I just picked up the US Low-Life Collector's Edition at lunch and have been listening to the FLAC's that I ripped from the Disc. After reading all the complaints and not really hearing anything, I popped in the disc itself, put on my Grado SR-60s and you're all correct...much of the bonus disc sounds like shit. Particularly the Perfect Kiss extended version...tinny, pops, clicks, ugly. So apparently the US versions are going to be just like the UK versions. The drop-out in Sunrise is there as well. I guess I'll be removing the rest of these from my Xmas list. Sad.

I want my $20 back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20081010\_hook.shtml

hooky replies, sort of

randall fairbrook wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20081010\_hook.shtml

hooky replies, sort of

old news ;-)

I am so sad this remasters are out, that I felt the need to register to talk about my dissatisfaction. As a New Order fan since 1989, I feel extremely disappointed with the quality of the remasters. Things like this shouldn't happen, but here they are, and who to blame now?

Not that remasters are good, in fact, if you ReplayGain the original tracks against the remastered ones, you will find out that the album versions are lacking a bit more of dynamic range. This is normal in remastering scene, because the remasters are inevitably louder, even by a few dB's, thus louder, less dynamic range, when compared to the originals with leveled volume.

So, do you know what I think fans should do? I think we should make a torrent and replicate this remasters, with all CD versions fans have, everything that has been collected among us. When I say "replicate", it is not to drop the songs into Adobe Audition and mess with the tracks, but leave them intact, as original, lossless. The only work here is to group the songs and follow the tracklisting, of course, applying the corrections for mislabelled tracks.

This would be THE PACKAGING!, can you imagine? The best version available of a New Order song, in one single torrent. For example, I have never seen Perfect Kiss (Extended Version 8:42) on CD. But probably someone ripped so well that could outperform any other vinyl/mp3 version available, even from the record company. Not to mention that the tracks would be original, untouched, picked up from the right sources! Would be a dream! All dynamic range still there, maintained and preserved. No remastering crap! No loud to death music!

It's up for us fans, disrespected by the company label, to overcome this, let's show them we've got voice, and we are to be respected. RE-RELEASE THIS REMASTERS PROPERLY or "NEW ORDER DELUXE BOX" will be out on our own!!! This is what happens in democracy. They need to give us goodies, and we pay money, but not this crap. We do our own if we are to accept this crap.

I was waiting for so long to grasp many of the songs in this remastered set in CD version, and so disappointed now. I bet you are feeling like me.

We don't need to involve this site. All contact can be done by email. And the torrent trackers are very very popular, it would be easy to find.

DON'T GET ME WRONG, THIS IS JUST A FAIR SUGGESTION. SPECIALLY TO ONES WHO BOUGHT THE REMASTERS, OR OWN THE DISCOGRAPHY ON VINYL OR CASSETTE AGES AGO ( LIKE ME ).

Do you guys think Warner is going to fix this? Possibly offering a replacement program?

I don't know why they didn't do a better job with these. What pisses me off the most is that they didn't try remastering them in 5.1, like the Talking Heads box set.

Rhino Records called me back today, after having left a phone message with their customer service department.

He did confirm that the label and band are sorting out the problem and that it'll be done shortly after the holidays. He said Rhino offers their apology and gave me the option of either (a) returning the albums now for a full refund or online store credit or, (b) hang on to the albums for now and he'd call me back when the details/plans are finalized, sometime in January, in all likelihood.

I just decided to hang onto them for now; I've already spent the money, so I may as well have them sitting on the shelf.

At any rate, I'm very pleased with Rhino's response. Bright side is that we'll have great, fixed remasters in a few months' time!

That's fantastic (and hopefully true) news...I was able to return my copy of Low-Life to Newbury Comics in Boston, no questions asked. I did bring along a copy of the Hooky article just in case, but they were pretty understanding. I look forward to dropping $100 on all of these (fixed) sets in the new year.

This is great news!

If I may say that I have to be doubtful that all this mess can be fixed (re-remastered, repackaged, reprinted, and repressed) in a couple of months. We are talking 10 discs worth of work. I would guess this could take at least 6 months/1 year.

