Anyone in the UK bought the Remasters yet?

Someone in Ireland reported that they had bought the remasters in a shop over there (they got the stock in early).

Sad to report he thought they were a huge dissapointment (although this was clearly not entirely unexpected!). This was someone who knows his onions in audio terms. Reported that the main albums had their EQ fiddled with to sound warm (but sounded like a blanket had been thrown over the speakers). Also tracks on the main album had variable rates of compression. I know -1 has posted some waveforms of selected tracks but this might not give the full picture of how crummy this CDs are reported to sound.

This guy was also dissapointed in the artwork - no tracing paper on Low-Life and reduced number of images on Technique etc Also the tracklisting for the Bonus discs is only on the disc not on the artwork (so once the disc is in the machine you have to guess what track comes next!)

Looks like London have excelled themselves this time.

No one is ever happy...what a surprise!

They will be far far better than the cheap Centredate/London issues we've been given for the last decade.

my pre orders have not yet been posted

Ally wrote:

I didn't see any Movements on the shelf...

hibster wrote: my pre orders have not yet been posted

HMV have posted ONE of mine...

"Sunrise" on "low life" has a huge volume dropout on the right channel at 2:30... unbelievable!!!!

Ally wrote: TBTHOG's intro is fucked, whoever mastered it should hang their head... there are audible gloops and skips in the opening hihat/keyboard sequence; would love to know how that passed quality control? The next track Evil Dust sounds like it was recorded directly from vinyl, I can hear the crackles or some sort of skip at the start and I'm sure it wasn't like that on the True Faith CDv. I use EAC on secure mode to rip music so it's not my work DVD drive playing up, I know that much.

Bugger, that's the same as on the promo CDR's (I received Brotherhood - the only one I bought - on Saturday) - I was hoping that would have got rectified before the official releases....

TBTHOG is very noticeable - a bit towards the beginning and a bit towards the end, and yup, Evil Dust (and no, it's not a b-side, Rhino... ), does sound a bit crap...

just noticed 'Mesh' (labelled C&W) has odd glitches throughout on the promo disc. Guess that will be present on the finished one when it finally comes out. I suspect it's delayed due to its 'Temptation' issues.

In France, it seems that the remasters will not be available until next week.

I pre-ordered mine from the UK and actually received them Friday. Technique, I am afraid, is a total wash as well. It's my favorite album of all time, and I am not even a huge New Order fan. The only songs that benefit are the "dance" oriented songs and even then it just sounds so compressed. Songs like All The Way seem louder but so much seems to have been lost in the mastering. They just weren't worth the conversion rate, that's for sure.

The bonus disc - I too can hear that it sounds like they ripped the songs from Vinyl. I can hear pops and a small "hiss", especially during Run 2.

This is just so sad as all my other favorite groups have had excellent remasters.

I received PCL too but haven't listened to it yet, and am actually afraid to as I don't want the same kind of disappointment.

You mean they've half arsed the re mastering?

What a massive surprise that is!

They cant even be bothered doing re issues correctly now. Speaks volumes.

Is the remastering really that bad? i knew they were going to botch the tracklist but i thought they would at least get the remastering right. doesn't anyone properly listen to them before they get pressed?! fucking ridiculous!

Ridiculous, but not in the least bit surprising.

what price are they in the shops ???

what price are they in the shops ???

To have it delivered to the States I paid USD 28.06 for each CD.

I just listened to Round and Round (Extended Mix as it has it listed) and almost had a stroke. I counted 4 pops/irregular static within the first 20 seconds. I am listening through BOSE Noise Canceling headphones right now. It's definitely a vinyl rip and it is atrocious.

Listen to the 15 second mark right before 16 seconds and tell me how any reputable company would allow that kind of glaring mistake. THEN...right before the 28 second mark and then at then right before 38 second mark.. Complete crap.

Colin Simpson wrote: what price are they in the shops ???

Apparently 14 quid from HMV...

I'm really looking forward to these now...

So, a lot of these mixes (on the bonus discs) sound as though somebody just pressed play on a record player (with a scratchy record), and recorded the result...

Marvellous... I could have done the same job at home...

They only had Low Life in our HMV. The others were missing in action.

These sound like they've been mastered from the Centredate cd's and not the er masters themselves. Might wait until the price drops for these.

Going off on a tangent I got the Still remaster a couple of weeks back and the accompanying booklet has half of Unknown Pleasures notes in it and half of I think what should have been Still's notes.

