[isamu]

Hi. Huge Simple Minds fan here

I recently ordered Simple Minds' remastered(well 2003 anyway) New Gold Dream, Once Upon a Time and Sparkle in the Rain albums from Amazon. They're my favorite band of all time and I can't wait to hear these new versions.

Can anyone tell me how improved the remastered albums are over the original pressings? I'm especially anxious to hear New Gold Dream.

 

[Exit Pupil]

haha! new thread is a good idea. i'll be watching with you on this one. for the sake of my wallet, i hope the remasters are dodgy.

 

[Relayer71]

LOL, I just mentioned the SM remasters on another thread!
They sound great, ESPECIALLY New Gold Dream. The sound opened up more and doesn't sound compressed.

I also picked up the remastered versions of: Sons And Fascination and Empires And Dance but haven't picked up any of the later stuff yet. I haven't owned those 2 in YEARS (had them on tape and vinyl in the 80s) so can't tell specific differences but I'm sure they never sounded this good.

I'm curious about Sparkle In The Rain and Live In The City Of Light though.

I have the old remastered version of Sparkle, the Audio Master Plus which doesn't sound THAT bad but Live In The City Of Light needed a remaster BADLY - that album lacked depth, definition and high end.

Anyone pick those up?

 

[isamu]

Cool....I should be receiving my remasters in the mail this week! But I'm gonna hold out until I get my Beyers DT-880s and E-MU 1616M sound card in the mail before I fire them up

Quote:

Originally Posted by Relayer71 /img/forum/go_quote.gif LOL, I just mentioned the SM remasters on another thread! They sound great, ESPECIALLY New Gold Dream. The sound opened up more and doesn't sound compressed.

Awesome. Which version of NGD do you have? The US SACD Hybrid CD or the Limited Edition U.K. Remaster? I Hear the UK edition is slightly different and that there are some slight changes to a couple of songs. I ordered both just be sure

By the way guys, do you by any chance know what happened to the official Simple Minds forum? If I'm not mistaken, it used to be a part of the www.simpleminds.org site. I used to go there a couple years ago but when I recently went I couldn't find it anywhere.

Is there a dedicated Simple Minds forum we can go to to discuss the band?

 

[adanac061]

Simple minds is my second favourite band behind led zep .
I have the remastered greatest hits cd. It sounds great, although a few songs show dynamic compression when running through audacity.

 

[isamu]

According to the guys at Dreamgiver, the remasterd version of OUAT is horrible! Darn, and I was looking forward to hearing it all spruced up

 

[Relayer71]

That's ok, OUAT was the beginning of the end of SM for me

How they went from Sparkle In The Rain to that is baffling - there sound changed COMPLETELY and although their follow up albums were decent (Real Life, Neapolis) they were never as good or original sounding as on anything pre-Sparkle.

I still like the first half of OUAT but it hasn't aged well as a whole - funny that Empires And Dance sounds more modern. They had such a unique sound early in their career.

Anyway, enough of my rant

 

[markl]

In general, the remasters are pretty good as these things go these days (speaking of NGD, SITR, and OUAT), done by the fairly reliable Simon Heyworth. He lays off the compression compared to most engineers, and does not use No-Noise.

He also did SACDs of these titles but they're OOP and quite expesnive now.

 

[Jesse Peters]

IMHO, there is a reason why MFSL costs so much. Or at least I would hope so :-/.

 

[isamu]

**** I've just listened to the DVD-Audio versions of New Gold Dream and OUAT and **** they sound INSANE!!!!!! They are ACTUAL RE-RECORDINGS of the albums, possibly recently and strictly for these releases! I swear, Jim's voice sounds older and harsher they way it sounds now, so I am almost POSITIVE they redid these albums completely from scratch! WOW! The mixing and clarity is B-A-N-A-N-A-S-!-!-!-! Everything is distinct and in yer face!

My only complaint is the way Jim re-sang some of the songs. I'm not used to the slightly different style with which he approached some songs such as Once Upon A Time, All the Things She Said, and Alive and Kicking. The new black female backup vocalist doesn't doesn't do anything for me either. In fact she comes close to almost ruining Alive and Kicking.

New Gold Dream...well...let's just say that although this re-recording sounds STUNNING on a technical level, I much prefer the way Jim sang it on the old original U.S. pressing. On this one, the treble in his voice is WAY too high to the point of irritating. I have to actually EQ the highs down to soften the treble. It's just too detailed IMHO. But I'm sure part of the reason is due to my extremely detailed Beyerdynamic DT-880 cans and Studio-grade E-MU 1616M PC sound card with a 125db signal to noise ratio

Anyway major MAJOR props to Simple Minds for completely re-recording these two albums in the studio for their fans. This is why they're my favorite rock band of all time.

 

[isamu]

Im gonna be listening to these again soon, just to see if there's any perceivable difference between the old masters and the new in terms of the mixing itself.