p-freak wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 4:56 am
The first pressings for Star Song Petra CDs were done in Japan. BTS, BTTS and TMW all exist in Japanese pressings for the US market.
The second set of pressings were done in the UK. MPTY, NOTW and BTS were pressed between July 1986 and September 1987 at a UK pressing plant called Disctec. These were then sold on the US market.
The first US pressings of Star Song Petra CDs were made by Discovery Systems. Discovery Systems operated between October 1986 and somewhere in 1988, so all the Discovery Systems pressings are from this era. The fact that there are Japanese pressings for TMW to me indicates that Star Song had the first batch of CD pressings for TMW done in Japan and only switched to Discovery Systems after TMW had been on the market for a while, so I assume that the Discovery Systems pressings date from late 1987 at the earliest. And the fact that there are no On Fire! (or any later Star Song compilation) Discovery Systems pressings indicated that Star Song ceased working with Discovery Systems before the release of On Fire! in late 1988.
The pressing contract was then switched to Nimbus, who had the Star Song CDs pressed at their pressing plant in Virginia between 1988 and at least 1992 (Petraphonics exists in a Nimbus pressing).
I guess that On Fire! was the only Star Song CD pressing that potentially could have been made directly from the original master. I think it's unlikely that the Japanese or UK pressings made use of the original masters. And when they started with Discovery Systems, earlier CD pressings were available for MPTY, NOTW, BTS, BTTS, and TMW, so they may have used earlier glass masters or CD copies for further duplication.
Pressing plants used Sony 1630 processed tapes for CDs. These were provided by the mastering engineer. The pressing plants had Sony machines and 1630 electronics. So, all of them had the 1630s with the same content. Since the digital data was digital data, it was not altered. This isn't a case where two-track 1/4" or 1/2" was being used. Not all CD pressings were equal. Since the CD was born in Japan, all of the first pressings for everything came from Japan for a bit.
CDs were eventually pressed as close to the geographic locations they would be sold. Initially, this wasn't possible.
Petra released just about everything until the last Word record on vinyl, cassette, CD, 8-tracks. Yes, cassette and 8-track. Those were released in Africa according to the man who was in charge of Petra's international sales, Eric Nordoff. He was the distributor for PDC and others, including Billy Graham. We had a chat about this at GMA week one year. The releases were often on other labels. The reality is, copies of copies of copies of Masters and back-ups were used for the stuff in foreign markets. The majority of product was often bootlegged by the very Christian bookstores and importers (we experienced this), especially where the cost of CDs was beyond the grasp of common folks, like in Brazil. A CD in 1990 might be $60.00 when purchased and imported the legal way, so they would make copies of one of the pressed discs and transfer it with crap art, typos, etc. This is how some artists had no idea they had audiences in those countries.
Aaaaanyway, the double Washes Whiter Than and Never Say Die was a matter of run time. If you do the math, they just cut the two songs that would be missed the least and maintain album continuity. It could have had something to do with mechanicals, but I doubt it. I think it is the limitation of time.
According to some people who managed assets at EMI, not all of the production masters were in great shape. The 1630s have fallen apart. The analog tapes were being baked and transferred to digital. Storage and preservation just weren't on the radar. Studios and engineers held the multitrack masters for payment, so some of those ended up going in the trash when the studios closed. One-half of a set was found in mini storage about a decade ago. Since the mates were gone, they were worthless. Even if they could be found, they would have never sync'd or played again. They were recorded on a new platform that didn't take off.
Petra is an odd duck. They were on the cutting edge, so they didn't get the resources that those who came after received. They came at a time when NOOOOOOOObody was thinking about asset preservation. Heck. Not even the band thought they would keep going long enough to matter. Nobody had any idea. Petra NEVER had a killer website or online presence by a label. Petra NEVER had a killer online store. They never had someone maximizing their assets. This has to be one of the most mismanaged bands of all time. It makes me mad sometimes. But, look at how big they got. Look at the influence they continue to have. Inspite of people doing things wrong, the music still does what the music always has done.