Zappa.com

I tend to think so...

_________________

Entirely subjective.
I know pros who think he spent waaaaay too much time when it should/could have been done in far less.

That said, they (the pros) don't have a body of work worth a ton of dough and that will live on forever.

The greatest studio wizard ever is Ian McKellen.

_________________

Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

But wasn't Rundgren a wizard, a true star?

_________________
I'm not bald; I'm taller than my hair.

Didn't Wood of Wizzard claim to be wizard (not that he was)?

_________________
"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly."

_________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

JPFunk, the man who wouldn't recognize a joke if it bit 'm up the ass and showed him the chunk it got from there. Including the embarrassing heart tattoo with the name of an ex scratched through.

_________________

Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

Zing!! There is no doubt about your sense of humour Bonny.

_________________
The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Frank Zappa
Todd Rundgren
Mick Jones

And Alan Parsons has to get some consideration...

_________________
If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

The original studio wizard:

Aw,thanks Poly! {hug}

_________________

Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

Giorgio Moroder and Conny Plank are a couple of stand outs.

Eddy Offord was considered THE man when I was a kid, but I don't like the big name bands music he collaborated on at all, even if they "sound" good.

And Phil Spector can rot...

for some reason I can't EDIT, so....


how can one forget Rudy Van Gelder? Much harder than it seems, surely.

If Zappa was so good why do we need new improved remasters, rather then the FZ-approved ones?

(Devil's Advocate moment. Please forgive me. I am an asshole etcetcetc)

Very funny, but seriously, I think the answer to that is similar to comparing modern 33rpm vinyl with Edison cylinders. Zappa was in a hurry at a time when digital was still in its infancy.

_________________
The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Poly makes a fair point, and FZ did always gravitate to new technology and try to get the best out of it. I am O-L-D so I remember well the big deal with CDs initially was that they were so noise-free. By the late '70s there were so many records being released with mucho tape hiss and lousy mastering that you almost wanted to go to the store and make them play the new stuff to see if you wanted it.

Warners was the worst label in my opinion (at least for its own imprint). Frank's output was normally very low-noise. Other than Columbia Records (which almost always produced low-noise records which rarely had skipping flaws, at least me and my buddies felt that way), record production was for shit by the advent of the CD.

I think that had Frank lived he would have been constantly tinkering with his old masters to try to get what he originally wanted them to sound like.

_________________
If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

Only half-true. What we have on MOFO for instance, is from Frank's original 1987 transfer, according to he liner notes. So he could have stayed as true to the originals as possible even back then, if that would have been his intentions.

Th.

Since the topic is "wizard", I gotta mention Joe Meek. A narrow spectrum of niche music, but the guy was a wizard. He made his own gear, which he would then cover in black tape so no one could copy it. He made equipment and sounds and people couldn't figure out how he did it. Thats a Wizard.

_________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

No need to start throwing truth around, it's not a competition. All I was answering was why the need for remastering has arisen. In some cases, the remasters are of FZ remixes, they haven't gone totally back to original.

_________________
The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Perhaps I got you wrong and you got me wrong in return. So everything is in balance again and nothing to worry about

Th.

He hasn't got a pointy hat on...

_________________
"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly."

It's in his pocket probably.
What about Mike Oldfield?

_________________
RZZZZZ!

I sort of had this in mind when I begun the discussion: Zappa was very idiosyncratic and he did it despite knowing he would not please the masses... That is why he did it, because he could, and he wanted to play with his new toys, including the perfect drum sound (seems they spend days trying different heads, tuning, miking, etc...).

Oddly enough, when I first heard the WOIIFTM tweaked version, was the first time I heard it at all. I wasn't aware of the overdubbing stuff and I remember being puzzled how the drums sounded so clear for a record that old...

_________________