japanese imports

i was at this music store the other day and it was good cuz it had almost all of queen's releases but it also had a bunch of japanese imports of the studio albums. they had different packaging and some japanese written on the back but as far as i could tell they weren't any different from the normal albums...just way more expensive! has anyone ever seen these before and are they worth buying?

Definitely not.... they are merely badly remastered versions of the 94 remasters - madness. too much compression - particularly on the higher frequencies, the lowest & highest frequencies appear to have been cut & whoever eq'd this set must be fucking deaf aswell

oh thank goodness...i was this close to buying them :o

no but shall stay well clear of em now.

Negative Creep wrote:

Definitely not.... they are merely badly remastered versions of the 94 remasters - madness. too much compression - particularly on the higher frequencies, the lowest & highest frequencies appear to have been cut & whoever eq'd this set must be fucking deaf aswell

That would be Justin Shirley-Smith's doing.

Either way, the 2001 remaster tracks on Queen: Jewels II sounds fine to me.

I have a sample put up, which there is a link to in this section.

No, to me, the Mini-LP versions of the albums sound BETTER than the '94 remasters. They are less harsh at the higher end and at the bottom, the sound is *richer* as opposed to deeper. I think they are also mastered slightly less *LOUD* than the '94 set. The packaging is also nicer (although the cover of Queen II still looks like a badly pasted cut out on a black background) and they make a nice departure from the standard jewel case in amongst the hundreds of others.......

So much so that I flogged all my '94 remasters on e-bay a couple of weeks ago after buying ALL the Mini-LP versions.

Here's the link for my edited sampler of Jewels II:

http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=34FNXZBG7XR8E1VX53JWZXD0CQ

Inu Yasha (a.k.a. Lum's Stormtrooper) wrote:

Here's the link for my edited sampler of Jewels II:

http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=34FNXZBG7XR8E1VX53JWZXD0CQ

thanks! yeah they do sound fine to me...they sound smoother in a sense and overall i wouldn't mind having them

You can order them from http://www.cdjapan.co.jp (CDJapan), or any other site that sells Japanese import CD's (though CDJ is one of the best!)

Regarding the remastered CD's: The ones originally recorded on analogue tape (Queen - Hot Space) are regarded as sounding the best out of all the remasters produced from around the world, so these would be the best copies if you're for improved re-mastered sound quality

THE WORKS was also recorded in analog equipment.

Wilki wrote:

THE WORKS was also recorded in analog equipment.

Yes, and so was Magic, but they were mixed down and mastered digitally.

I should post Justin Shirley-Smith's letter regarding this matter again...

AKOM was definitely recorded digitally, The Works was originally recorded digitally but theres seems to be some confusion over this... I don't think the original vinyl or CDs were actually mastered from the digital masters but from an analogue master.

Well I have the UK Live Killers 2003 re-issue (A.K.A Japanese 2001). And it seems fine to me. If you want the Imports HMV are selling them for £17.

Here's my letter from Justin Shirley-Smith:

"Hi Richard

In answer to your questions.

The earliest digital tape in the Queen audio archive is dated 20th
September 1983. This is an F1 format cassette-tape of rough mixes from
The Works sessions which is stereo only.

The earliest digital multi-track tape in the Queen audio archive is
dated 18th September 1987. This is a DASH format tape which has 24
tracks. This tape contains transfers of various Brian songs from analog
tapes done at the time Brian first bought the machines - just prior to
The Miracle sessions.

Obviously, any type of tape damage (water, fire, heat, breakage etc)
could result in loss of information if serious enough, but he most
important thing to avoid is proximity to anything magnetic, such as a
loud speaker. A magnetic field will erase information from analog or
digital tapes because they are both magnetic media. This is the first
thing you learn in a recording studio for obvious reasons. Since
computer hard disks (+ floppy discs, jazz and zip etc) are also
magnetic media, they too are best kept away from magnetic fields.

In the beginning of automated mixing, the fader move data was recorded
on one track per pass alternately, using up two tracks of the
multi-track tape. In the Queen Audio archive this only happened on
Musicland tapes. Starting from The Works (recorded at The Record Plant
LA), one track of the multi-track tape was used to record time-code.
This technology comes from the movie industry and is used for
synchronising things together, such as music to picture and, in the
audio world, facilitated the first 48 track playback by synch'ing one
24 track tape to another 24 track tape. From memory, I think the first
48 track Queen songs are Hard Life and Hammer To Fall. The time code
was also used to allow a mix computer to recognise which part of the
tape was playing, and therefore which fader moves to perform. The fader
mix data was stored separately on computer disks of various kinds.
Automated mixing still works in the same way, by chasing time-code.


Best Wishes

Justin"

>Well I have the UK Live Killers 2003 re-issue (A.K.A Japanese 2001). And it seems fine to me. If you want the Imports HMV are selling them for £17.

Alternatively, go to Queenonline and buy them as "Buy 1 get 1 free"