My homee at Traffic is in the middle of "deluxing" the 1st Mantronix LP. I can't wait for that! The tracked reels don't have any of the effects tho, so it's long process trying to recreate them like they existed on the OG.
My homee at Traffic is in the middle of "deluxing" the 1st Mantronix LP. I can't wait for that! The tracked reels don't have any of the effects tho, so it's long process trying to recreate them like they existed on the OG.
Wow. That sounds cool. If you can, get dude to post here. I'd love to hear about the process!
The two best ones I've seen are Critical Beatdown and Road to the Riches. The four Run DMC ones weren't bad, either.
There is a reissue of Critical Beatdown ?? What are the bonus ?
I just did an interview with Karma and Trevor from Traffic last week. Traffic has a lot more good stuff coming, Goin' Off with Cool V's Tribute To Scratchin remix with the Michael Jackson samples, Biz never Sleeps with the Converse promo 12", Live & Let Die with a never seen before artwork etc...
And they don't really care about uncleared samples since they just put out the original version of Jane Stop That Crazy Thing with the Hanna Barbera sample !
My homee at Traffic is in the middle of "deluxing" the 1st Mantronix LP. I can't wait for that! The tracked reels don't have any of the effects tho, so it's long process trying to recreate them like they existed on the OG.
This brings up a few questions. Were the effects done during the mixing process, or during mastering? I've learned on another board that some mastering engineers got away with adding their little "quirks" during mastering, so if one were to listen to different world pressings of a certain album, each one might be slightly different. Electric Light Orchestra were one example, one of their albums had a song which was mastered slightly different, so you have all of these ELO fans going nuts.
What you did mention though is common with a lot of hip-hop albums recorded in the analog era, especially as studios moved to digital, adapted to the new techniques. Plus, everything wasn't as automated as they are now, whereas a lot of the mixing and editing of albums from the late 80's/early 90's was done "live". PLUS, what you have on those multi-tracks is the result of what was on those samplers, so if it's lo-fi on the tape, it'll always be lo-fi unless you do an updated remix/restructuring of the instrumentals. That's great too, but a lot what made those songs great was the lo-fi 8k vibe, where things were gritty and not too polished. It made a crispy record dirtier. These days, you have mastering engineers doing the whole "brickwall limiting" thing, or worse, mastering engineers who don't know how to mix properly. All they do is raise the peak levels to 99 or 100 percent and think "okay, it's loud enough for me". There's little to no thought about dynamics or preservation of the recording, so if Universal was ever able to clear a number of samples and push on with a series of Deluxe Edition's, it would probably sound like shit. I do hope that as more artists and producers are able to obtain their masters, they will be able to reissue it properly, even if it's to a limited audience.
And speaking of Biz, that double LP version of his debut EP that came out recently was a shocker... I grabbed it a week ago, not yet listened to but I'm looking forward to the live cuts I haven't heard and the poster is great.
I would like to hear a proper mix of Blowout Comb[/b]. I've been playing that a lot in the last few weeks, and half of the time the vocals are mixed quite low compared to everything else. So in this case, it wouldn't be a remaster, but actually going to the existing multi-tracks and doing an all new mix. I remember when they remixed Derek & The Dominoes' Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs[/b], people were pissed because there are many who love the way the original mix was, where guitar or bass may have been mixed to the extreme left or right. The new mix balanced things out to make it sound "modern", but some complained that it was like "playing god". Which in a way, they're right.
I've often talked about this over the years, but considering how The RZA worked, almost like a a Jamaican producer, there are still things in those multi-tracks that have yet to be heard. Has anyone ever heard the complete "Blowin' Up The Spot"? Or mixes of Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Damage" where you can hear the full vocal take from ODB or GZA? Or INS' full verse from 2Pac's "Got My Mind Made Up", and I mean from the track and not the radio freestyle where he dropped the same verse uncensored?
It makes me wish I had connections with some labels so that I could do the ground work, get into the vaults, meet the producers, do the interviews, and get some of these things out. It feels like the same obstacles I had trying to do hip-hop reviews for mainstream magazines and was told "no one cares for that shit". Yeah, and this is why a lot of us are here 15-25 years later waiting for "nothing" to happen.
