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Way back when, I never heard of "The World We Knew" which I know now from Sinatra, and "Ponteio", the Edu Lobo song was a surprise, not to mention "A Banda".
Readers Digest Released a lot of Those Easy Listening instrumental collections back in the day my parents had a few and I did too a couple standouts I remember were "Pop piano favorites" Popular music that will Live forever" thankfully I saved all the standout songs to tape and later digitized it I also own a more recent 10 CD set which I had to purchase separately called " The Most Beautiful Melodies of the Century" a series of compilations which I heard many songs played on Music Choice back in the Late 90s early 2000s and they might have had some Radio or online radio play albeit in a limited wayThe late Johnny Gibbs & Orchestra also covered the instrumental "The World We Knew" (from 1972 "Sweet With A Beat" 6 record set from Readers Digest). Heard that version back then on "Beautiful 102" WGER (102.5 FM) in Saginaw, Michigan during the late 70's!!
CBS sent me a catalog and invited me to pick a baker's dozen of titles that I would like to do on vinyl. So I picked lots of neat stuff like Abraxas, Joni Mitchell, Ten Years After, Earth Wind and Fire and so on, and ordered the records for tech review. I sent the list of my choices back and they sent me records but I never heard from them again. Several months later I was cruising a record store and I see this glitzy rack with the 13 titles I had picked. It said, "CBS Master Sound - Audiophile Pressing - Half Speed Mastered." Boy, was I pissed. I bought one of each and went back to the lab. After I cooled down I called Gary to see if he could do some listening with me.
Thirty seconds after dropping the needle on the first disc we stopped and looked at each other in horror. Then we tried another of the CBS discs. We stopped that one, looked at each other, and laughed till we had tears in our eyes and cramps in our sides. CBS tried to do an end run on us by having us do the A&R work. The problem was that they, apparently, cut the discs at half speed but didn't adjust their EQ or Dolby systems down an octave. They just cut it at half speed with their real time mastering notes for processing. Man, it sounded like watermelon seeds shooting out the speakers. Those poor guys looked real bad after that and we looked real good. They never did get it right and eventually stopped trying.
Could the reason be that ABC tossed the masters back in the 70’s, so the only available masters are the 1970’s vinyl masters? I also see on Wikipedia that in 1999 plans for a DTS 5.1 remix were scrapped because the multi-tracks for the title song and “Black Cow” had gone missing around 1979. Aja Album (bottom yellow section last paragraph).Haven't really played Aja all the way through in a while...
I still would like to get the correct early ABC pressing if this record or if not, the Cisco vinyl remaster from several years back which was supposedly a keeper. There still isn't an ideal digital version. Then again, it could be another set of masters lost at the Universal BBQ. It's dying for a really good vinyl and SACD mastering; there was an import SACD but that one doesn't sound right.
The worst vinyl version I've owned is the Mobile Fidelity. I don't know why, but that record has a really strange tonal balance. If I didn't know better, it seems similar to how those earlier Columbia Mastersound half-speed LPs sounded--when Columbia did the mastering at 16⅔ RPM, they neglected to cut the suggested frequencies of the EQ settings in half, so those all had a really weird tonal balance. I guess the guys at MoFi heard these and laughed at the error...yet to me it sounds like they made the same error with this record.
This was written in an interview with Gregg Schnitzer, who served as Director of Product Development at Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs from 1980 to 1986.
I had a Crusaders Lp in that platinum series "Free as the wind" Great Album but it sounded a bit flat but to my ears the CD version was much better to me it appears MCA didnt seem to put a lot of effort into making some of their vinyl reissues sound as best as possible in my opinion with a few exceptions the again maybe it's just me being pickyThe MCA versions in the "Platinum Series" (or whatever it was called--the covers had an embossed stamp) were not good. Any of those I bought brand new were noisy and also a bit dull. I can't remember if it's the "AA" or "AB" matrix in the pressing number that marks the good one. I had bought a supposed "best" ABC version but like most others I've bought in recent years, it was too worn to be of any use to me. I don't understand how the seller never heard it.