Respuesta: Rolling Stones Circus
El otro día estuve en casa de un amigo, y tenía la nueva remasterización de
Sticky Fingers (2009). La estuvimos escuchando y me sorprendió para mal.
Al igual que defiendo los discos de ABKCO, que hizo un trabajo excelente tanto en CD como en SACD a la hora de tratar las cintas originales, si ésto que escuché el otro día es la tónica general de las nuevas remasterizaciones de UMG, me quedó con los CDs que EMI (a través de su filial Virgin) sacó al mercado en 1994. Así que atención a la hora de adquirir el catálogo de los Stones.
Dejo aquí tres intervenciones de compradores en
amazon que tampoco parecían muy satisfechos:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Music 5, Re-master 0, May 22, 2009
By
DibbityDib (Lancaster, SC) -
See all my reviews
I don't know why the previous posters are impressed with this re-master. Sticky Fingers is my personal favorite Stones album, and if you don't have it, get it, but I recommend you seek out the 1994 re-master on Virgin Records. This re-master distributed by UMD has compressed the top end, probably to hide tape hiss, and boosted the instruments up louder to near distortion levels. On headphones certain higher pitched sounds like the piano on Moonlight Mile are eardrum piercing, and the organ solo on I Got the Blues is particularly horrid sounding on headphones or open speakers. On open speakers, the overall poor quality is even more apparent. While certain sounds, particularly opening guitar riffs, stand out more than before, once the entire band kicks in, the compression leads to a dull thuddy sound, particularly in the drums. The one song that overall sounds better than before is ironically my least favorite - Sister Morphine. It now has a menacing quality that has been missing from previous CD masters, but it opens with a clumsy fade-in on the guitar, again probably to mask tape hiss. Perhaps the most disappointing part of this re-master is that one of my favorite moments in this album - the sudden surprising swell of strings near the end of Sway - is completely buried now.
Some have complained about a high end "harshness" to the Virgin re-masters but to me those are more open and crisp. If that's your taste, that's what you want. If you prefer a more bassy limited sound, you might prefer the new re-masters. As for me I will stick with what I have and not purchase any more UMD re-masters.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Loudness War Victim, July 5, 2009
By
Rod Stone (Los Angeles, CA USA) -
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Why the Stones felt the need to compress these new remasters to make them so much louder is beyond me. This CD has a dynamic range of about 8db. Everything has been compressed to make the average volume louder. Try the new Rod Stewart remasters of A Night on the Town and Atlantic Crossing, which were not compressed to increase the volume, to see what might have been with these new Stones remasterings. I actually like the EQ choices Stephen Marcussen made in the remastering of this and the other Stones remasters, but the lack of dynamic range and compression ruin it. No bonus tracks and a loudness war remastering make this one a loser for me. Stick with the Ludwig remasters from '94 or the original CBS/Columbia CDs (the latter of which are unfairly maligned IMHO). Let's not reward this type of remastering.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Re-mastering is crap, October 5, 2009
By
G. Fazio "Makyo" (Tokyo, Japan) -
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I have to agree with the other comments about the re-mastering here. I was quite surprised how hot it sounded. "Wild Horses" in particular, sounded like it was distorting at times. I checked my levels, and it wasn't my gear, so just out of curiousity, I opened the file in Logic to see what the waveform looked like. I knew without checking that it must have been a recent digital re-master, because it's hot as all hell, and clipping significantly on the choruses. Made me realise that for old 60s/70s music, I should really be looking for the 80s/90s cd versions I guess, or analogue. Really kind of sad, given that the 70s were so obsessed with recording quality, that all that love and care is being lost just for loudness, which you can get by turning up your amp or iPod anyway. Really don't get it... I thought the "loudness war" was limited to recent releases, quite saddened to see it's even being applied to re-masters of old music.