Re: Cathy Demos CD

[geek the boy <woj@remus.rutgers.edu>]

DSearch@aol.com sez:

>Must admit I'm disappointed with the sound quality.  Sounds like it was
>mastered from an old LP or acetate.  A *lot* of surface noise. 

yeah, it appears that most of the cd bootlegs of the cathy demos were
mastered from the vinyl albums. the two digital demo collections i have
(the two chapter one bootlegs _if you could see me fly_ and _passing
through air_ and the barklee bootleg _practice makes perfect_)
certainly are -- i've compared them against the bootleg lps _cathy
demos_ and _cathy demos too_ and the bootleg eps and they're
identical.

i'm not sure about _shrubberies_ though.

>Does anyone know if this is the best this stuff can sound on CD?  Anyone
>familiar with this particular disc?  Are there any that are substantially
>better in quality and/or track selection?

given that the original recordings were probably made on one of those
old tape recorders, i'm surprised that the cd bootlegs sound as well as
they do. since the cd bootlegs were all mastered from the vinyl
bootlegs, this is one of those cases were the vinyl sound quality is
actually better. i just confirmed this comparing "while davy dozed"
from volume 5 of the cathy demo eps to _practice makes perfect_.

as for track selection, _if you could see me fly_ and _passing through
air_ collect all of the cathy demos except "organic acid", the six
demos which preceeded the recording of _the kick inside_, two demos of
"babooshka", and her duet with peter gabriel covering roy harper's
"another day".

_practice makes perfect_ has 26 tracks: the same cathy demos and five
of the _the kick inside_ demos (all except for "moving").

the chapter one bootlegs are, imho, the best cd collection of the cathy
demos since it includes the other demos as well. the sound quality
isn't any better than the other sets, but it's as listenable. there are
two drawbacks: there are two separate cds and they're out of print.

woj