Then again, if you want to do it, you have to Rebop and do it yourself.
I would like to hear a proper mix of Blowout Comb[/b]. I've been playing that a lot in the last few weeks, and half of the time the vocals are mixed quite low compared to everything else.
I listened to that yesterday in the car with a friend. You should be thankful the lyrics are mixed low. Perhaps nonexistent lyrics would kick it up a notch.
I would like to hear a proper mix of Blowout Comb[/b]. I've been playing that a lot in the last few weeks, and half of the time the vocals are mixed quite low compared to everything else.
I listened to that yesterday in the car with a friend. You should be thankful the lyrics are mixed low. Perhaps nonexistent lyrics would kick it up a notch.
to the guys talking about how the illmatic sucked...from what i've been told from the producers of the songs and a lot of people that worked on it is the a good chunk of the masters and unreleased stuff is long gone. Lost or thrown in the trash. I've been asked by a few producers on the album to see if i could find people with copies of some of the stuff.
There is a reissue of Critical Beatdown ?? What are the bonus ?
1. Watch Me Now 2. Ease Back 3. Ego Trippin' [Original 12"] 4. Moe Luv's Theme 5. Kool Keith Housing Things 6. Travelling at the Speed of Thought [Remix] 7. Feelin' It 8. One Minute Less 9. Ain't It Good to You 10. Funky [Remix] 11. Give the Drummer Some 12. Break North 13. Critical Beatdown 14. When I Burn 15. Ced-Gee (Delta Force One) 16. Funky [Original 12" Version][*] 17. Bait [Original 12" Version][*] 18. Chorus Line [Original 12" Version][*] - Tim Dog, Ultramagnetic MC's 19. Travelling at the Speed of Thought [Hip House Club Mix][*] 20. Ego Trippin' [Bonus Beats][*]
to the guys talking about how the illmatic sucked...from what i've been told from the producers of the songs and a lot of people that worked on it is the a good chunk of the masters and unreleased stuff is long gone. Lost or thrown in the trash. I've been asked by a few producers on the album to see if i could find people with copies of some of the stuff.
Sick. I am certain that this is more commonplace than most people think, or that the location of the multi-tracks and master tapes are unknown. I had read something at Wikipedia about "Guitar Hero III" (the video game) and that Living Colour were asked for the master to "Cult Of Personality". They agreed to it, but after some research the master tape could not be found at Sony or the recording studio they did the song at. So they went into the studio to re-record it.
to the guys talking about how the illmatic sucked...from what i've been told from the producers of the songs and a lot of people that worked on it is the a good chunk of the masters and unreleased stuff is long gone. Lost or thrown in the trash. I've been asked by a few producers on the album to see if i could find people with copies of some of the stuff.
Sick. I am certain that this is more commonplace than most people think, or that the location of the multi-tracks and master tapes are unknown. I had read something at Wikipedia about "Guitar Hero III" (the video game) and that Living Colour were asked for the master to "Cult Of Personality". They agreed to it, but after some research the master tape could not be found at Sony or the recording studio they did the song at. So they went into the studio to re-record it.
Dude, labels cant even keep track of the masters for half the shit they're trying to release next quarter, The sad truth is there really is no "vault" and most of it is just lost to time.
Case in point, most of the 2" master reels for chronic 2001 are sitting up on the shelf in the mic locker of the studio I work at. The owners have tried to throw them out a couple times now. Also on that shelf is the whole dre produced king t album that never came out.
but the other thing is that its probably for the best. I recently heard some motown masters that got dragged back through protools for people to sample from. Everyone was real exited until you hear how shitty the individual tracks sound. When you take something old and apply all these modern mixing techniques you will almost certainly lose the magic of the original. Mastering is different. But i wouldnt want to see any album that i grew up really enjoying getting a new "mix", Especially not wu tang. a crystal clean version of 36 chambers sounds cringeworthy.
There is a reissue of Critical Beatdown ?? What are the bonus ?
