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My Generation Deluxe Edition-Horrible! (1 Viewer)

Larry Geller

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Joined
Jan 10, 2002
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608
I have spent the last 3 days listening to the new My Generation, and I'm so depressed that I can hardly type. As most of you know, we already have 6 of these tracks in stereo on Who's Missing (Leaving Here, and Lubie [Come Back Home]) and Two's Missing (I'm A Man, Daddy Rolling Stone, Heat Wave [Original Version], and Motoring). All the cuts are highly separated with guitar & bass far left, drums & piano far right and vocals centered (typical for 1965 rock mixing). All tracks sound excellent & finally gave a real feel for what was laid down in the studio.
Now, I put the new CD in & instead of the nice clean mixes we previously had, we now have a Shel Talmy overproduced mess. NO wide separation, instead we get an extremely narrow mix with, generally, everything in the center, the guitar SLIGHTLY to the left, and NOTHING out of the right, mucho limiting, out of phase BG vocals, fake left-right split lead guitar (the single guitar in the left on the Two's I'm A Man has mutated into a delayed, double-tracked mess coming from the left & the right). The ONLY track on the whole mess that sounds like it could have POSSIBLY been mixed in 1965 is I Can't Explain, which has all instruments dead center & the vocals & handclaps separated left & right (like on Run, Run, Run), and sounds wonderful. EVERYTHING else sounds kind of like Talmy's mixes of Something Else By The Kinks or Face To Face---in other words, barely stereo but using many more studio processing tricks that were not in use back then. I know this is sacrilege, but even John Astley would have done a better job with this!
I have waited over 30 years to hear a good copy of this record, & now any chance of that is ruined for good!
BTW---the packaging is gorgeous, only the actual MIXES suck eggs!
 

Paul Case

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jan 5, 2002
Messages
532
Follow this link for an entirely different review of the Deluxe My Generation. This review appears in Creem Magazine.
http://creemmedia.com/BeatGoesOn/WhoMyGen.html
Personally, I'm glad they got rid of the extreme left/right 1965 era stereo separation. I've always hated that and have always thought it sounded like crap. It mars quite a few otherwise great Beatles tracks as well. So kudos to Talmy for rightly giving the tracks a more pleasing, modern sounding stereo mix.
Can't wait for this set!
:emoji_thumbsup:
 

Larry Geller

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jan 10, 2002
Messages
608
For the most part, the stereo separation is fairly narrow - almost giving you the impression that the recordings are wide-mono. With a 3 track recording, there aren't a lot of options how to place the instruments in the sound field and I think their goal was to recreate more of the band sound (with Keith Moon set up in the middle of the band) vs. a great wide stereo mix (but less technically correct for how the band actually played - with Keith off to one side). Personally, I prefer wide stereo separation at the expense of "artistic correctness",
For a "positive" review, he sure seems to agree with my main complaints--Moon is SUPPOSED to be off to the right!
Other moanings about this release:
Bald Headed Woman, while at least a longer version, has ZERO separation & sure sounds like re-channeled for stereo to me.
Circles is completely missing Entwistle's french horn part (besides being dead, he can't seem to catch a break with this kind of stuff, as his horn solo was also wiped from I'm A Boy in the remix).
The real version of Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere is completely missing here. If the vocal was added to the mono mix, then why wasn't the mono mix tacked on at the end like the 2 tracks with guitar overdubs?

I now treasure my soon-to-be-rare-&-fetching-big-bucks-on-E-Bay pink label MCA mono CD!
 
Joined
Jul 22, 2002
Messages
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Real Name
Luke Pacholski
Circles is completely missing Entwistle's french horn part (besides being dead said:
The reason I got for that one was "it wasn't on the original LP". I guess they figured it wasn't "necessary" to put it on.
Also, it has been noted that La-La-La-Lies has some missing backing vocals in stereo. Not clear why they didn't issue the mono mix of this one as well.
 

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