It sounds like an MP3 vinyl rip with a lot of compression. Trust me, I hate to report this.

£79 USB turntable anyone?

listening to the bonus discs of 'brotherhood', and 'movement' now.

yes, some of those tracks came from vinyl..

a full review for each disc coming soon..

plus more updates for 'power corruption and lies', and 'low-life'..

very disappointing..to say the least..

HOWEVER, if there is a miracle, they should pull the US release, and the other ones, and get them fixed first..

later -1

I listened to the whole Low-life album and bonus disc today and I habe to say this release is a massive disappointment. I even would advise anyone not to buy it. The original album has a massive mistake with a volume dropout on one channel during "Sunrise" for ca. 5 seconds. Unbelievable, this was flawless on Retro. It even doesn't sound very good as a whole. Turn up the volume on your original Factory CD and it sounds better and warmer. The tracks on the bonus disc sound mostly awful. "The Perfect Kiss" is complete, but has some clearly audible popps from start to finish. "Sub-culture" and "Shellshock" just sound shitty, more bass but also no presence. "Let's Go" sounds better than on the Salvation! CD at least. My advice: stick to your Factory CD, Substance and the vinyl 12"es, they sound better. I just can't believe this release passed the quality control of band, management and label. It's clear that NO ONE from them is only slightly interested in these releases. The booklet is a joke too: No information on bonus tracks, who's done the remastering, no add. photos from the cassette release, just ONE text. But nice lettering...

Just visited a certain p2p site. I'd support NO in any way i can but not this piece of slime record company.

Using vinyl transfers is beyond pathetic. Surely TBTHOG 12" was released on cd already, so why use a vinyl version? I've already done my own digitisation of all the vinyl stuff.

Maybe they just visited a p2p site themselves and downloaded mp3s of other people's vinyl rips and just burned them!

Knobheads.

404 error wrote: Using vinyl transfers is beyond pathetic. Surely TBTHOG 12" was released on cd already, so why use a vinyl version? I've already done my own digitisation of all the vinyl stuff.

Maybe they just visited a p2p site themselves and downloaded mp3s of other people's vinyl rips and just burned them!

Knobheads.

I'm not buying these remasters. There's really no point. I've got it all. I MAY buy them if they turn up dirt cheap in a few years time. But I'm not now. The only way I can demonstrate to London or whoever that I dislike shoddy and unsatisfactory product is by not buying it. Do a decent job and I'll pay the money. Don't, and I won't.

I'd love to know what the problem was with doing these remasters properly.

Do you think that with the chaos at the end of Factory Records they have now lost the master tapes of some of this stuff?

Or is it just the case that they couldn't care less about the audio quality and just grabbed the first tape/vinyl/mp3 copy that came to hand?

Hooky's got tons of Masters : didn't he go down to Strawberry and salvage all the old JD tapes from a bin in the rain?

Personally, I can't see what the problem was with actually saying to this website : here you go, produce the best bonus disc you can and we'll sort the fine detail.

Adam Tate wrote: I'd love to know what the problem was with doing these remasters properly.

Do you think that with the chaos at the end of Factory Records they have now lost the master tapes of some of this stuff?

Or is it just the case that they couldn't care less about the audio quality and just grabbed the first tape/vinyl/mp3 copy that came to hand?

It's probably the same reason why they didn't play The Perfect Kiss live during years (they weren't arsed to spend some time doing the programming): I can easily imagine that Hooky's got all master tapes, but sorting them out and retrieving the final versions of each song (not mentioning actually remastering them) was probably too much of an effort for the sluggards.

There are better versions of the songs floating around in these forums. There are several people on the boards who have the ability to take a rip from vinyl and clean it up, making it sound better than a CD - truly, professional-sounding output from people who aren't professionals but do it because they love the music and would be happy to lend a hand. I'm sure members would have been pouring out of the woodwork to help, if only we'd been asked.

This tells me without a doubt they just don't care.

I was going to buy them for the sleeve notes and artwork, but I won't bother - and I'm a faithful collector.

I'll just finish with my own versions, thanks.

Ally wrote: I've lost interest in speaking about these reissues to be honest.

