine shipping would tip it way over the edge for me in terms of price.

Looking at the photo, the box treatment reminds me of their Sonny Rollins Way Out West set (which I think @Mather also has is memory serves?). Its a really great set and significantly less than this will be, although obviously the vinyl treatment won't be near as good.

With it being 1000 copies I imagine it will sell out fast, especially as they are opening with a Coltrane title.

Yep, I have that set. It's nice, it's wasn't AAA however so yeah, much lower price. I think I got it for like $75 CAD? But it's well done.

 

[Rowan]

Maybe there's some complicated rights issues...but I'm surprised too. This is part of why the Craft series is intriguing to me--they really have access to tons of amazing titles in need of quality reissues. I'm hoping they do a wide variety of stuff.

I'd take a mega, mega reissue of #1 record or Radio City for sure. Love a bit of jangly wangly stuff

 

[HayesWeighsIn]

Compression is never used in recording so multitrack digital will always have the full dynamic range.

Are you referring to brickwall limiting? Mix engineers do use it on individual tracks at times, on a vocal or bass guitar depending how it needs to sit in the mix. Moreso in pop production. Compression - aside from classical and jazz, virtually everything has compression!

 

[MikeH]

Are you referring to brickwall limiting? Mix engineers do use it on individual tracks at times, on a vocal or bass guitar depending how it needs to sit in the mix. Moreso in pop production. Compression - aside from classical and jazz, virtually everything has compression!

My question is if an album has brickwall limiting on current releases, would you be able to remove that/tamper it down if you were remastering from original sources?

 

[HayesWeighsIn]

Somehow still available:

GRANT GREEN - Sunday Mornin' [Exclusive]

CATALOG: SDS-84099 RELEASE DATE: 11/29/2019 Grant Green is a jazz guitar legend with dozens of releases and was the “in house” session guitarist during the magical years of Rudy Van Gelder at Blue Note Records! Sunday Mornin’ was recorded in 1961, released in 1962 and this is the first reissue...

www.coleminerecords.com

This pressing is awesome. My boy KG + RTI + AAA.

It’s fantastic. I have Slow Down Sounds’ press of it.

 

[HayesWeighsIn]

My question is if an album has brickwall limiting on current releases, would you be able to remove that/tamper it down if you were remastering from original sources?

Great question. The answer is no, if only the digital/CD master is available for the remaster process, you have to deal with the limiting, and that severely inhibits a lot of what a mastering engineer is able to do. Great example of that is Fiona’s When The Pawn vinyl master. I think they did a pretty great job doctoring up that CD master, but that’s what it is.

To do a proper remaster, you need the final MIX before it has entered the mastering stage, and particularly with those 90’s CD only releases, a lot of those aren’t available because they never thought it would be remastered for a different format.

 

[keylime_5]

I hope they repress them. I got Europe 72 as well. So many good titles from Rhino and RTI. I’ve been buying up a lot of the Rhino x KG cuts from the past few years lately and you can still find quite a few of them. Moondance though is likely the CA cut which still sounds great but isn’t AAA

is there a kg@ca cut of moondance? I know this was the case with Joni Mitchell blue but that is still AAA. I only see the KG&SH cut on Discogs and that’s the one advertised on the acoustic sounds store.

 

[MikeH]

is there a kg@ca cut of moondance? I know this was the case with Joni Mitchell blue but that is still AAA. I only see the KG&SH cut on Discogs and that’s the one advertised on the acoustic sounds store.

this is the one i have: Van Morrison - Moondance

KG@CA and cut at RTI but this one is supposedly from digital masters (sounds great to me though). The KG@ATM one is the one you want as that is apparently the last AAA version. The @CA ones switched to a digital master because I think the tapes were too messed up to cut from again. I believe there were some color variants in the past few years that also used the ATM master.

It's hard to know which is ATM and which is CA because I believe the barcode is the same. So places advertise one but you end up with the other.

 

[keylime_5]

this is the one i have: Van Morrison - Moondance

KG@CA and cut at RTI but this one is supposedly from digital masters (sounds great to me though). The KG@ATM one is the one you want as that is apparently the last AAA version. The @CA ones switched to a digital master because I think the tapes were too messed up to cut from again. I believe there were some color variants in the past few years that also used the ATM master.

It's hard to know which is ATM and which is CA because I believe the barcode is the same. So places advertise one but you end up with the other.

Gotcha. I have the KG@ATM Rhino, was just curious because I know Rhino seems to be moving away from those great AAA pressings they used to do between 2010 and 2017ish, unless they repress from old masters.

 

[MikeH]

Gotcha. I have the KG@ATM Rhino, was just curious because I know Rhino seems to be moving away from those great AAA pressings they used to do between 2010 and 2017ish, unless they repress from old masters.

Part of it is probably price but other part is that a bunch of these albums' tapes aren't in great shape. I've been buying some of the older Rhino AAA stuff since you can still find a bunch for cheap. But there are cases like Moondance where the barcode is the same even though it is a different master. I will say though, the KG@CA version sounds awesome even though its from digital. If the digital source is good and flat, they can still sound awesome with the right engineer.

 

[Portland Sheriff]

Yea--you'd think with the crazy demand for Blue Note represses that this one would have sold out a loooong time ago.