1. Watch Me Now 2. Ease Back 3. Ego Trippin' [Original 12"] 4. Moe Luv's Theme 5. Kool Keith Housing Things 6. Travelling at the Speed of Thought [Remix] 7. Feelin' It 8. One Minute Less 9. Ain't It Good to You 10. Funky [Remix] 11. Give the Drummer Some 12. Break North 13. Critical Beatdown 14. When I Burn 15. Ced-Gee (Delta Force One) 16. Funky [Original 12" Version][*] 17. Bait [Original 12" Version][*] 18. Chorus Line [Original 12" Version][*] - Tim Dog, Ultramagnetic MC's 19. Travelling at the Speed of Thought [Hip House Club Mix][*] 20. Ego Trippin' [Bonus Beats][*]
yeah, i think ive ONLY heard the deluxe version of this one.
to the guys talking about how the illmatic sucked...from what i've been told from the producers of the songs and a lot of people that worked on it is the a good chunk of the masters and unreleased stuff is long gone. Lost or thrown in the trash. I've been asked by a few producers on the album to see if i could find people with copies of some of the stuff.
Sick. I am certain that this is more commonplace than most people think, or that the location of the multi-tracks and master tapes are unknown. I had read something at Wikipedia about "Guitar Hero III" (the video game) and that Living Colour were asked for the master to "Cult Of Personality". They agreed to it, but after some research the master tape could not be found at Sony or the recording studio they did the song at. So they went into the studio to re-record it.
Dude, labels cant even keep track of the masters for half the shit they're trying to release next quarter, The sad truth is there really is no "vault" and most of it is just lost to time.
Case in point, most of the 2" master reels for chronic 2001 are sitting up on the shelf in the mic locker of the studio I work at. The owners have tried to throw them out a couple times now. Also on that shelf is the whole dre produced king t album that never came out.
but the other thing is that its probably for the best. I recently heard some motown masters that got dragged back through protools for people to sample from. Everyone was real exited until you hear how shitty the individual tracks sound. When you take something old and apply all these modern mixing techniques you will almost certainly lose the magic of the original. Mastering is different. But i wouldnt want to see any album that i grew up really enjoying getting a new "mix", Especially not wu tang. a crystal clean version of 36 chambers sounds cringeworthy.
please don't make me cry. I have a thing about masters. Anyways I don't think wu tang masters are around. I somehow thought RZA had them and not the studio and htey were lost in the flood????? With all the first wave of wu solo albums.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
I think there's an emergent market of older cats thtd be down for rap deluxe sets.
This might be true, but i think that alot albums will not be deluxed due to the development of sampling laws. Wasn't there someone on this board who said that they wanted to do a deluxe version of "It takes a nation..." but due to the heavy sampling it will not see the light of day? That album would also be my pick...
Yeah, that was me. Sadly, it ain't gonna happen. Much as it would be justified artistically and even commercially, the statute of limitations on copyright infringement is active from the date of the most recent exploitation. The album itself will probably stay on the catalogue forever, but any kind of reissue would set in motion a fresh statute of limitations relating to the uncleared samples on the o.g. version. I know there was a lot of enthusiasm for this project within Universal's catalogue marketing department, but they'd be literally buried in lawsuits if they went ahead with it.
Doc,
How did Tommy Boy get away with the "3 Ft. High" deluxe set then? Did the Turtles case take care of all outstanding samples on this album?
That's a good question. I know that all the big samples were definitely cleared, possibly retrospectively in some cases, and I suspect that quite a few may have been settled via one-off payments to avoid further court action. Incidentally, the Turtles don't actually get any publishing on "Transmitting Live From Mars", so presumably they waived any future claims as part of the court settlement. I doubt that Warner Music would have knowingly taken the risk of reissuing "3 Feet High..." if they thought there was a serious possibility that they'd get hit for uncleared samples. You never know, though.
