BOC: revamped set

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On sön 3 maj 1998 21.41 -0400 "Albert T Bouchard" <ir004728 at MINDSPRING.COM> wrote:
> Not to make excuses but most heavy rock records that came out of England at
> that time sounded better than American ones. Why? Higher plate voltage
> probably played a part and with a higher AC voltage the power was also more
> stable. The first time we played in England with Marshalls we couldn't
> believe how much better they sounded than when we used them in the States.

     Now that's something I never would have thought of--I've only
played through a delapidated solid state Peavey bass amp here :)

     Hmmm.  I'm trying to think of some US heavy rock albums from that
era with a big fat sound .... er, anyone?

> We were pretty disappointed in the sound of that first record, were more
> satisfied with the second (it was scarry sounding, wasn't it?) and hated
> the sound of Treaties. Once SP was made to give up control of the sound he
> started to lose interest in the whole thing.

     Was he much involved with the sound on _Imaginos_?  That sounds
pretty good, though of course it was many years later ...
     _ST_ and the first album are definitely the worst offenders.
The opening of "Stairway to the Stars" ought to just saw your head
clean off, but doesn't come close.  The dodgy sound on "D&S" from
_ST_ severely reduces the impact of the track, and the version on
_ETL_ wasn't any great shakes either.  Best argument for a tBS
version that there is :)

     T&M I haven't got with me to compare, but "7 Screaming Dizbusters"
rules so mightily that I don't actually remember what the mix was like :)

     IMO, the sound generally improved pretty steadily from _AoF_
onwards, at least as far as _FoUO_.  RbN might have had good sound--
"Take Me Away" is basically the only tune from it that I listen to
and it sounds good, but the rest of it and _CN_ are so awful that
I've never cared about the quality of their mix.

     That said, I heard a quick run-through of _HF_ last night and
it sounded pretty good mix-wise, and was certainly an improvement
on _CC_ which had OK dynamics but otherwise sounded rushed to my
inexpert ears.

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/