Second batch of reissues (25th Sep 2011)

[VMNP]

Works fine now anyway, order placed!

[payback3000]

OK,

Ordered all three new CD's. I could not find 'My Favourite Flavour' mag to order though? Even a site search came up blank. How do we get hold of this?

Also the images for Cure and Looks are the wrong way around -- oe the Cure LP shows the cover for Looks.

[Ohm]

Hi all,

Just a quick note - there is going to be a slight delay with these, a couple of issues with the mastering. Not the audio, as such, it's the ruddy seamless segues between tracks, they're giving my mastering guy all sorts of problems! But I think we're just about there. Many apologies, but they're now extremely imminent.

The cover shots on the website has been sorted out today I'm told.

Ta,

R

[Ohm]

ps - also, apologies in advance for all the slightly shaky edits, clicky samples and heavy breathing in the original material these new remasters expose ! Tempted to run a competition....

[andym]

No that is excellent, Ohm. Getting a bit older and being able to afford better HiFi equipment has always made listening to bands like PWEI interesting... You can listen to the albums you thought you knew inside out and hear new things in the layers of sounds and samples.

Knowing how many 'remasters' these days are not really any better than the original releases (just louder!), I (and I am sure others) would be interested to know a little bit about what a good remastering involves and the process you guys have been through on these RCA albums in particular.

[jason]

[andym]

Well thats what I was aking really Jas, we've all probably seen those classic album documentries where the producer or whoever is discussing the making of a record and fading up and down different instruments in the mix of an album that came out many years ago. It seems unlikely that these individual tracks would still exist for a band such as PWEI (I can tell you are excited by the prospect of 'GarageBand-ing the Poppies!) but RCA's 'master tapes' might exist (meaning the original copy of the mixed and mastered recordings that are used for pressing to Vinyl or CD). That said, it is amazing what people unearth from the archives to sell, for example, the 20th anniversary boxset version of Nirvana's Nevermind album contains in its extras a different mix of the album from the version that was released - it amazes me that record companies keep all this stuff 'just in case'.

I was just interested really, I'm sure there is a lot of info on the internet on the subject but as Ohm is working in the field, he would be a good person to ask I suppose.

[pedro]

As previously stated, The Cult box set is amazing as is the Manor sessions of Electric which is whole album with a different producer and a very different sound.

[Ohm]

The whole remastering thing is quite a mixed bag on these releases, they're from so many varied sources, DATs, cassettes, 1/4" tapes, vinyl (on the BF/NFAF), CDs that the main agenda is really to make them all sit together as one 'listening experience' (man). The albums are all 'remastered' from digital sources and copies, as opposed to from the original 1/2" tapes, so they're not quite as pure as some reissues. The PWEI masters archive is a bit of a mess, and there are so many different edits and versions, so the decision was made not to get EVERY tape and go through being sure to find the final, used master. Unofurtunately they don't quite warrant that amount of time and expense. But the previously unreleased stuff is all taken from analogue master tapes (hence some of the dogy edits!) and, in a couple of cases, from DATs. EG, the PWEI-zation and 92F 12" mixes only seem to exist on one DAT. There are also loads of DATs containing acapellas, very slight 'alternate' mixes (eg Vox up, vox down, bass up/down etc, which is fairly standard practise) but, again, they don't really warrant inclusion, not sure my boss would have gone for triple CDs.

The other question, about being able to extract single tracks from masters, no you can't, you'd need the original multitrack tapes to do that. Master tapes are finished, mixed versions, ready to be released. You can sort of isolate some elements from masters, but not precisely, in a way they could be remixed or played with.

Right, there endeth the lesson. x

[Ohm]

Oh, I should also mention that the digital releases of this will be deal with by Sony, not Cherry Red. Some contractual niggle, I think they're looking to get something out of the PWEI revival. Suprised really that they let us do the physical releases in retrospect. Who knows. They're after money for nothing I guess. They certainly won't be paying me for the hours spent trawling their archives!