― Justyn Dillingham, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
But RJ - no. Not yet, anyway. Leaves me cold. My guess is that because his stuff pretty much became the founding template for how the blues element of classic rock worked, and because I don't much like the blues element of classic rock, RJ has been retro-infected with that dislike too. In the same way that my dislike of "Hey Jude" and my dislike of "Hey Jude" Beatleballad 90s rip-offs feed back into one another so that both increase.
― Tom, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Robert Johnson is great & I think he's pretty accessible to the casual blues listener. The Complete Recordings box set contains all of his recordings, and it's cheap - but I find it a bit unlistenable because the alternate versions of the songs are paired next to each other - so you have to listen to each song twice. (Just like the VU box set Disc 1, where All Tomorrow's Parties and Venus in Furs go on forever.)
― Dave225, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― JM, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Helen Fordsdale, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Asking whether RJ is relevant or interesting as blues to the average listener seems a bit like asking whether or not Beethoven is relevant as a classical artist to the average listener. I guess I can't fathom anyone who claim to have no bias against either genre would say that they dislike either artist.
― Mickey Black Eyes, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I guess my point was, are we approaching this as, if you're a beginner, don't listen because you won't get the nuances that made him great, all you'll hear is stereotype or uninspired meandering--or are we saying, intrinsically, we believe RJ is no good, and if you're a beginner, don't bother listening to this because, unless you're a blues afficionado who cares about pointless details, RJ sucks and really is just built out of hype, a la Pet Sounds to many popsters.
As a side note, per classical, I don't mean contemporary art music, so I'm not including composers, great as they may be, who are living or lived into the 20th/21st century.
Or rather "Is the mainstream of Blues music-making and tradition good?" I suppose.
I still maintain that it's an odd question, though, considering how canonical RJ's work is. I mean, if you didn't pick him, among a few others, who would you pick for a beginner? It's like not picking the Beatles if you wanted to initiate a novice into pop music. Sure, you may not like it, but it's undisputable that they are essential as a primer.
Because we're dealing with an "average intelligent listener" with no bias, one way or another, we can safely assume that he or she will either like or dislike RJ, but not necessarily that the opinion is automatically one way or another, since there are people on both sides of the fence. The question, then, is "Is RJ's work of enough substance, is there enough meat there, so that one can extract something to decide a valence on?"
And I think that question is moot considering how valued RJ is. While I find it odd that many people wouldn't like RJ and would like the blues, I don't think it's impossible. I would find it much more difficult to swallow if someone suggested that he was disposable/irrelevant, however. And I think that's what I would wnat to know as a tyro in search of blues clues.
― mark s, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Robert Johnson almost certainly not the best way into 'the blues', or even acoustic country blues - the tortured satanic whatsits that Marcus blahs on abt in 'Mystery Train' are not always easy to hear NOW, 70 odd years after the fact. Also, Johnson cld, even on record, be surprisingly jaunty and straight-forward - 'Red Hot', for example, is little more than a (great) food-related novelty song. I'd say Johnson's songs are best listened to sparingly, not more than one track at a time, or even on a mixtape where his strange, ghostly voice/playing may be thrown into greater relief. A basic knowledge of Johnson's (near) contemporaries - Son House, Skip James, Charley Patton etc. - wld also help the 'novice' to put RJ's work into some kind of context.
― Andrew L, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 15 August 2003 18:00 (twenty years ago) link
why wd people expect to like r.j. if they don't like blues? it's not like he's apart from the genre.
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 18:06 (twenty years ago) link
*actually i don't remember any but it's been a while so i'll give g.m. the benefit of the doubt.
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 18:12 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 15 August 2003 18:15 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:07 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:14 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:20 (twenty years ago) link
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:57 (twenty years ago) link
$25!!!
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:58 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:06 (twenty years ago) link
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:08 (twenty years ago) link
yeah, the jsp boxes are k-ugly. but cheap!!
