BOC: Remasters??

[Albert Bouchard]

On Sep 12, 2004, at 11:56 AM, Jon Jarrett wrote:

>> I think that Spectres is probably the worst mastered BOC
>> album ever.  To me it sounds worse (more boomy/muddy) than
>> the debut album, which people have described as sounding
>> like it was recorded on a 4 track recorder buried in sand. :)
>> Which sucks, because Spectres is one of my favorite BOC
>> albums...
>
>         The first album's problem was maybe eased by the fact that the
> bottom end had been so MC5'd out of existence that it couldn't really
> boom
> too much. No such luck with _Spectres_... But that first album's
> remaster
> with bass you could hear without trying, that was rather a revelation.

A funny thing happened with Spectres. Record Plant East had just built
a new mixing room with soffeted Westlake speakers and a glass pyramid
ceiling which might show the stars at night if it wasn't located in
NYC. It was the latest in equipment and design ideas and it sounded
like crap. Shelly Yakus struggled valiantly to make the mixes as vital
as AoF but ultimately in vain. He mixed several songs (Fireworks 3x)
many times but we usually went with the first mix. It was one of the
first albums to be mixed in that room and suffered because of it.
Born to Run was being mixed at the same time but they were using a
studio downstairs with much better results.
A genius mastering engineer might help though. I mastered that with
Shelly at the record plant the first time.