| Author |
|
crapfromthepast
MusicFan
Joined: 14 September 2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2240
|
| Posted: 04 June 2009 at 2:31pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
This may be of use to those with a fondness for CD compilations and an ear toward finding the best sound quality on them.
I'm compiling a gigantic music library in hard-drive form from my CDs. I've already done the legwork of hunting down the best-sounding hit versions I can find for each track. And by "can find" I mean "already have in my huge collection of compilations and my modest collection of single-artist CDs". So I thought I'd share a portion of the results, in case you want to mimic my library.
In some cases, the "hit" version I chose wasn't the true 45, like "Good Girls Don't" or "Knock On Wood". Basically, it boiled down to the best-sounding version of what I would play on the air today.
What I'm going to list is the compilations that have the most number of "best-sounding" top 40 hits on them. In other words, if you want to bulk up on the best-sounding hits quickly, buy these. They're listed in descending order of number-of-best-sounding-hit-versions-of-top-40-hits on them. These are all the CDs that have the best-sounding versions of three or more top 40 hits from 1979.
Have A Nice Day Vol. 22 (Rhino R2 71202, 1993, 7 tracks)- Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman - Stumblin' In
- John Stewart - Gold
- Hot Chocolate - Every 1's A Winner
- Rex Smith - You Take My Breath Away
- Sniff 'n' the Tears - Driver's Seat
- Nigel Olsson - Dancin' Shoes
- Ian Gomm - Hold On
Radio Daze - Pop Hits Of The '80s, Vol. 1 (Rhino R2 71890, 1995, 6 tracks)- Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Pina Colada Song)
- J.D. Souther - You're Only Lonely
- Michael Johnson - This Night Won't Last Forever
- Lauren Wood - Please Don't Leave
- Moon Martin - Rolene
- Melissa Manchester - Pretty Girls
Singers And Songwriters - 1978-1979 (Time-Life R812-05, 2000, 6 tracks)- The Doobie Brothers - What A Fool Believes
- Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing
- Randy Vanwarmer - Just When I Needed You Most
- Linda Ronstadt - Ooh Baby Baby
- Nicolette Larson - Lotta Love
- Poco - Crazy Love
Solid Gold Soul - 1979 (Time-Life R838-15, 1997, 6 tracks)- Donna Summer - Bad Girls
- Anita Ward - Ring My Bell
- Sister Sledge - We Are Family
- G.Q. - Disco Nights (Rock-Freak)
- Bell and James - Livin' It Up (Friday Night)
- Ashford and Simpson - Found A Cure
Sounds Of The Seventies - '70s Dance Party 1979-1981 (Time-Life R840-09, 1997, 6 tracks)- Donna Summer - Dim All The Lights
- David Naughton - Makin' It
- Cher - Take Me Home
- Sister Sledge - He's The Greatest Dancer
- Bonnie Pointer - Heaven Must Have Sent You
- Cheryl Lynn - Got To Be Real
Guitar Rock - The Late '70s (Time Life R968-14, 1995, 5 tracks)- The Knack - Good Girls Don't
- Foreigner - Dirty White Boy
- Cheap Trick - Dream Police
- Boston - A Man I'll Never Be
- Blackfoot - Train Train
Have A Nice Day Vol. 25 (Rhino R2 72299, 1996, 5 tracks)- Maxine Nightingale - Lead Me On
- Orleans - Love Takes Time
- Ace Frehley - New York Groove
- Roger Voudouris - Get Used To It
- Rockets - Oh Well
Didn't It Blow Your Mind, Vol. 20 (Rhino R2 72130, 1995, 5 tracks)- Peaches and Herb - Reunited
- Bobby Caldwell - What You Won't Do For Love
- Raydio - You Can't Change That
- G.Q. - I Do Love You
- Evelyn "Champagne" King - I Don't Know If It's Right
Tales From The Brothers Gibb - A History In Song 1967-1990 (Polydor 843 914-2, 1990, 3 tracks)- Bee Gees - Too Much Heaven
- Bee Gees - Tragedy
- Bee Gees - Love You Inside Out
Sounds Of The Seventies - '70s Dance Party 1978-1979 (Time-Life R840-08, 1997, 3 tracks)- Amii Stewart - Knock On Wood
- Peaches and Herb - Shake Your Groove Thing
- McFadden and Whitehead - Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now
Guitar Rock - The Late '70s: Take Two (Time Life R968-17, 1995, 3 tracks)- Bad Company - Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy
- April Wine - Roller
- Cheap Trick - Ain't That A Shame (Live)
AM Gold - 1979 (Time Life AM1-26, 1997, 3 tracks)- Toto - Hold The Line
- Little River Band - Lonesome Loser
- Leif Garrett - I Was Made For Dancin'
The above 12 CDs (one of them being in a box set) get you the best-sounding versions of 58 top 40 hits from 1979. Pretty sweet, eh? If there's sufficient interest, I'll try to post the same for other years.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Roscoe
MusicFan
Joined: 18 July 2005
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 333
|
| Posted: 04 June 2009 at 7:51pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Good list for high quality versions of these songs! I own most of the CDs on your list and I agree that they all sound good. I'm sure there are a few cases where slightly better sounding versions can be found on other CDs, but you really can't go wrong with the discs on your list.
The only frustrating cases for me are the following:
GQ - "Disco Nights": Only one CD (the Mega Hits Dance Classics) has the correct 45 version but the mastering is terrible...incorrect speed, highly compressed and bad eq. This one needs a proper CD release of the correct 45 version.
