As an introduction I had almost all of Charlie's studio releases on album (still do) but, as the 80's wore on CD's became all the rage and eventually CD's won the preferred format battle for the masses. By the 90's I had been able to replace almost all my album collection with the corresponding CD releases however Charlie was not one of them. For most of the 90's it was that way until I heard that Renaissance Records would be doing the honors. Fantasy Girls was the first but it took a while before any of the later albums, my favorites (No Second Chance & Lines) made the cut but soon as they were I happily bought them.
Flash ahead to now, CD's are now being engineered to sound more like the records of old but my hearing isn't what it used to be, I admit that. I can't tell a noticeable difference in sound quality. Obviously I must be missing something so would any of you sound junkies out their in cyberspace please enlighten me as to why the Renaissance Recordings are now viewed in such a unfavorable light? Maybe I'm too easy to please but from where I'm standing, I'm just happy that they were released on CD to begin with!
Personally I'd wait if you still have the records and can play them. You could possibly record them via your computer soundcard from your amp (I've done this as have recording software such as Easy Cd Creator) or even some free software does this - have a google for soundcard recorder.
Steve
Hey LA Dreamer thanks for your response. So to be clear, "ALL" of the Charlie Renaissance Releases will be remastered in the near future?
BTW, I still have my original Charlie albums should I send these out to a album record to CD recording shop or wait for these remasters to be released?
Thanks!
Doozle.
Just remembered that Julian Posted this under his questions thread as well.
First, re-masters. We have not yet been able to locate the master tapes but we do have test pressings and virgin white labels. The Renaissance CDs mostly sound appalling (Here Comes Trouble and Anthology excepted). Lord knows what they used, but aside from HCT and A the band was completely unaware that these re-issues were being made, much less were involved in the process.
The Renaissance CD's are very poor quality. They did not have the master tapes and no-one really knows what they were mastered from.
I think a number of them sound as if they came from a cassette rather than LP (that would be my guess) as they sound hideously compressed and muffled. Just listen to teh opening to LA Dreamer.
I wish I had never got rid of the LP's as the mini disc recordings of the albums I did transfer sound better than the CD's.
There are some very good clear recordings available from Renaissance however under the latest compilation and comparing teh tracks on thses (which I think Julian remastered) sound much better.
Just waiting for Julian to finish the final masters for Voiceprint for them to begin the reissue programme.
Can't wait!
Steve
I guess that I rambled a bit on this post so I'm going to cut to the chase as it were. "What makes the Renaissance recordings so bad? Due to my hearing loss I'm not hearing what everyone else is hearing and subsequently complaining about. I'm not getting it. Do the record albums have a "dynamic sound" that the CD's do not? Do the CD's sound like they're in a tunnel? Please help clarify this for me as soon as conveniently possible.
Thanks!
Doozle.
The Renaissance releases (Anthology and Here Comes Trouble aside) were simply mastered poorly, and without the band's knowledge or involvement. By poorly I mean from a dubious source and with little or no processing involved - EQ, multi-band compression etc., to help bring the original recording (back) to life.
If you have a good clean copy on vinyl then you'll probably get a pretty decent result yourself, yes. The re-masters will probably have a better level ('sound louder') and be a little crisper but if you can digitize your own copies now, for minimal expense, I'd say that sounds like a good idea.