HW: Castle CD's

[Jon Jarrett]

On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Tim Gadd wrote:

> I have a quick question: I don;t have Live 79 or Levitiation on CD. I've
> noticed several copies of Live 79 for sale have mentioned that they're on
> Castle records, and in one case that the album is re-mastered. I've owned
> several Castle CD's from the 80's, and in every case it seemed to me that
> their 're-mastering' process must have involved sticking the album on the
> stereo and holding a microphone up to the loudspeaker. Every Castle CD from
> thatera which I've heard was at worst horribly tinny and compressed, and at
> best, markedly inferior sonically to the LP versions. Is this true of the
> Castle HW releases as well?

        Well, for six or so HW albums the Castle CDs are the only
CDs; they all came out remstered and repackaged last year (L79,
_Levitation_, _Xenon Codex_, _Space Bandits_, _Electric Tepee_ and
IItBotFtBD). They were discussed briefly on here before the thread got
confused with, and hijacked by the EMI remasters of the iorst six albums,
and I still think that may have been why Castle did it, but as far as we
could tell there was in fact no difference at all between original CDs and
remasters, which is a pity since at least XC would be dramatically
improved by a clean-up IMO. As far as your question goes, though, I have
the Castle _Levitation_ and there's nothing wrong with it at all, lovely
and clear. It was however a marvellously-produced album - I imagine _Live
'79_ would be more difficult to CD-master. Hope this helps, yours,
                                                                   Jon

Memo to self - acronymise consistently or not at all!
n/p _The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, Fit the Second
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