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:09 (twenty years ago) link
because everyone talks about him as if you WOULD like him even if you didn't like blues!!
i really like robert johnson now, though i didn't when i started this thread.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 16 August 2003 12:05 (twenty years ago) link
that's silly talk.
― amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, 16 August 2003 17:28 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 16 August 2003 18:04 (twenty years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Saturday, 16 August 2003 18:15 (twenty years ago) link
do you mean you'd never put him on your home stereo but you'd enjoy him on someone else's?
(otherwise...trying to figure out why someone would listen to music except for pleasure...)
― amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, 16 August 2003 18:43 (twenty years ago) link
(since i like pretty much everything ever it isn't usually a problem)
― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 August 2003 18:48 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Saturday, 16 August 2003 18:56 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 16 August 2003 21:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Saturday, 16 August 2003 22:49 (twenty years ago) link
sigh.
― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 17 August 2003 01:40 (twenty years ago) link
― m.s (m .s), Sunday, 17 August 2003 02:08 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 17 August 2003 04:14 (twenty years ago) link
FYI: A third photo of Robert Johnson has been discovered.
scroll to bottom of page: http://www.robertjohnsonbluesfoundation.org/
― ImprovSpirit, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 19:16 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, there was a story in vanity fair (I think) about that pic a little while ago? they've definitely proved it's him?
― tylerw, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 19:37 (thirteen years ago) link
think this is another grail artifact for boomers/cream fans more than anything.that site is very um...blueshammer. anybody heard steven 't bear' johnson?
― kumar the bavarian, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 19:50 (thirteen years ago) link
I have not heard him, but just his appearance is enough to keep him on my must-miss list until further notice.
― ImprovSpirit, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 21:22 (thirteen years ago) link
I would stay away from the Complete Recordings. Better fidelity can be found on The King of The Delta Blues Singers remastered from 1998 and Vol 2 from 2004. Also you gain the newly found take on Traveling Riverside Blues. It was found in the Smithsonian. Going this route also gets rid of the problem of having back to back takes to listen to, which I find quite annoying.
― Jim, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 20:16 (thirteen years ago) link
listening to robert johnson recordings sped up a bit was kind of heartbreaking
― a dystopian society awaits if we continue on this path. (contenderizer), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 20:41 (thirteen years ago) link
why?
― tylerw, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 20:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Also another major project that was pitch corrected for a box set in the '00s - Charlie Parker's Savoy and Dial recordings. Those date from the '40s whereas Johnson's came from the '30s and those Armstrong records came from the '20s. I only point that out just to emphasize how it's the format, not age, that's a factor.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 6 April 2023 21:33 (one year ago) link
Great posts, bitw!
― Beatles in My Passway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 6 April 2023 21:43 (one year ago) link
For a split second I thought I was in some one thread reading about Ray and Dave Davies.
― Beatles in My Passway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 6 April 2023 21:44 (one year ago) link
“Some things are best left unsolved”
― calstars, Thursday, 6 April 2023 21:50 (one year ago) link
“The solo on “You Really Got Me” was actually recorded 20% slower and then sped up.”
― Beatles in My Passway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 6 April 2023 21:52 (one year ago) link
“‘Tired of Waiting for You’” was actually recorded by Ray using his Howlin’ Wolf voice.
― Beatles in My Passway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 6 April 2023 21:55 (one year ago) link
LOL
Imagine an interviewer meeting Davies and hearing something like Burnett's voice coming out of his mouth. "Oh yeah, we always speed up my vocal track for our records! Didn't you know?"
― birdistheword, Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:00 (one year ago) link
xxpost Yeah, great posts, thanks bird--reminds me, that Down Beat used to/may still run ads for a tape recorder, with a slider, I think, so you could copy something you wanted to learn, and adjust the pitch accordingly, just to whatever increment sounded right to you---also, I've still got a solid state portable stereo from the late 60s (though now it groaaans when I play it), with 16-33/13-45-78 speeds, which used to be fairly common. Jerry Garcia told an interviewer about learning old-timey and bluegrass: he would turn the record speed down 'til the banjo sounded like bells.
