Welcome back to A-Sides, B-Sides and Seasides.
I pulled this album out during a time when I was learning to master my own tracks. I made the mistake of listening to it through Beats Audio headphones. The headphones are intentionally bass heavy. It was a disastrous and muddy listen. This is in no way commentary on the production or mix of this genius work. When it was released in May of 1992, I doubt that anyone could have known that the loudness war was about to begin; arguably, only a month later with Faith No More's 'Angeldust', another great album that had some unfortunate unintentional consequences. Faith No More couldn't have predicted it would result in bands like Linkin Park and a whole slew of what became the sub-par version of Faith No More's sound that became known as Nu-Metal.
Another byproduct of the release was the subsequent "Loudness War". If you'd like to know more about this, go to the Googles and read until you're blue. I'm not going to write a dissertation here. Let's just skip all of the preaching and going through the five steps of mourning and arrive at the acceptance... It's how we listen to music, now.
Back to the problem, at hand...
About four songs in, I had had enough of listening to the album on my Beats Audios. As a comparison, I plunked on my open back Shure SRH1840's, a nice and incredibly clean set of studio monitoring headphones. I noticed that there was still too much bass. Not having the source tapes, I simply adjusted some levels. I reduced the bass and ran several of the lower bands through some parallel compression. I rolled off the low end at about 38hz. I boosted the mid and widened the stereo a bit. I also brought up the high end and killed some of the highest signal. It resulted in pulling out some of the guitar nuances. Here is a quick video showing a side by side of the first song, 'Against Nature'. I really love the Bickers' guitar and Francolini's drums, especially on the high end. Franco's tom, snare, and intricate cymbal work get a great boost, and the harmonics and intricacies of the guitar really come to the fore.
Let me know what you think. I know there is a bit of white noise here and there. A curse of some of the boosts without the masters. I chucked on a huge chunk of related b-sides with some tweaking, as well.
Here you are; Levitation's 'Need For Not'. The Mock Remaster.
| Against Nature (Remastered) |
| World Around (Remastered) |
| Hangnail (Remastered) |
| Resist (Remastered) |
| Arcs of Light and Dew (Remastered) |
| Pieces of Mary (Remastered) |
| Smile (Remastered) |
| Embedded (Remastered) |
| Coterie (Remastered) |
| Nadine (Remastered) |
| Smile (Coppelia Version Remastered) |
| Paid In Kind (Remastered) |
| Rosemary Jones (Remastered) |
| Firefly (Remastered) |
| Attached (Remastered) |
| Bedlam (Remastered) |
| It's Time (Remastered) |
| Squirrel (Remastered) |
| Jay (Remastered) |
| Usher (Remastered) |
| Cloud Shine (Remastered) |
| Mantra (Remastered) |
Link available in comments High Quality VBR mp3 |
http://www84.zippyshare.com/v/JFADo98L/file.html
ReplyDeleteRand,
ReplyDeleteA solidly and nicely done lot of work! I'm a major Levitation fan, so I appreciate your effort on this album.
Overall, I would say that you've done us all a signal service, if only by clarifying the vocals and sharpening the drums. On a couple of tracks (e.g., Against Nature and Embedded), your mixes do seem a bit trebly, but on others (e.g., Smile (both versions), Coterie, Paid in Kind, Firefly), your work is simply transcendent (NB: I've only listened to it on my iMac speakers ... the car is next). Bravo!
Thanks again for doing, and sharing, this work.
Thank you so much for the proper review. I suspected exactly what you said of a few tracks. I had a feeling that I was nudging a bit too much on the high end. Doing battle with the thudding low end and trying to bring out some of the guitar work was proving a true task. This was the first album I attempted, so I really do have a journey ahead for that elusive beast called perfection. I really need to learn how to manipulate the stereo field and adjust frequencies without going completely nuts. I think my attempt at the Cure's 'Wish' was a better example. I'm working on The Trash Can Sinatras' 'Cake' at the moment and doing more to focus on mastering the left and right more independently. I'm hoping it will be a better listen. I think that this Levitation attempt was a fun lesson, and I'm glad I did it. It really does, even for my mistakes, sound a bit better.
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