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Thread: Poor vinyl sound.....would be great on CD?

  1. #1
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    Poor vinyl sound.....would be great on CD?

    The other day I started humming a tune which belonged to a Disco record that I haven't played for nearly 30 years. I remembered in particular that this record had a very poor sound quality on the 7" pressing that I had and wished that it was on a CD somewhere. That got me thinking of other records that I really liked, that had poor sound quality and I haven't seen (yet?) on any CD compilation or otherwise.
    Here's a few tracks that I'd love to hear on CD and suffered from poor quality pressings on vinyl. Do you have any?
    Gene Dozier & the United Front - Give The Women What They Want - As funky as hell and a record that I played to death back in '74/75. The poor quality of this was puzzling, because it was on a fairly big league label (Mercury) in the U.K. and Gene Dozier (Lamont's brother?)was not someone who'd just walked into a studio for the very first time or didn't supposedly have the resources to do a decent job. I could be wrong of course.
    Ann Byers - This Man Is Rated X - This was released on a small label (POWER EXCHANGE) in the UK that delved into Disco occasionally. A true Disco hustler, full orchestra and a voice that really sold it to me. A great example of really early Disco, the 7" pressing had such a restricted top end that it was difficult to play it 'cos it sounded so poor. Even turning the treble control right onto maximum didn't help it that much.
    Leon Lee - He Was A Man - On London records in the UK (normally pretty good pressings) I can only assume that this records origins were small time and that affected the overall production quality. One of those records that I really used to look forward to playing 'cos although the lyrics were fairly serious social commentary, it funked and bumped along with great gusto, the overall effect being joyous and uplifting.

    I'm sure thare are others, but in my 9 months of collecting this old material on CD I haven't come across these and to hear them as they should sound, would be a blessing.

  2. #2
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    Re: Poor vinyl sound.....would be great on CD?

    [quote="QUINNY"]

    Ann Byers - This Man Is Rated X - This was released on a small label (POWER EXCHANGE) in the UK that delved into Disco occasionally. A true Disco hustler, full orchestra and a voice that really sold it to me. A great example of really early Disco, the 7" pressing had such a restricted top end that it was difficult to play it 'cos it sounded so poor. Even turning the treble control right onto maximum didn't help it that much.


    QUINNY the quality was nothing to do with power exchange it was just a poor recording the u.s copy was just as bad, it depends which power exchange release you are listening to as it also came out on a 4 track e.p and the sound was even worse.there was a male version "the girl is rated x" by prince johnny robinson in the u.s which was a better quality recording and that one had more club action here, though both were pretty obscure u.s releases
    hey quinny!youre stepping towards northern soul here, careful you might get your feet wet :lol:

  3. #3
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    One track that I'm surprised hasn't been released in full-length form is Sun... Sun... Sun... by Jakki/Johnnymelfi. However, I doubt that a CD reissue would help fidelity-wise... even though there's sonic material up to 20k, this one always sounds muddy no matter what you do EQ-wise. The 7" actually has better fidelity, lacking the distortion on the kick drums, but it's still pretty weak.

    Pretty much anything that was on AVI or Butterfly would greatly benefit from a CD release. Most of these were decent productions that were let down by poor mastering and/or vinyl quality.

  4. #4
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    Most AVI pressings were pretty poor and rather crackly, even brand new. Though I was surprised to find a 'best of' CD a few years back - most of the tracks (like Eastbound Expressway, Captain Sky, El Coco) sounded as dull as they do on record, with tape hiss substituting vinyl noise. David Benoit's 'Heavier Than Yesterday' is crisp, clean and rather hi-tech on CD - the vinyl LP is certainly the worst AVI press I ever heard. US Capitol from the '60s and '70s got my goat, too.

  5. #5
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    DISCODISK: Yeah, I realised that Ann Byers was considered Northern Soul (with a small n and a small s), speaking of which, the UK Seville release of Dooley Silverspoon and some of the early UK Jay Boy NS releases had awful sound quality didn't they? I guess a lot of the NS records suffered because of their relative obscurity and by default poor production values. Don't suppose the bootlegs were anything special, sound wise? Has a lot of the NS stuff been put out on CD?
    Still, it's what's in the grooves that counts.

  6. #6
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    QUINNY i didnt think the dooley silverspoon was that bad,and it wasnt a 7" in the states so i suppose we were lucky to have it,youre right about jay boy though, pretty poor though the u.s originals arnt [with only one or two exceptions]
    you ask if much northern soul has been put onto c.d youll be surprised at a guess 300++ so to compare with [out and out]disco compilations they probibly outnumber those in this country by 5-1 most are excellent sound quality and compiled with love,and they're no small sellers either at least 1 has sold a million copies :P

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