― dow, Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:19 (one year ago) link
that is, such a record player used to be fairly common.
― dow, Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:21 (one year ago) link
I want one
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:23 (one year ago) link
lol wait this is just a fancy name for pitch control!
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:24 (one year ago) link
but for 78s you'd need something special
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:25 (one year ago) link
fascinating
The first item you will need is a suitable turntable with variable speed. This is because so many 78s were not recorded at exactly 78rpm: speeds of between 72 and 85 rpm are quite common, with a few higher or lower. Probably the cheapest option is a second-hand variable-speed Goldring-Lenco unit, one of the ‘GL’ series. They are still easy to find and relatively cheap. They always benefit from some basic maintenance, which will include a new idler wheel. (see end for details of suppliers). The biggest problem with the Goldrings is the incidence of rumble. That new idler wheel will help, as will removing, cleaning and re-greasing the main bearing. If you cannot tackle this yourself, many specialist hi-fi shops can do it for you. Other turntables types include the STD, which has a useful digital read-out, but which can be a nightmare to repair, since spares are hard to find. Many other types can be found that will play 78s, but not usually with the required speed variation. Garrard 301/401 as they stand only have something like a 3% variation, although can at some expense be modified by Loricraft to give very wide speed control. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the Goldring and STD turntables are capable of almost infinite speed variation up to 90 rpm and are thus ideal if you play Pathé discs.
https://www.therecordcollector.org/articles/aguidetoplaying7.html
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Thursday, 6 April 2023 22:26 (one year ago) link
how would you know if you were at the right RPM, just judgment by ear mostly and get as close as makes sense? or would there be a way to figure it out
― Trout Fishing in America (Neanderthal), Thursday, 6 April 2023 23:00 (one year ago) link
I think that's why they use the sheet music as a reference?
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Thursday, 6 April 2023 23:01 (one year ago) link
ahhh makes sense
― Trout Fishing in America (Neanderthal), Thursday, 6 April 2023 23:04 (one year ago) link
Remastered, mint test pressings. This is the best he's ever sounded, to my ears. You can buy a CD or download high-quality FLACs.https://www.pristineclassical.com/products/pabl010
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 17:38 (two months ago) link
That's just a 10-song sampling. The same label also has the rest of his works here, but I didn't download these because I don't think they're from the same sources. https://www.pristineclassical.com/collections/artist-robert-johnson/products/pabl001https://www.pristineclassical.com/collections/artist-robert-johnson/products/pabl002
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 17:42 (two months ago) link
lol almost sounds too good tbh
― tylerw, Friday, 23 February 2024 17:48 (two months ago) link
oh man this sounds tremendous. I bought the LP everybody had when I was young & then had the complete on tape, the one that came out in the 90s, like a lot of people I spent a whole lotta time with those. Love hearing the noise cleaned up, it's just great -- you can hear the quality of his singing so much better
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:18 (two months ago) link
There's actually a lot of debate about these remasters among audiophiles. Someone in this forum writes that "anything that reverse engineers is fabricated and thus not the original recording anymore. It is a synthetic re-creation based on elements of the original recording."
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/pristine-audios-robert-johnson-transfers-of-test-pressings-made-from-original-metal-parts.1014579/
However they were achieved, I just found these versions to sound so dramatically different that it was worth mentioning.
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:39 (two months ago) link
always enjoy a furrowed-brow debate about what the most authentic reproduction of a reproduction is
― wang mang band (Noodle Vague), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:42 (two months ago) link
For me, the difference between the 1990s box set and the "Centennial Collection" 2CD set that came out in 2011 was huge, and frankly good enough. Listening to the samples on the website was a little uncanny; I didn't believe what I was hearing.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:42 (two months ago) link
Pristine Classical has a good reputation in the classical community for their remastering.
― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:43 (two months ago) link
This description puts me off; it's not remastering, it's sonic Photoshop:
XR remastering was developed by Andrew Rose in early 2007 and has been in continual development and refinement ever since. Its aim is to go much further than simply “cleaning up” old recordings, using cutting edge technology and innovative, proven techniques to get as close as possible to the original sound heard in the concert hall or recording studio before it was corrupted by early recording equipment.It starts with what has been termed elsewhere “tonal balancing”. Most of the microphones used to make historic recordings (and even more so the horns used in acoustic recordings) had very uneven frequency responses. We use advanced computer analysis of the tonal content of these recordings to “reverse engineer” and counter the impact of those tonal distortions. This results in a much more natural and realistic sounding recording, limited only by the other constraints of the original source (frequency range, noise levels etc.).But this is just the beginning. We were the first to release recordings where wow and flutter – the inconsistencies of pitch common to all analogue playback systems, but particularly prevalent in older recordings – had been fixed using a ground-breaking German computer solution called “Capstan”. Its pricing means we remain one of the few companies working in this field to use it and its impact, particularly in piano music, can be immense.Another innovation has been the use of a technique called convolution reverberation. A large number of older recordings were made in especially “dry” acoustics to combat the noisy, low-quality reproduction systems of the time. Yet we hear music in concert halls specially designed for acoustics that complement and enhance the sound of the musicians playing there. Convolution (a complex mathematical procedure) allows us to effectively “place” our recordings in some of the finest acoustic spaces in the world – renowned concert halls, opera houses, churches and cathedrals. When sensitively and delicately applied this can add an extra dimension and sense of sonic reality to even the oldest recordings. It’s a far cry from using echo or digital reverberation to try and hide problems in recordings!There are many other steps involved in making an XR recording – it soon gets very complex, and it takes a lot of painstaking work to produce each of our releases. Over the years XR remastering has become increasingly recognised as producing some of the finest audio restorations around.
It starts with what has been termed elsewhere “tonal balancing”. Most of the microphones used to make historic recordings (and even more so the horns used in acoustic recordings) had very uneven frequency responses. We use advanced computer analysis of the tonal content of these recordings to “reverse engineer” and counter the impact of those tonal distortions. This results in a much more natural and realistic sounding recording, limited only by the other constraints of the original source (frequency range, noise levels etc.).
But this is just the beginning. We were the first to release recordings where wow and flutter – the inconsistencies of pitch common to all analogue playback systems, but particularly prevalent in older recordings – had been fixed using a ground-breaking German computer solution called “Capstan”. Its pricing means we remain one of the few companies working in this field to use it and its impact, particularly in piano music, can be immense.
Another innovation has been the use of a technique called convolution reverberation. A large number of older recordings were made in especially “dry” acoustics to combat the noisy, low-quality reproduction systems of the time. Yet we hear music in concert halls specially designed for acoustics that complement and enhance the sound of the musicians playing there. Convolution (a complex mathematical procedure) allows us to effectively “place” our recordings in some of the finest acoustic spaces in the world – renowned concert halls, opera houses, churches and cathedrals. When sensitively and delicately applied this can add an extra dimension and sense of sonic reality to even the oldest recordings. It’s a far cry from using echo or digital reverberation to try and hide problems in recordings!
There are many other steps involved in making an XR recording – it soon gets very complex, and it takes a lot of painstaking work to produce each of our releases. Over the years XR remastering has become increasingly recognised as producing some of the finest audio restorations around.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:46 (two months ago) link
yeah but the older recordings are, to borrow your metaphor, pictures taken with cheap cameras under suboptimal lighting. you photoshop that to try to see what the photographer saw.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:52 (two months ago) link
I think the question is whether the ends justify the means. We don't know what Robert Johnson really sounded like in that hotel room, or how the Hot Fives sounded in the Okeh recording studio in Chicago. The primitive recording equipment of the day tried its best to capture it, but could not do it justice. This still sounds pretty natural to me, whether it's been "Photoshopped" or not. It's not like it's fake stereo or some crap like that. I guess what I'm asking is, would Robert Johnson or his producer, Don Law, object to the sound on the Pristine remasters? We'll never know, but I doubt it.