Complete crap... my last words on the subject

Good luck with your reissues, £50.

to be fair: only the bonus discs seem to have most of the issues... the actual albums are decent enough in quality..

movement - no major problems power corruption and lies - no major problems low-life - drop in some channels on sunrise brotherhood - no major problems technique - no major problems

later -1

Hooky's got tons of Masters : didn't he go down to Strawberry and salvage all the old JD tapes from a bin in the rain?

Nope, someone else did that...and they've still got them

Been away for a few days, and refrained from buying as I looked through the booklets in HMV, and thought, "you fucking lazy cunts".

Reading all the comments here would suggest it's far, far worse.

London Records - YOU ARE COCKSUCKERS OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, AND AN ABSOLUTE SHOWER OF CUNTS.

What was wrong with just replicating what the Pet Shop Boys did?

And -1? Don't!!!

Ally wrote:

It's taking a fair amount of effort - as a relatively hardcore collector - to refrain from getting a refund on the new Low-life, Brotherhood & Technique I bought yesterday morning... the TBTHOG 12" on the Brotherhood bonus disc had me grinding my teeth in embarrassment; a proper fucking disappointment whether you're bothered by correct remastering or not. Everyone slated "International" at the time but at least the tracks were properly mastered with some care and sound relatively pristine next to this lot.

Will be going straight back to the shop for a refund, as all these "CDs" are clearly faulty. Channel drops, clicks, pops, from vinyl? Unacceptable. I would suggest that everybody who's unhappy (quite a few people, it seems) does the same. Return your CDs for a refund. That's the only way Warner Brothers will listen.

This might sound like a lazy question but can you really return opened products in the UK/Europe? In the US you cannot get your money back on an opened CD or DVD. You can only get the exact same replacement and nothing else.

Since I paid $65 USD for 2 shitty Remasters I would love to return them.

Now, I'm no audiophile, but the 'crackles' and 'pops' that are apparent throughout Perfect Kiss on the Low-life bonus disc are shocking. Add that to the misprint on the spine of the case (1983 instead of 1985), and no doubt other shoddy attention to detail to await elsewhere, and this makes one very disappointed New Order fan. I was going to buy Movement, but seriously doubt I will now. Can people at London involved in this project please explain why quality control has been so poor?

Quick summary of my views on the remasters:

PCL: Quite pleased with this one - both disks sound good and appear complete with no errors or vinyl nonesense.

Low-Life: Main CD ok apart from the right-channel dropout in Sunrise. Bonus CD vinyl clicks on TPK are poor.

Brotherhood: Main CD ok. Bonus CD vinyl clicks on 1963 and TBTHOG are poor.

Technique: Main CD ok. Bonus CD appears to be sourced entirely from vinyl and is ruined by pops and clicks. I ended up making my own.

Overall: Poor. Rhino appear to have taken the master tapes and shat on them rather than using them to make the bonus disks. Oh well. Time to move on and buy some other stuff...

...mind you, it has been a good excuse to play loads of New Order again (not that one was needed). No doubt I'll buy Movement also when it comes out, despite still having the channels reversed on the original Ceremony mix...

Long live the music - however it's packaged.

Andrew wrote: I was going to buy Movement, but seriously doubt I will now.

movement is one of the best ones actually, the main disc sounds great, and the bonus tracks are all decent.. especially if they're putting the 7" and 12" versions of temptation on there..

later -1

Who is New Order's Manager?

Were the band consulted at all?

Surely there must have been listening sessions to ascertain quality?

Surely the band couldn't be pleased with these products?

The actual tracklisting was dubious in the 1st place - incomplete, bizarre choices, lazy.

It really pains me to mention this AGAIN but the Pet Shop Boys remaster booklets contained comprehensive comments on the making of the album, and images from that era. What do we get? A flimsy booklet with no images! When you have such amazing source material from Peter Saville that could have been used, this really takes the fucking biscuit.

And reading all the comments about the poor sound, just makes me so fucking angry. If you're going to do something, do it fucking properly.

CUNTS

Chad Weeks wrote: This might sound like a lazy question but can you really return opened products in the UK/Europe? In the US you cannot get your money back on an opened CD or DVD. You can only get the exact same replacement and nothing else.

Since I paid $65 USD for 2 shitty Remasters I would love to return them.

Yes you can get refunds. There is also a Trading Standards Act that refers to shoddy goods where the goods should be:

Of satisfactory quality, which means they must meet the standards that any reasonable person would expect;

Fit for the purpose;

As described.