Amii Stewart - "Knock On Wood": It sounds fine on the CD you listed, but this is one where I prefer the 45 version by a mile (gotta have that sound effect intro). Unfortunately, the only 2 CDs with the 45 version are needledrops and too maximized. I finally stitched together a recreation of the 45 using needledrops of the 45 for the intro and the 12" for the rest, and it turned out quite nice.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Roscoe
MusicFan
Joined: 18 July 2005
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 333
|
| Posted: 04 June 2009 at 7:59pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Another observation about your list: It appears that you have a preference for the work of Bill Inglot, who had a hand in mastering most of the discs on your list. Inglot's mastering gets a bad rap in audiophile circles, but I think his work on many of the Rhino and Time-Life comps from the early 90s was quite good.
Eq may be a little too bright for some people's taste, but it usually worked well on the 70s and 80s material. Not to mention the fact that he often found the best possible tape sources.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
crapfromthepast
MusicFan
Joined: 14 September 2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2240
|
| Posted: 04 June 2009 at 8:18pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Roscoe wrote:
Another observation about your list: It appears that you have a preference for the work of Bill Inglot, who had a hand in mastering most of the discs on your list. Inglot's mastering gets a bad rap in audiophile circles, but I think his work on many of the Rhino and Time-Life comps from the early 90s was quite good.
Eq may be a little too bright for some people's taste, but it usually worked well on the 70s and 80s material. Not to mention the fact that he often found the best possible tape sources. |
|
|
Very true all the way around, although I know many on the stevehoffman.tv mastering forum that really like his work. I'm a fan as well.
For the pop songs that we routinely deal with on this board, I think Bill Inglot has a knack for finding the best tape sources, and then doesn't use any additional compression or limiting. To my ears, that's the secret of good mastering. His EQ choices are a little treble-heavy, compared to some other mastering engineers, but I like it.
For the disco tunes that were all over the charts in 1979, the Disco Years compilations were head and shoulders above any of the competition, before or since. Some of the Time-Life collections I listed have differently-EQ'd digital clones of Bill Inglot's Rhino mastering, and those Time-Life collections tend to blunt out the high EQ just a little bit.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
EdisonLite
MusicFan
Joined: 18 October 2004
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2237
|
| Posted: 05 June 2009 at 7:37am | IP Logged
|
|
|
CrapFromThePast, when you say you've picked the ones with "best sound quality", what characteristics make the best sound quality to you? Brightest? dullest? loudest (most compressed)? No compression whatsoever? midrange boosted a lot while treble is sacrificed (ala the Dan Hersch mastered CDs on Varese & Rhino)?
I know generally I look for the brightest and go with that. It's very rare that I have to turn the treble DOWN while listening to a CD -because to me most engineers get it right (like Bill Inglot) or pretty much leave the sound untouched (and often muddy), thus needing me to boost the treble.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
crapfromthepast
MusicFan
Joined: 14 September 2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2240
|
| Posted: 05 June 2009 at 8:10am | IP Logged
|
|
|
EdisonLite wrote:
| CrapFromThePast, when you say you've picked the ones with "best sound quality", what characteristics make the best sound quality to you? Brightest? dullest? loudest (most compressed)? No compression whatsoever? midrange boosted a lot while treble is sacrificed (ala the Dan Hersch mastered CDs on Varese & Rhino)? |
|
|
Basically, I'm looking for the most accurate representation of what the engineer heard in his monitors when he was doing the two-track mixdown (or one-track for mono).
There are things that immediately rub me the wrong way:
(1) Additional compression/limiting/maximization at the mastering stage. If you look at the waveform and all the peaks hit the same level, then some kind of compression and/or limiting was applied. Or, it was just mastered too loud and clips. This is inexcusable for older pop, although inevitable for most pop produced since the mid-'90s. Ultimately, your ears should be the final judge, and my ears tend to react badly to this.
(2) Bad EQ. This can be the so-called "smiley-face", with an excessive boost in bass and treble, or just dull-sounding and lifeless. I've heard both extremes on some of the off-brand compilations. With a respected mastering engineer (Bill Inglot, Dennis Drake, Doug Sax, Steve Hoffman, Vic Anesini, Mark Wilder, Barry Diament, ...), the EQ is usually pretty reasonable.
(3) High-generation source tapes. This is a little trickier to detect, unless you're doing comparisons among different CDs. Just like the cassette dubs from your childhood (OK, from MY childhood...), an analog dub never sounds as good as the original source. The lower generation tape sounds more clear, has better definition and has finer detail - I realize that these are pretty nebulous terms, but it's like you're unveiling the music when you use a lower generation source tape.
There are other factors that are sometimes secondary to me, like noise reduction (CEDAR, No-Noise). Some hate it at all costs, and prefer higher-generation source tapes to lower-generation source tapes used with noise reduction. I'm on the fence, and I need to hear it on a case-by-case basis.
For instance, the Queen greatest hits CDs on Hollywood are de-noised, which can suck a little of the "breath of life" out of them. It shows up as a lack of air around the cymbals and high frequencies. Actually, I prefer the Hollywood GH to the import EMI GH collections, which aren't de-noised but use higher-generation source tapes. That's just me. I know the mastering engineers I listed above tend to avoid de-noising software.
Hope that answers your question.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SoCalDrew
MusicFan
Joined: 14 July 2007
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 32
|
| Posted: 05 June 2009 at 12:36pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
crapfromthepast wrote:
| Pretty sweet, eh? If there's sufficient interest, I'll try to post the same for other years. |
|
|
Yeah! Can I put in a request for 1976 next?
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
EdisonLite
MusicFan
Joined: 18 October 2004
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2237
|
| Posted: 06 June 2009 at 9:08am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Yeah, that answers the question. And that's a fair way to judge the CDs.
And btw, I think I have a stronger dislike for Denoised CDs.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
Active Topics 
Memberlist 
Search 
Help
Register 
Login
Top 40 Music on Compact Disc : Chat Board
Topic: Collecting 1979
