Remastered albums

Talk about Petra albums, songs, and concerts.
stateofminduk
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by stateofminduk » Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm

The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster...a credit would've been appreciated though :P
Last edited by stateofminduk on Tue Dec 07, 2021 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by Mountain Man » Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:59 pm

stateofminduk wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm
The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster. :P
If the pops and flutters match exactly then that seems conclusive. And disheartening, because it means, apparently, that the original tapes no longer exist.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by Progfan » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:37 pm

Mountain Man wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:59 pm
stateofminduk wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm
The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster. :P
If the pops and flutters match exactly then that seems conclusive. And disheartening, because it means, apparently, that the original tapes no longer exist.
Maybe they were lost in the Universal Studios fire. Or possibly they exist somewhere and nobody knows exactly where they are. Bummer either way.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by p-freak » Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:56 am

stateofminduk wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm
The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster. :P
I get why these tracks were sourced from vinyl. The original masters are presumed lost, so they didn't really have a choice. But it is rather weak if they didn't even have those songs digitised in a professional studio with high-end equipment from a pristine vinyl copy.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by Progfan » Thu Dec 02, 2021 12:34 pm

p-freak wrote:
Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:56 am
stateofminduk wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm
The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster. :P
I get why these tracks were sourced from vinyl. The original masters are presumed lost, so they didn't really have a choice. But it is rather weak if they didn't even have those songs digitised in a professional studio with high-end equipment from a pristine vinyl copy.
They may have. Even if some of the pops and flutters match up. I have confirmed in the past that certain albums contained the same slight defects in the audio across multiple copies, as if there were manufacturing defects during an entire pressing.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by brent » Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:30 pm

Progfan wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:37 pm
Mountain Man wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:59 pm
stateofminduk wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm
The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster. :P
If the pops and flutters match exactly then that seems conclusive. And disheartening, because it means, apparently, that the original tapes no longer exist.
Maybe they were lost in the Universal Studios fire. Or possibly they exist somewhere and nobody knows exactly where they are. Bummer either way.
No. Had nothing to do with the fire. The masters were not there.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by zman7720000 » Thu Dec 02, 2021 5:15 pm

I assume Starsong would’ve had to had access to the originals at some point in the 80s when they originally released the CDs. This would’ve been several years after the original LP.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by Progfan » Thu Dec 02, 2021 6:31 pm

zman7720000 wrote:
Thu Dec 02, 2021 5:15 pm
I assume Starsong would’ve had to had access to the originals at some point in the 80s when they originally released the CDs. This would’ve been several years after the original LP.
Not necessarily, because those CDs are from the era when it was unfortunately common for them to be replicated from safety copies or worse.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by stateofminduk » Fri Dec 03, 2021 4:01 am

p-freak wrote:
Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:56 am
stateofminduk wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:24 pm
The two formerly 'missing' tracks on the 'Washes Whiter Than' remaster appear to have been sourced from vinyl.
Listen carefully and you can hear the odd giveaway. In fact, the pops and flutters match exactly with the WAV files of those songs, that I uploaded to this very forum a couple of years ago. Glad to have been of help, if indeed it is my vinyl transfers of 'Without You' & 'Magic Words' that have been used as a source on the remaster. :P
I get why these tracks were sourced from vinyl. The original masters are presumed lost, so they didn't really have a choice. But it is rather weak if they didn't even have those songs digitised in a professional studio with high-end equipment from a pristine vinyl copy.
Just a little background on my transfers, for anyone that's interested; They were done in my home studio, (I produce and present a weekly radio programme), with high-end equipment from a pristine vinyl copy, (I was extremely lucky to find a sealed copy on MusicStack a few years ago); It's not like it was a hatchet job on one of those cheap 'vinyl2mp3' type turntables. Then I manually removed as much surface noise as I could and mastered the files in Blackbox...and then uploaded to Dropbox for your listening pleasure. So, quality-wise, they'd be about as good as a professional studio would come up with from the same source. My personal remasters of the first two albums and CITAS, (from cassette), have been done with the same software and sound pretty darn good too.

Just conjecture on my part, but I'd hazard a guess that, when Starsong were producing the 2 on 1 CD, some unwise individual made the decision to not bother making a digital master of those two songs, as at that point they had no intention of using them and didn't forsee that they might need them later on at some point, (similar to what the BBC used to do here in the UK in the 60s through early 80s; if they didn't think they'd be using a programme again, or didn't think they'd be able to sell it, they just wiped the tapes!). An absolute tragedy! Why the heck they didn't just release the two albums seperately at the time...all to save a few bucks at the time!! Pretty dire. I'm also rather concerned that CITAS might have suffered a similar fate! If all that is officially in the archive is the awful CD version, then we probably aren't going to get a remaster of the most complete original release, unless they do a remaster from a cassette source, of course.
Last edited by stateofminduk on Tue Dec 07, 2021 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by p-freak » 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.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by p-freak » Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:05 am

stateofminduk wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 4:01 am
Just a little background on my transfers, for anyone that's interested; They were done in my home studio, (I produce and present a weekly radio programme), with high-end equipment from a pristine vinyl copy, (I was extremely lucky to find a sealed copy on MusicStack a few years ago); It's not like it was a hatchet job on one of those cheap 'vinyl2mp3' type turntables. Then I manually removed as much surface noise as I could and mastered the files in Blackbox...and then uploaded to Dropbox for your listening pleasure. So, quality-wise, they'd be about as good as a professional studio would come up with from the same source. My peronal remasters of the first two albums and CITAS, (from cassette), have been done with the same software and sound pretty darn good too.

Just conjecture on my part, but I'd hazard a guess that, when Starsong were producing the 2 on 1 CD, some unwise individual made the decision to not bother making a digital master of those two songs, as at that point they had no intention of using them and didn't forsee that they might need them later on at some point, (similar to what the BBC used to do here in the UK in the 60s through early 80s; if they didn't think they'd be using a programme again, or didn't think they'd be able to sell it, they just wiped the tapes!). An absolute tragedy! Why the heck they didn't just release the two albums seperately at the time...all to save a few bucks at the time!! Pretty dire. I'm also rather concerned that CITAS might have suffered a similar fate! If all that is officially in the archive is the awful CD version, then we probably aren't going to get a remaster of the most complete original release, unless they do a remaster from a cassette source, of course.
Thanks for explaining your process. Then at least you have done what Girder should have done themselves ;-)

I've tried sending you a PM, but not sure if it works. Would you mind contacting me at petraspective (at) gmail (dot) com?
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by Progfan » Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:51 am

Discovery Systems produced loads of bad CDs. Something in their manufacturing process resulted in a poor quality reflective layer which over time disintegrates, slowly rendering the disc unplayable. Anytime I receive a used disc in the mail, and open it to find a Discovery Systems disc, my first task is to find out if it even works. If it does, I rip it as quickly as possible. Sometimes they don’t play at all, or they produce horrendous distortion in the audio.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by BriGuyPEI » Fri Dec 03, 2021 1:44 pm

Does the new version of This Means War fix the cut off drum intro for He Came He Saw He Conquered? The cassette has four snare hits but the original CD has like 2.5 snare hits.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by Progfan » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:12 pm

BriGuyPEI wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 1:44 pm
Does the new version of This Means War fix the cut off drum intro for He Came He Saw He Conquered? The cassette has four snare hits but the original CD has like 2.5 snare hits.
No, I mentioned this above somewhere. The new edition unfortunately exhibits the same error.
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Re: Remastered albums

Post by brent » Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:03 pm

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.
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