I don't have these re-masters but it sounds like they fail the above 3 should shops not be willing to refund.

what's in the booklets? any good sleeve notes?

this all sounds like a monumental cock-up

Not much really in the booklets, half a dozen pages of blurb about the album, but no real details or new insights.

Not very well made and appears 'cheap' in my opinion.

I have got Brotherhood and Technique, I'm assuming the others will all be the same.

Wonder how/what they willl do with the Republic Album art, the booklet was really nice in the original, hopefully it'll be put right given the feedback so far!

Here's hoping!

Not that its a big deal at this point, but does Technique bonus disk have WIM carib mix or not? (fnac site misses it off the track list). And is it a poppy clicky vinyl version or not?

It's there, although it's mis-labeled 'Cabinieri Mix' on the CD. And it sounds like its sourced from vinyl.

was down at hmv today and just for one moment had brotherhood ,powercorruption and lies ,low life in me hand,, they looked beatifull, awesome , then i looked at the price tag£13.99 for an alleged sound botch up,,,naaaaa neatly arranged them back onto the shelf ,,, maybe just maybe amazon will tempt me into all 5 .

watched it slip away

I did order alle remasters @ my local recordshop (yes, there's still a few left in Holland:) )

But reading all the messages here makes think of going up to the store and cancel the order

Doesn't sound to cool..

not a good job

total disaster, wish id never have bought them - ive got a version of the full-length TPK that sounds 100 times better than the disgrace offered on the Low-Life bonus disk.

complete and utter waste of time.

Just listening to Hooky on Radio 2. They're playing Vanishing Point and the CD has started skipping! Says it all really.

79 order wrote: neatly arranged them back onto the shelf

Face up

Sorry to harp on about this, but Perfect Kiss on the Low-life bonus is an embarrassment. Can we have a 'fixed' version (of this and the other dodgy vinyl rips) made available to download ASAP please London/Rhino?

What I've read here, I won't buy those remastered (ahem...) CDs as well, as I can trust your ears.

What do you think, shouldn't a remaster sound like this one?

http://chronovisor.blogspot.com/2008/09/decadence-of-80s-part-44.html

Any comments?

cheers,

|cv|

I haven't heard the full remasters, but all these messages are making me totally disappointed. Of course that die-hard fans like us tend to be more critical but I've read (and listened to clips of) real problems that are unacceptable for a band with NO status.

Seriously, when they supposedly 'split up' we were receiving statements in the press about bullshit that I would rather not know, so this is a good time to Hook go to myspace and give a real useful explanation to fans telling what the hell is going on with the low quality of these releases.

One thing everyone seems to have forgotten is that the main albums themselves sound great and have no glitches/clicks etc, in other words are in fact remastered and largely improved.

All this moaning is purely about the track selection and sound quality of the extra bonus tracks (State Of The Nation's appearance on Brotherhood excepted).

Just redressing the balance a little.

Saved me a few quid anyway.

If this has been answered, I've missed it:

Are the sleeves the same?

What was that new Brotherhood art?

Was Saville involved in any redesign?

So Brotherhood does use the new sleeve?

Why didn't you say that then?

Fanny.

johnny james wrote: One thing everyone seems to have forgotten is that the main albums themselves sound great and have no glitches/clicks etc, in other words are in fact remastered and largely improved.

All this moaning is purely about the track selection and sound quality of the extra bonus tracks (State Of The Nation's appearance on Brotherhood excepted).

Just redressing the balance a little.

i mentioned it earlier a page back also..

but you're wrong ....

low-life has a problem with sunrise : see the levels drop out here in the right channel,

http://www.neworderonline.com/Forums/MessageList.aspx?ThreadID=43506&PageIndex=2

there are other problems with other tracks too..

later -1

-1 wrote: ...low-life has a problem with sunrise...

later

-1

...yeah, you can hear it between 02:36 to 02:40 mins, and that's absofcukinlutely inacceptable for a remaster and for everything...

cheers,

|cv|

Only one I've received from HMV so far is Low-Life. Can't speak for the other releases yet, but I can confirm that without needing to analyse waveforms:

There is indeed a very noticable drop out of volume during Sunrise, and:

They shouldn't have bothered putting the full Perfect Kiss 12" on there if that's the best they could do - sounds awful: almost like the original master tape had some pops/clicks that they've tried to muffle with a filter.

My vinyl recording made with my Technics 1210 and a £150 preamp sounds miles better than what's on CD!

