Ry Cooder fans

Posted by: Right Wing on 03 September 2007

I bought his re-issued remastered albums (CD) and had a listen over my lunch today, they are really worth buying IMO.

Bop till you drop comes alive and his voice now comes through so much better than on the previous release.

I bought mine from CD japan - so they are japanese (meant to be better than US ones).


Cant wait to listen more tonight, I also bought fagens 3 solo albums and they are much much better (jap versions).


Peter
Posted on: 03 September 2007 by Chris Kelly
Peter
I got "Bop" and "Purple Valley" from CDJapan and can certanily concur with your comments.
Posted on: 04 September 2007 by Steve S1
Chris,

Are these only available as Japanese issues?

Steve
Posted on: 04 September 2007 by fishski13
cool, although i think i'll rock-steady with my Cooder on vinyl.

PACE
Posted on: 04 September 2007 by rupert bear
I hate to spoil the party, but I suspect these Japanese 'remasters' are, like the Little Feat ones which immediately preceded them, a bit of a con. I haven't looked into the Cooder ones, but if you check out the Feat ones you'll see that, with the exception of 'Waiting for Columbus' which WEA/Rhino remastered about 5 years ago, all the masters they used were from the 1980s CDs - you can tell by the fact that 'Last Record Album' contains the 2 live tracks which had to be left off 'Columbus' when it was first issued as a single CD.

What they appear to have done, is simply tart up the 1980s CD masters with a bit more fizz, and NOT go back to the original tapes, as Rhino did with the 'Hotcakes' boxed set, and remaster them properly. This means that if you want to listen to certain Feat tracks you're better off going to the box. If, however, you want the whole of Sailin Shoes sounding a little better than the 1980s CD, you have to buy the Japanese CD in its LP-style slipcase.

When Rhino get it right, as with the Dead, they do a good job. All too often, though, they do half a job, leaving this kind of shambles.
Posted on: 04 September 2007 by David Leedham
Not all vinyl is as it seems.

"The vinyl version of Ry Cooder's Bop Til You Drop is a prime example of how bad the early digital recordings sounded on LP. DGG in Germany seemed to get the process down sooner than anyone, but they had probably the best sound engineers in the world. It took the popular music engineers much longer to get a decent-sounding LP.

When Neil Young started bitching about digital vs. analog, he was originally talking about how bad digitally-recorded material sounded when mastered to an LP. "
Posted on: 04 September 2007 by Right Wing
quote:
Originally posted by rupert bear:
I hate to spoil the party, but I suspect these Japanese 'remasters' are, like the Little Feat ones which immediately preceded them, a bit of a con. I haven't looked into the Cooder ones, but if you check out the Feat ones you'll see that, with the exception of 'Waiting for Columbus' which WEA/Rhino remastered about 5 years ago, all the masters they used were from the 1980s CDs - you can tell by the fact that 'Last Record Album' contains the 2 live tracks which had to be left off 'Columbus' when it was first issued as a single CD.

What they appear to have done, is simply tart up the 1980s CD masters with a bit more fizz, and NOT go back to the original tapes, as Rhino did with the 'Hotcakes' boxed set, and remaster them properly. This means that if you want to listen to certain Feat tracks you're better off going to the box. If, however, you want the whole of Sailin Shoes sounding a little better than the 1980s CD, you have to buy the Japanese CD in its LP-style slipcase.

When Rhino get it right, as with the Dead, they do a good job. All too often, though, they do half a job, leaving this kind of shambles.



I have the little feat cd's that you refer too, I agree that they are rubbish and not touched at all.

The Ry Cooders ones are totally different, they sound much much better to my ears.

I would be suprised if anyojne wouldnt agree with me on this.


Peter
Posted on: 06 September 2007 by ewemon
quote:
Originally posted by Right Wing:
quote:
Originally posted by rupert bear:
I hate to spoil the party, but I suspect these Japanese 'remasters' are, like the Little Feat ones which immediately preceded them, a bit of a con. I haven't looked into the Cooder ones, but if you check out the Feat ones you'll see that, with the exception of 'Waiting for Columbus' which WEA/Rhino remastered about 5 years ago, all the masters they used were from the 1980s CDs - you can tell by the fact that 'Last Record Album' contains the 2 live tracks which had to be left off 'Columbus' when it was first issued as a single CD.

What they appear to have done, is simply tart up the 1980s CD masters with a bit more fizz, and NOT go back to the original tapes, as Rhino did with the 'Hotcakes' boxed set, and remaster them properly. This means that if you want to listen to certain Feat tracks you're better off going to the box. If, however, you want the whole of Sailin Shoes sounding a little better than the 1980s CD, you have to buy the Japanese CD in its LP-style slipcase.

When Rhino get it right, as with the Dead, they do a good job. All too often, though, they do half a job, leaving this kind of shambles.



I have the little feat cd's that you refer too, I agree that they are rubbish and not touched at all.

The Ry Cooders ones are totally different, they sound much much better to my ears.

I would be suprised if anyojne wouldnt agree with me on this.

Peter


I can concur with this re the Feats as I ran some EAC peak level scans and what has actually happened is the remastering engineer has boosted the levels to 100%. Basically just boosted the upper and lower frequencies to make them sound better. However this is the case with both the Cooder and Feat discs as it is the same engineer. Both are disappointing to me.

I also have a copy of the new MFSL Little Feat s/t which I have to get around to listen to

The best Feat versions I have heard are the original Japanese versions their catalogue no's start with 32X. However the 80's WG are almost as good.

Must admit haven't heard the Hotcakes box.

The best Ry Cooders I heard are still the first WG editions. I have just got an early Japanese copy of Paradise which I have to also give a listen to but if it is anything like the Littel Feat japanese discs I have it will be superb.
Posted on: 20 September 2007 by Skip
I have most of the 70's Ry cooder on Vinyl, but I jumped at the chance to hear these and I ordered Bop Til You Drop, Boomers Story, and Jazz. Jazz and BS have been longtime favorites of the US audiophile magazine Stereophile. BTYD has been panned as poor sounding early digital, but the music is great, and it never sounded that bad to me.

I have some other Cooder on basic US aluminum CD. But I have never heard him sound so good as he does on these CD Japan Releases. My tube system is on the blink right now, so I did not compare the vinyl. But on the CD5x>Nait 5i> nSat setup, I have never heard either sound better. You should get any or all of these as a demo for nSats. You could do a lot worse.

I bought 3 CD's with expedited shipping and they cost $68 delivered. Not much more than Barnes and Noble plus tax. And they arrived from Japan in a week. Thanks for the CD Japan lead. What a cool place for finding something special. If anybody over there is reading this, try remastering The Border. It is my favorite of all his stuff I have heard. Sounds great on vinyl. Hope to see it at CD Japan some day.

Thanks again for the recommendations.

skip