My highly subjective, un-scientific theory: many avid jazz fans do not like jazz guitar. I know that's true for me, and I've given it many tries. Every time I listen to something like this Grant Green album, I feel like I'm at a schmaltzy Sunday brunch buffet with my grandmother. I cannot explain my distaste for jazz guitar, and I listen to plenty of guitar-focused music generally.

 

[MikeH]

My highly subjective, un-scientific theory: many avid jazz fans do not like jazz guitar. I know that's true for me, and I've given it many tries. Every time I listen to something like this Grant Green album, I feel like I'm at a schmaltzy Sunday brunch buffet with my grandmother. I cannot explain my distaste for jazz guitar, and I listen to plenty of guitar-focused music generally.

very well could be. but the grant green titles seem to always sell out really quickly elsewhere. maybe people just didn't know much about this one or assumed it sold out...

 

[keylime_5]

Part of it is probably price but other part is that a bunch of these albums' tapes aren't in great shape. I've been buying some of the older Rhino AAA stuff since you can still find a bunch for cheap. But there are cases like Moondance where the barcode is the same even though it is a different master. I will say though, the KG@CA version sounds awesome even though its from digital. If the digital source is good and flat, they can still sound awesome with the right engineer.

Ah actually mine is KG@CA as well. Thought I bought it a few years ago. Interesting. Yeah it does sound really great whatever the source.

 

[RHANDMJ]

My highly subjective, un-scientific theory: many avid jazz fans do not like jazz guitar. I know that's true for me, and I've given it many tries. Every time I listen to something like this Grant Green album, I feel like I'm at a schmaltzy Sunday brunch buffet with my grandmother. I cannot explain my distaste for jazz guitar, and I listen to plenty of guitar-focused music generally.

I'm in that camp. If there are horns, though, I may go for it. And later period jazz-funk guitar, even Grant Green, but especially Melvin Sparks, Eric Gale and many others is great.

 

[RHANDMJ]

Great question. The answer is no, if only the digital/CD master is available for the remaster process, you have to deal with the limiting, and that severely inhibits a lot of what a mastering engineer is able to do. Great example of that is Fiona’s When The Pawn vinyl master. I think they did a pretty great job doctoring up that CD master, but that’s what it is.

To do a proper remaster, you need the final MIX before it has entered the mastering stage, and particularly with those 90’s CD only releases, a lot of those aren’t available because they never thought it would be remastered for a different format.

True, that if the brickwalling was done in mastering AND that is the only master available, you must go back to the digital multitracks.

BUT - for over a decade, it has been standard practice to snd the uncompressed or lightly compressed final mix to the mastering studio to produce TWO masters - one will be the CD master and the other a separate vinyl master.

I know. I have some high res digital files that came straight from the studio marked vinly master (split into two tracks with a gap between, one for each side) and they follow that practice - uncompressed.

 

[Poly-Rythmo]

this is the one i have: Van Morrison - Moondance

KG@CA and cut at RTI but this one is supposedly from digital masters (sounds great to me though). The KG@ATM one is the one you want as that is apparently the last AAA version. The @CA ones switched to a digital master because I think the tapes were too messed up to cut from again. I believe there were some color variants in the past few years that also used the ATM master.

It's hard to know which is ATM and which is CA because I believe the barcode is the same. So places advertise one but you end up with the other.

As well as making me spend lots of money (I'm checking out some Speakers Corner stuff from JPC) this thread is actually making me feel quite good as it turns out, mostly by chance than great design, that I have the right versions of Moondance and Grace. I must say I always thought particularly on Jeff Buckley that while there seemed to be a lot of complaints about pressings mine sounded decent. My big regret though is selling my earlier Led Zep pressings for the modern remasters so I guess fate evens itself out.

 

[Poly-Rythmo]

My highly subjective, un-scientific theory: many avid jazz fans do not like jazz guitar. I know that's true for me, and I've given it many tries. Every time I listen to something like this Grant Green album, I feel like I'm at a schmaltzy Sunday brunch buffet with my grandmother. I cannot explain my distaste for jazz guitar, and I listen to plenty of guitar-focused music generally.

It's nothing as general as disliking jazz guitar for me, but I also don't really care for Grant Green (I do like Kenny Burrell though - something in his style appeals to me more than Grant Green). That's why I refrain from offering advice when people ask eg which Tone Poet to buy. It's such an individual thing. My most glaring instance is Wayne Shorter - I love him when he plays with Miles, but I've somehow never fallen in love with his solo stuff (I don't mind it, but not really stronger than that). That's what I love about music though, that we all have such overlapping tastes.

 

[Joe Mac]

this is the one i have: Van Morrison - Moondance

KG@CA and cut at RTI but this one is supposedly from digital masters (sounds great to me though). The KG@ATM one is the one you want as that is apparently the last AAA version. The @CA ones switched to a digital master because I think the tapes were too messed up to cut from again. I believe there were some color variants in the past few years that also used the ATM master.

It's hard to know which is ATM and which is CA because I believe the barcode is the same. So places advertise one but you end up with the other.

I have that KG @ ATM on side A and SH @ ATM on side B, got it right back around 2013/2014 when I first started collecting. It’s a magnificent sounding record. As are my Rhino copies of Astral Weeks and His Band and the Street Choir.