I think there may have been another reason for Universal's decision not to rework the PE catalogue as well. I used to work for a major publisher where, somewhere in their business affairs department, there were (and may yet still be) about a half-dozen huge boxes of legal documents from Bridgeport Music. Bridgeport is/was the associated music publishing company for Westbound Records, and they own the publishing rights to pretty much everything Westbound and its imprints ever released, amongst many other things. At one point in the late 90's, they decided they were going to go after everyone who'd ever sampled anything they published, so all kinds of labels and publishers were swamped with legal letters regarding uncleared samples of which (officially, at least) many of them had been hitherto unaware. Amongst those labels/publishers were Universal, who own the rights to the PE masters and whose publishing arm has a considerable interest in the PE catalogue as well. I can only assume that any ongoing legal action relating to PE songs must still be some distance from any kind of settlement, otherwise the record company mightn't be so touchy about liability issues.
I asked about Just Ice - Back to the Old School, but apparently the reels are long gone. bummer dude. an instrumental to "turbo charged" would be that greatest thing evar.
Most of the 2" master reels for chronic 2001 are sitting up on the shelf in the mic locker of the studio I work at. The owners have tried to throw them out a couple times now. Also on that shelf is the whole dre produced king t album that never came out.
Fuck man get in there quick and back them shits up.
Most of the 2" master reels for chronic 2001 are sitting up on the shelf in the mic locker of the studio I work at. The owners have tried to throw them out a couple times now. Also on that shelf is the whole dre produced king t album that never came out.
Fuck man get in there quick and back them shits upsave that shit yourself.
Comments
wow.
thats pretty
Wow. That sounds cool. If you can, get dude to post here. I'd love to hear about the process!
There is a reissue of Critical Beatdown ?? What are the bonus ?
I just did an interview with Karma and Trevor from Traffic last week. Traffic has a lot more good stuff coming, Goin' Off with Cool V's Tribute To Scratchin remix with the Michael Jackson samples, Biz never Sleeps with the Converse promo 12", Live & Let Die with a never seen before artwork etc...
And they don't really care about uncleared samples since they just put out the original version of Jane Stop That Crazy Thing with the Hanna Barbera sample !
This brings up a few questions. Were the effects done during the mixing process, or during mastering? I've learned on another board that some mastering engineers got away with adding their little "quirks" during mastering, so if one were to listen to different world pressings of a certain album, each one might be slightly different. Electric Light Orchestra were one example, one of their albums had a song which was mastered slightly different, so you have all of these ELO fans going nuts.
What you did mention though is common with a lot of hip-hop albums recorded in the analog era, especially as studios moved to digital, adapted to the new techniques. Plus, everything wasn't as automated as they are now, whereas a lot of the mixing and editing of albums from the late 80's/early 90's was done "live". PLUS, what you have on those multi-tracks is the result of what was on those samplers, so if it's lo-fi on the tape, it'll always be lo-fi unless you do an updated remix/restructuring of the instrumentals. That's great too, but a lot what made those songs great was the lo-fi 8k vibe, where things were gritty and not too polished. It made a crispy record dirtier. These days, you have mastering engineers doing the whole "brickwall limiting" thing, or worse, mastering engineers who don't know how to mix properly. All they do is raise the peak levels to 99 or 100 percent and think "okay, it's loud enough for me". There's little to no thought about dynamics or preservation of the recording, so if Universal was ever able to clear a number of samples and push on with a series of Deluxe Edition's, it would probably sound like shit. I do hope that as more artists and producers are able to obtain their masters, they will be able to reissue it properly, even if it's to a limited audience.
You're talking about the cassingle, right? I don't think that was issued on wax...
i merember that shit.
I've often talked about this over the years, but considering how The RZA worked, almost like a a Jamaican producer, there are still things in those multi-tracks that have yet to be heard. Has anyone ever heard the complete "Blowin' Up The Spot"? Or mixes of Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Damage" where you can hear the full vocal take from ODB or GZA? Or INS' full verse from 2Pac's "Got My Mind Made Up", and I mean from the track and not the radio freestyle where he dropped the same verse uncensored?
It makes me wish I had connections with some labels so that I could do the ground work, get into the vaults, meet the producers, do the interviews, and get some of these things out. It feels like the same obstacles I had trying to do hip-hop reviews for mainstream magazines and was told "no one cares for that shit". Yeah, and this is why a lot of us are here 15-25 years later waiting for "nothing" to happen.
