Review: Dylan Remasters

Subject: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:10 AM

OK, I know the first batch has been out for a while, but I looked through the threads and noticed there was nothing about these here. I love 'em personally. I think they sound much better than the old CD versions.
You can hear instruments that weren't there before. You can hear his voice much clearer. The new ones are a 'must-have' for any Dylan Fan...

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:15 AM

Here's a site that deals with the '65 & '66 remasters exclusively!

Electric Dylan

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 02:01 PM

Um, any thoughts on this guys?? I KNOW there are Dylan fans out there...

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 09:11 PM

We acquired a free "sampler" CD recently which contains five or six of the remastered songs -- one straight-acoustic selection from the early days, the rest rock-era classics. I might dig it out later and provide more specific info. Sounds GREAT, not surprisingly.

I might add that -- to me, anyway -- the early CD reissues of Dylan's classic vinyl LPS were TERRIBLE sound-wide, vastly inferior to the original records I knew so well. Whole instrumental tracks seemed to me to be missing from every song on "Blonde on Blonde," and the CD of "Hwy 61" was pretty bad, too. I quit buying any after being so disappointed with those two.

CDs were *supposed to* provide better sound than old-fashioned records, but that was not the case for a lot of reissues, including the Bob Dylan catalog.

These remasters not only restore all the original sound missing from the first-try CDs, they probably improve upon the originals, at least a little bit.

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 10:14 PM

After reading the extensive history of "Blonde On Blonde" mixes and issues from hyperlink Chris provides above, I realize that things are not nearly as simple as I had assumed when I wrote the above post a half-hour or so ago.

I bought the album as soon as it became available, probably at a discount store, so I undoubtedly had the original US mono mix described in the article as the standard or best. And there were several early CD versions, none of them considered very good at all.

It's pretty interesting reading.

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:28 PM

I found it very interesting myself, Poppa. Especially the whole MONO vs. STEREO discussion...

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: PoppaGator
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:36 AM

Hard to believe that stereo existed, most record players being sold at the time were stereo-equipped, but the mono versions of the album releases got the most attention in the studio and most of the product pressed were mono albums.

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:18 AM

All our early stuff was mono. A cousin gave us a stereo Judy Collins record around '65 or '66, and we were quite puzzled as to what to do with it.

Subject: RE: Review: Dylan Remasters
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:24 AM

Now that's funny... to me. I kinda prefer Mono Vinyl actually.