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:10 (two months ago) link
Pfft. This guy is brazenly stealing Robert Parker's whole engineering shtick on vintage material from the same era, right down to his exact reasoning for doing so. Nothing new, nothing revelatory and every bit as dubious as it's always been. To be fair, it's a fun novelty, but in the way, say, Clint Eastwood's Bird tries to re-create a live performance that can only be known on a scratchy 78 recording - there's no shaking the fact that it's at best a simulation and at worst a forgery, which is how it sounds the more you listen to it.
― birdistheword, Friday, 23 February 2024 19:22 (two months ago) link
I think what it boils down to for me is the recording, flaws and all, is the work of art. Nobody now living saw/heard Robert Johnson play live. And modern recording technology didn't exist back then. So you listen to the recordings that they were able to make, to the best of their abilities at the time, and you accept that the content is inextricable from the medium. I think cleaning up the original source material as best you can is not only permissible, it's desirable. But this goes beyond that into what amounts to colorization. You shouldn't colorize black and white movies because the cinematographers knew they were shooting in black and white and they operated accordingly. And you shouldn't add echo and reverb to make it sound like Robert Johnson was performing in a concert hall, when he was sitting in a hotel room, tucked into a corner, facing a single microphone.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:48 (two months ago) link
There's actually a lot of debate about these remasters among audiophiles. Someone in this forum writes that "anything that reverse engineers is fabricated and thus not the original recording anymore. It is a synthetic re-creation based on elements of the original recording."― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo)
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo)
authenticity narratives are super interesting to me. hmmm. let me kinda try to break down my feelings in text.
if something can be argued as being a new creative work, or at least a derivative creative work, my only real concern is whether that work was ethically sourced, if you will. if pristine classical was saying this _wasn't_ robert johnson's work, but their own original work, that would be objectionable (remember when somebody tried to do that with the beatles' records? applied some processing filter to it and claimed it as an 'original work' not subject to the beatles' copyright? very stupid.) if someone stole other peoples' copyrighted creative work and used it to feed a computer program to "enhance" robert johnson's work, that would be objectionable (some people don't find this ethically objectionable, but i do). neither seems to be the case.
so i'm inclined to judge it on its merits. the tradition of duophonic being seen as "fake stereo". my problem with duophonic isn't that it's fake, it's that it's not good sounding stereo. a stereo remix of "good vibrations", including the vocals, is just as "fake", i'd say, but it fucking sounds great.
doing an a/b with the 2011 recording, it sounds different i guess. idk. i'm a lo-fi head. i got an aesthetic preference for stuff that sounds bad. most people prefer things that sound good to things that sound bad, though. legit.
― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:54 (two months ago) link
Pfft. This guy is brazenly stealing Robert Parker's whole engineering shtick on vintage material from the same era, right down to his exact reasoning for doing so.Robert Parker was best known for creating fake, digital stereo reproductions of old mono recordings. Not the same at all.
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:58 (two months ago) link
most people prefer things that sound good to things that sound bad, though.
Yeah, but what's "good" in this case? "I want this mono recording of a dude playing an acoustic guitar in 1937 to have the rich, full soundstage of a Pink Floyd album from 1973" is not "good" to my mind.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:59 (two months ago) link
seems a bit like colorizing a B&W film. would the filmmakers have used color if they could have? i bet in most cases, absolutely. but it still sucks to colorize a B&W film. idk about this at all.
― omar little, Friday, 23 February 2024 20:03 (two months ago) link
Robert Parker was best known for creating fake, digital stereo reproductions of old mono recordings. Not the same at all.
I realize he called his label "Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo" (so logically it would make sense it would be exactly that - fake, digital stereo), but I had the Muggsy Spanier one for a while, and if you read the booklet, it has some notes that could very well be in all of his releases. Basically, the relevant part repeats a lot of what's bolded upthread - people listened to jazz in dance halls and concert halls, where the music reverberated off the walls! They didn't sound "dead" like they do on those old '78s - nobody draped carpets and blankets on the walls like they did in recording studios - so I'm putting back the ambience that you would have rightfully heard if you were there!
