Re: This Woman's Work

["Ronald W. Garrison" <rwgarr@intrex.net>]

Chris Williams wrote:
> 
> HeIsJohn wrote:
> >Ron wrote:
> ><major snippage>
> >>So what is the "best" recording, from the standpoint of accurate
> >>reproduction, may not sound as "natural" as you would like it to.
> With
> >>such a highly produced work, you may find that you like a rendition
> of
> >>it that obscures some of the sharper manifestations of all that
> >>technology.
> 
> >Yep, this is exactly what I was referring to.  The fourth and fifth
> order
> >harmonics you get from HoL on an old boom box in an empty gym are
> pretty
> >awesome :-)
> 
>    Hehe!
> 
>    ...but seriously...
> 
>    Sometimes we've discovered things on crappy systems that huge piles
> of very expensive audiophile equipment have failed to reveal. The
> first time I recall clearly hearing "...what about Edward G?" was
> on a really crappy stereo. It had little frequency range outside
> of speech and no stereo seperation to speak of, so it made a
> monophonic, spoken part stand out clearly.
> 
>    I wonder if a letter writing campaign to EMI could prod them
> into releasing high quality versions of *all* her albums. I
> NEED a copy of "The Dreaming" with the same quality as this recent
> re-release of "Hounds Of Love. Not want. NEED.
> 
>    Of course I also need "The Kick Inside", "Lionheart", "Never For
> Ever", "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes". EMI has the choice
> of either: waiting (like us) or finding some way of selling us the
> same thing twice. They tried that with the Box Set and blew it by
> fobbing off crap "Nice Price" versions. And still we bought it!
> Resentfully, but we bought it anyway.
> 
>    I, for one, would be happy to fork over $30 per to get really
> top quality versions of the rest of Kate's music. And if someone
> at EMI were to "accidentally" include some rareities (like the
> happy accident that gave us the "bongo" version of "December
> Will Be Magic Again") so much the better. Of course, if EMI could
> do the Box Set that Love-Hounds designed, I'd buy that in an
> instant!
> 
> --
> Chris Williams of
> Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
> chrisw@miso.wwa.com (his)
> vickie@miso.wwa.com (hers)

===============================
Actually, I've always tended to assume that most of the lackluster
quality of the sound on Kate's albums was in the original tapes, even
prior to mixing, *and* that it resulted from conscious decisions (style
of production) rather than technical sloppiness (sort of like the common
notion that the British make loudspeakers that are too "polite" sounding
for rock 'n' roll, or conversely that Japanese speakers do horribly
playing Beethoven. It would be intersting to see, somehow, just how real
room for improvement there is on those original recordings.

--RON

-- 
http://www.intrex.net/rwgarr/