There's also quite a few similar glitches in the Sub-Culture 12" mix as well - they're just harder to pick out as it's quite a busy mix, but they run the whole way through it!

Maybe the master tapes were simply in a dodgy condition, and this was the best they could do?

Andy

andy,

in other threads, peter hook said they had lost the master tapes to a lot of tracks...

so maybe that's why they sourced them from vinyl...

that sounds likely to me..

later -1

Peter said in that Radio 2 interview that they lost some of the master tapes. He didn't specifically say that any of the tracks on the bonus CDs were from anything other than the master tapes they did have.

Do we know for definite that anything on the bonus CDs are from vinyl? Other from what we suspect from what our ears lead us to believe?

Andy

The problem is not that some tracks are mastered from vinyl, it is some filter that should clean those tracks from crackle and pop but is used so amateurish that they start to sound completely unnatural and faulty. These tracks all sound "swallowed" in places.

It's also possible that some of the tracks were mastered from DAT if somebody was too lazy to get them off the original analogue reels / couldn't be bothered to track them down / didn't know better. Many DAT tapes from the late 80s - early 90s now suffer from drop-outs, and yes, this could be what they've been trying to mask (by "de-noising" them, which is the wrong way to go).

I bought Technique to 'test the water' & mainly for the 'new artwork' before buying the rest.

Nothing outstanding or impressive at all - simply repackaged with bonus tracks we all already have.

Why was time & materials wasted making these?

One refund please...

Is it true that the track listing for each bonus disc is only printed on the CD itself? If so, perhaps the reissues were planned as single disc editions to begin with, so the extra tracks were put together hurriedly.

My God, don't you people get wound up by minutiae? I've finally taken delivery of the new Low-life, and I'm very happy with it. Yes, there's a minor volume dropout on Sunrise, but if Hannett had produced it you'd have all claimed it to be ironic or artistic. Overall the sound quality seems excellent to me.

And as for the bonus disc: TPK is one of my favourite NO tracks, so I'm delighted to get the full length version on CD for the first time; my only other copy is on the limited edition boxed cassette of Low-life (Fact 100c, Fact-fans!), and judging from some of the comments on this forum, I feared the sound quality would be similar to a tape-to-tape copy of that. Well, I have done some technical analysis, and I can confirm that a graph of the Fact 100c version looks like this:

While the new version looks like this:

Conclusive, I'm sure you'll agree.

Also, fair play to them for putting Dub-Vulture on the disc; I hated it when it first came out, but have since got into some of the more 'difficult' NO tracks, and the last minute of D-V rocks.

Finally, I would agree that the packaging is fairly average, but personally I very rarely buy music on the basis of the packaging (with the exception of the limited edition NO boxed cassettes, did I mention?), and let's face it, Peter Saville/Factory was a unique artistic experiment which was wonderful while it lasted, while Rhino are just another record company. What more would you expect?

Yeah, The Perfect Kiss 12" isn't *that* bad - just try listening to Touched By The Hand Of God on the Brotherhood bonus disc - that is cringeworthy (for the first half a minute, anyway)...

And, I'm not of the type to overanalyse sound levels (for instance, I didn't really notice the swapping of the channels in Ceremony on Singles, for instance - still can't) - just notice the obvious glitches.

I've got 4 of the 5 at the moment,just waiting for Movement. Have listened to Low-life & Technique so far,& they both sound fine to me,altho' I think Sunrise has a problem at the end of the first chorus. I just feel really disappointed with the whole thing,I mean why put fookin' Dub-vulture on when more or less everyone on here completely derides the Robie mix,mixes of TPK would have been far more appealing,the same for WIM Cabinieri mix(spelt wrong) & 2 mixes of Fine Time,one of which we already have.& what is the point of changing 2 of the sleeves,but not the others,I like the idea of remixing the sleeves(very Factory),but why only 2? & for me personally,I just feel the booklet interviews/insights are not enough,would've liked era pics,details etc.,I know it's not the Factory or New Order type thing to do,but those days have gone,the secrets out,there is no more myth to make,no legend to generate or mass secret to produce,it all just smacks of a real half-arsed attempt & a fookin' insult to us & to the memory of what N.O. should be I'll be back to rant on this some more,I'm so fookin' disappointed,but it's time to go home! On the other hand,TPK 12" & Let's Go sound fookin' amazing