I'm sure the methods aren't the same, but that's exactly what they're both arguing for in print and you hear it too - far more than any modest stereo spread, the attempt at making this "live" sound from a dry sounding record is what stands out the most on Parker's CD's.
― birdistheword, Friday, 23 February 2024 20:06 (two months ago) link
"I want this mono recording of a dude playing an acoustic guitar in 1937 to have the rich, full soundstage of a Pink Floyd album from 1973" is not "good" to my mind.I certainly don't think the Pristine release makes Robert Johnson sound anything like that! If they sounded unnatural to me, I wouldn't be interested. You can’t tell me which versions are more “authentic” any more than I can, because none of us were in that room.
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 20:16 (two months ago) link
You shouldn't colorize black and white movies because the cinematographers knew they were shooting in black and white and they operated accordingly. And you shouldn't add echo and reverb to make it sound like Robert Johnson was performing in a concert hall, when he was sitting in a hotel room, tucked into a corner, facing a single microphone.― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson)
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson)
ok, if we're gonna dig into the weeds on this, i'm gonna start talking about doctor who
when they put out the doctor who DVDs, they would do "special editions" with new CGI effects. i think the CGI effects look like shit. i mean they literally replaced a shot of a wobbly hubcap with a CGI spaceship and i kind of prefer the hubcap. do i think they "shouldn't" have done it? well, for one, no, just because i like it doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it. for two, who fucking cares what i think? like what makes me the arbiter of what is and isn't a defacement of _real_ doctor who?
there are _so many_ examples of this from the show's history:
* replacing footage on the program as broadcast with newly created special CGI special effects* colorizing a story originally recorded and broadcast in black and white and editing it to 45 minutes to try and gain a wider audience for that story* manually colorizing an episode originally recorded and broadcast in color, but which no longer exists in color* colorizing a story originally recorded and broadcast in color, using color metadata not visible in the recording, but which is still stored as part of a subcarrier signal* colorizing a story originally recorded and broadcast in color by combining the color signal from a low-quality off-air color recording with the image from a high-quality black and white film print of the story* using computerized techniques on a 25 fps film print of a program originally recorded and broadcast at 50 fps to give it the "look" of a 50 fps broadcast* creating a new animated version of a "missing" story using the existing audio and creating new animated footage to let viewers see how it might have looked upon broadcast * doing the above in black and white * doing the above in colour* replacing a recording by the beatles which appeared in the original soundtrack of a story with another recording, for copyright reasons* cutting part of an episode because it contained a copyrighted performance by the beatles* obscuring part of the audio of an episode because of its use of a highly offensive racial slur* re-creating a few seconds of audio missing from all known recordings of the episode, including a recording of the original broadcast, by splicing together recordings of the actor saying the words in the missing line* re-creating the video of 12 seconds of footage present on the original broadcast, but censored for overseas broadcast, and hence not part of the existing video recording
which of these "shouldn't" the copyright holders of the program have done? which of these are objectionable alterations to the original program?
personally, in every case, i'm in favor of what the people in question (often the erstwhile Restoration Team) did with these recordings. i have _personal aesthetic objections_ to the results of some of this work - some of the animations are pretty bad - but in no case do i think it's justified to say that the alterations to the original recording media _shouldn't_ have been made.
― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 23 February 2024 20:19 (two months ago) link
Wait, what just happened? tl;dr sorry. Nutshell: how does this stack up next to the latest Can reissues?