Then again, if you want to do it, you have to Rebop and do it yourself.
I listened to that yesterday in the car with a friend. You should be thankful the lyrics are mixed low. Perhaps nonexistent lyrics would kick it up a notch.
Now you understand what non-verbals about.
1. Watch Me Now
2. Ease Back
3. Ego Trippin' [Original 12"]
4. Moe Luv's Theme
5. Kool Keith Housing Things
6. Travelling at the Speed of Thought [Remix]
7. Feelin' It
8. One Minute Less
9. Ain't It Good to You
10. Funky [Remix]
11. Give the Drummer Some
12. Break North
13. Critical Beatdown
14. When I Burn
15. Ced-Gee (Delta Force One)
16. Funky [Original 12" Version][*]
17. Bait [Original 12" Version][*]
18. Chorus Line [Original 12" Version][*] - Tim Dog, Ultramagnetic MC's
19. Travelling at the Speed of Thought [Hip House Club Mix][*]
20. Ego Trippin' [Bonus Beats][*]
Sick. I am certain that this is more commonplace than most people think, or that the location of the multi-tracks and master tapes are unknown. I had read something at Wikipedia about "Guitar Hero III" (the video game) and that Living Colour were asked for the master to "Cult Of Personality". They agreed to it, but after some research the master tape could not be found at Sony or the recording studio they did the song at. So they went into the studio to re-record it.
Dude, labels cant even keep track of the masters for half the shit they're trying to release next quarter, The sad truth is there really is no "vault" and most of it is just lost to time.
Case in point, most of the 2" master reels for chronic 2001 are sitting up on the shelf in the mic locker of the studio I work at. The owners have tried to throw them out a couple times now. Also on that shelf is the whole dre produced king t album that never came out.
but the other thing is that its probably for the best. I recently heard some motown masters that got dragged back through protools for people to sample from. Everyone was real exited until you hear how shitty the individual tracks sound. When you take something old and apply all these modern mixing techniques you will almost certainly lose the magic of the original. Mastering is different. But i wouldnt want to see any album that i grew up really enjoying getting a new "mix", Especially not wu tang. a crystal clean version of 36 chambers sounds cringeworthy.
yeah, i think ive ONLY heard the deluxe version of this one.
please don't make me cry. I have a thing about masters. Anyways I don't think wu tang masters are around. I somehow thought RZA had them and not the studio and htey were lost in the flood????? With all the first wave of wu solo albums.
That's a good question. I know that all the big samples were definitely cleared, possibly retrospectively in some cases, and I suspect that quite a few may have been settled via one-off payments to avoid further court action. Incidentally, the Turtles don't actually get any publishing on "Transmitting Live From Mars", so presumably they waived any future claims as part of the court settlement. I doubt that Warner Music would have knowingly taken the risk of reissuing "3 Feet High..." if they thought there was a serious possibility that they'd get hit for uncleared samples. You never know, though.
I think there may have been another reason for Universal's decision not to rework the PE catalogue as well. I used to work for a major publisher where, somewhere in their business affairs department, there were (and may yet still be) about a half-dozen huge boxes of legal documents from Bridgeport Music. Bridgeport is/was the associated music publishing company for Westbound Records, and they own the publishing rights to pretty much everything Westbound and its imprints ever released, amongst many other things. At one point in the late 90's, they decided they were going to go after everyone who'd ever sampled anything they published, so all kinds of labels and publishers were swamped with legal letters regarding uncleared samples of which (officially, at least) many of them had been hitherto unaware. Amongst those labels/publishers were Universal, who own the rights to the PE masters and whose publishing arm has a considerable interest in the PE catalogue as well. I can only assume that any ongoing legal action relating to PE songs must still be some distance from any kind of settlement, otherwise the record company mightn't be so touchy about liability issues.
Crazy Noise - Stezo
Both of these need to be Re-Upped. Single versions & Remixes on CD.
As for ones i'd like to see, I'd love more outta
and this
This has appeared on one of the Best-Ofs - the european one I think.
Fuck man get in there quick and back them shits up.