Phil Collins - Hello, I Must Be Going - Remastered vs Original Pressing...

cube-tube

Super Member
A couple years back, I got on a pre-order list for a box set of Phil Collins albums that were in the process of being remastered. A couple of them were released at one time, others were released as they became available. One of them didn't come until about 5 months later.

I only opened and played a few of the new albums this entire time, one of which being "Hello, I Must Be Going".

Today I popped this remastered album on my table and gave it a spin. The first thing that stood out is that Phil's voice has this kind of constant etched, gritty sound, sort of like inner groove distortion (IGD). It was like that throughout the entire album, on both sides. Other than that, it sounded pretty decent I thought.

Then curiosity got the best of me and I pulled out my original pressing of the album which was released back in Nov 1982. The first thing I noticed on this older album is that it was quite a bit louder, with me diving for the remote to turn it down to roughly the same level as the new 'remastered" album. I went from "38" on the volume down to "33"!

After this, I noticed that that etchy, gritty sound was no longer on Phil's voice. Upon further listening, I also noticed that this old, original album has more meat, more punch in the bass, more dynamic range throughout, and sounds smoother and cleaner. In short, it's a MUCH better sounding record than the new remastered one.

In other words, the compressed the life right out of the new album. It's somewhat flat in comparison. And for further proof, you can actually see the compression on the vinyl itself as a result of a larger run-off groove.

I'm glad I have the box set, but kind of feel ripped off because of the lesser quality mastering.

Original on the left, new on the right...
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Original Side 1
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Remastered Side 1
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Original Side 2
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Remastered Side 2
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Wow. Someone sucked at their job. Sorry man.

Isn't that the truth. Just no real care taken in the remastering process. I've heard that a lot of these newer re-released and remastered albums actually use digital files mastered mainly for mp3 use on small, under powered mobile devices such as iPhone's and iPod's. They guess they can make more money by slapping these crap files on vinyl and selling them to the younger generations that are getting into vinyl.
 
Fact Of Life:
Just because a recording claims to be "New, Remastered !" does not always equate to "BETTER" ! These days, I always wait to get the opinion of those "early adopters" who took the plunge, and bought the latest version, before spending the dough-re-me.
As my wise old Grandma was fond of saying, "All that glitters is not gold, said the monkey, as he peed over the precipice in the moonlight".
 
Fact Of Life:
Just because a recording claims to be "New, Remastered !" does not always equate to "BETTER" ! These days, I always wait to get the opinion of those "early adopters" who took the plunge, and bought the latest version, before spending the dough-re-me.
As my wise old Grandma was fond of saying, "All that glitters is not gold, said the monkey, as he peed over the precipice in the moonlight".

I didn't buy them because they were "remastered". I bought them because it gave me the opportunity to finally get all of his albums.
 
I felt the "remastered" photos on the jackets were more disturbing than the records. :D I didn't see the point of it.

I don't hear any of that distortion on my remastered copy of this one and Face Value though. These were apparently remastered by Nick Davis. These two Collins LPs sounded better than I thought they would, since Davis was the one who remixed the entire Genesis catalog and made a complete mess out of all the Phil-era albums, pretty much smashing all the dynamics out of them. The Peter-era remixes aren't quite as bad, and still have dynamics to them. I stupidly gave away my original Hello, I Must Be Going. Tried to replace it with a used copy, but like anything else I bought at this particular store (Dearborn Music), it was unacceptably worn. :rolleyes: I still may try to find a sealed original of these first two, to compare. I don't know, but it is possible these new ones might have been digitally sourced.

Can't really determine "compression" by a run-out groove though--all it means is that they were cut by different engineers on different cutting equipment. If you gave Bernie, Kevin and Ryan the same masters to cut a record, you would get three different looking results. ;)
 
I felt the "remastered" photos on the jackets were more disturbing than the records. :D I didn't see the point of it.

I don't hear any of that distortion on my remastered copy of this one and Face Value though. These were apparently remastered by Nick Davis. These two Collins LPs sounded better than I thought they would, since Davis was the one who remixed the entire Genesis catalog and made a complete mess out of all the Phil-era albums, pretty much smashing all the dynamics out of them. The Peter-era remixes aren't quite as bad, and still have dynamics to them. I stupidly gave away my original Hello, I Must Be Going. Tried to replace it with a used copy, but like anything else I bought at this particular store (Dearborn Music), it was unacceptably worn. :rolleyes: I still may try to find a sealed original of these first two, to compare. I don't know, but it is possible these new ones might have been digitally sourced.

Can't really determine "compression" by a run-out groove though--all it means is that they were cut by different engineers on different cutting equipment. If you gave Bernie, Kevin and Ryan the same masters to cut a record, you would get three different looking results. ;)

I don't know, there's constant distortion on my copy.

And to have that much difference in the run-off groove, there has to be something missing along the way within the tracks. Plus, you can literally hear the compression on the remastered copy. It lacks snappy dynamics almost completely.
 
Perhaps time has simply eliminated many of the great remastering guys (old age, etc). Sorry, bud.
 
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