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 23 February 2024 20:36 (two months ago) link
This whole debate goes way beyond primitive recordings from the 1930s and earlier. You’ll find countless number of rock & roll and R&B tracks from the 1950s and early ’60s on Spotify and Apple Music that sound dramatically different. They’re the same recordings, but one might be mono, the other stereo (or fake stereo). One may have a more solid bass sound, the other tinny. One may sound clear as a bell, the other muddy as the Mississippi. One might sound “dead,” another may have had excessive reverb added.My favorite version of Little Richard’s “Rip it Up,” for example, sounds dead — no echo or reverb whatsoever — but it sounds immediate and slaps like crazy. The dead studio sound is actually pretty common for a lot of New Orleans-style rock & roll and R&B from the ’50s. That version sounds the most natural to me, but the much more common version you’ll find has reverb. Which one is the “right” one? Even the original label, Specialty, has released different-sounding versions. IDK, I just know what I like.
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Friday, 23 February 2024 20:43 (two months ago) link
Did Elijah Wald weigh in yet?
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 23 February 2024 20:45 (two months ago) link
A band is recording an album for my label at the beginning of March, and I'm considering putting out two versions: if you buy the CD (or the digital files from Bandcamp), you'll get stereo, but if you listen to it on a streaming service, it'll be in mono.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Friday, 23 February 2024 20:57 (two months ago) link
Not too sure about this one. It sounds a bit off and overdone to an 'uncanny valley' sort of degree.
It sounds like what it is, an attempt to turn Robert Johnson's recordings into something they are not.They will always sound like they were done in the 1930s, because that is when they were done.The convolution reverb is a strange idea. A musician doesn't perform the same way in a hotel room as a concert hall. I don't think you can just throw some convolution on and be done with it. And not sure if there is a need either.
The original recordings are distorted, sure. But in trying to reverse that, they are merely distorting the recordings a second time.
I actually do think you can say that the original 78 recordings are probably closer to what happened on the day. Think of it this way, the 78s add one layer of distortion, whereas these add a second layer of distortion. I think it is statistically very improbable that the second distortion brings us closer to what Robert Johnson would have sounded like in the room.
Not to come off as too much of a purist, I think the important point for me is that this one doesn't quite come off. I feel like other remasters have done a more tasteful job of cleaning up just the right amount without trying to make the recordings into something they're not.
― mirostones, Saturday, 24 February 2024 01:49 (two months ago) link
A visual accompaniment to these new releases:
https://images.nightcafe.studio/jobs/sRzqqriSclw94h8ynDPV/sRzqqriSclw94h8ynDPV--1--5kczy.jpghttps://images.nightcafe.studio/jobs/qENHSP3bux9JsDCntYGs/qENHSP3bux9JsDCntYGs--1--otozz.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/zMMwiz5.jpeghttps://images.nightcafe.studio/jobs/JEVsJki59SYk7Dd14IJf/JEVsJki59SYk7Dd14IJf--1--kmtbm.jpghttps://cdn.openart.ai/stable_diffusion/af5110c27f02bc5a1e470ebb1bcb4db198554916_2000x2000.webp
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Saturday, 24 February 2024 04:05 (two months ago) link
Need one of RJ & Bonamassa shaking hands.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 24 February 2024 04:08 (two months ago) link
Lol
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 24 February 2024 04:31 (two months ago) link
Dion DiMucci has a big Robert Johnson portrait he painted himself hanging prominently in his living room iirc
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 24 February 2024 04:32 (two months ago) link
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialDion/photos/a.281029604934/403804609934/?type=3
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 24 February 2024 05:02 (two months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUlVCZshZOU
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 24 February 2024 05:03 (two months ago) link
It’s a far cry from using echo or digital reverberation to try and hide problems in recordings!
lol. some things never change.
― budo jeru, Saturday, 24 February 2024 05:05 (two months ago) link
this is an interesting project
thought I would hate it but to me it's ultimately more like Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old than George Lucas' special editions
― corrs unplugged, Monday, 26 February 2024 08:43 (two months ago) link
Those samples sound pretty awful, the noise swells and shapes with the vocal so I feel like I've got sand in my ear and someone's riding the fader to mute the background.
― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 26 February 2024 10:30 (two months ago) link