I'm afraid of returning everything and then they decide it's too expensive to fix all this and scrap the whole thing.

I've seen this happen before.

Maybe just being paranoid.

I hold little hope for a fix. It's already an ocean of money to remaster, press, print and distribute it world wide. I think the best bet of a label company is to wait for the dust to settle down and leave us fans into forgotten fog. Proof of this is that they do not speak or say anything officially, and if it's not like that, it's hard for people to come after them later and demand solutions. Everything is easier unofficially said, because things can turn any other way around. I bet that not even the band is going after a fix for the fans. Remasters, welcome!

Well, as word got out about these errored remasters...this totally sucks BTW, was looking forward to them for years...Rhino's usually good with these fixes, but I have a feeling this will take a while, MINIMUM March, 2009...I can wait tho.

On 2 related notes, that JAMC box is AWESOME, the track selection (a 4-disc expanded "Barbed Wire Kisses" really) and that packaging is really stunning. Another is regarding Oklahoma City, US band the Flaming Lips, who are signed to Warners...what happened was Rhino/Warner a few years ago reissued their 1999 masterpiece "The Soft Bulletin" as a CD/DVD with 5.1 surround. The DVD part was perfect but the thing is, the CD portion was supposed to be the redone one with the original tracklisting as the band intended, fixed channels, remastered and all...nope, the original inferior CD was included!!!! So, word got out and the BAND had their own exchange program!!! Basically, you keep the package, just send the inferior CD in an envelope to a specific PO Box and the corrected one would be exchanged. Well, it took 3-4 months, but the Lips did send me a corrected CD along with a HANDWRITTEN note of apologies and thanks from bandmember Michael Ivins on lined looseleaf paper, written in red ink!!!! How cool is that???? I folded it up and put it inside the CD booklet for safekeeping.

Now, I don't think Hooky would send handwritten notes, but I'm sure he is bothered by the situation at hand, as is Rhino...they are musicologists, of course they would care, and this situation would be resolved with care.

Poptone wrote: Rhino Records called me back today, after having left a phone message with their customer service department.

He did confirm that the label and band are sorting out the problem and that it'll be done shortly after the holidays. He said Rhino offers their apology and gave me the option of either (a) returning the albums now for a full refund or online store credit or, (b) hang on to the albums for now and he'd call me back when the details/plans are finalized, sometime in January, in all likelihood.

I just decided to hang onto them for now; I've already spent the money, so I may as well have them sitting on the shelf.

At any rate, I'm very pleased with Rhino's response. Bright side is that we'll have great, fixed remasters in a few months' time!

If it isn't too much trouble, could you provide a phone number, or contact info for Rhino?

Can we have proof that the band and label are re-sourcing the material on these remasters?

We really need to send them a message about how loud the bonus disc sounds. There are tracks with ReplayGain of -10.00dB, which is way too loud and not consistent with the albums!!! I can take -5.00dB but -10.00dB sounds a little exageratted IMHO!

NO NEED FOR LOUDNESS RACE GUYS!

OK, I just purchased the US releases -- all five of them -- before I picked up on this thread. I have yet to remove the shrink wrap, and I'll probably return them after learning about the countless problems here, but first I just want to verify:

Do these same problems exist on the US release of the set? The ones that came out Nov 11?

Thanks much, and thanks for the heads-up!

Ricky Silahua wrote:

If it isn't too much trouble, could you provide a phone number, or contact info for Rhino?

No problem. Here you go:

Customer Service rhinorecords @theStore24.com or call: (888) 440-4232

On a related note, hopefully there are no problems on the 3 Joy Division reissues that came out in '07...have yet to buy em, but I will...

So, if "Republic" is getting redone, when, and what about "Get Ready" or "Waiting For The Sirens Call"???

I guess, with these 5 getting corrected, afterwards, there's no need to get "Substance" back, as all 24 tracks would be properly annotated and remastered...actually 23 as I've noticed (after cross-referencing) that "Kiss Of Death" is not included, PLUS I have that "Retro" box, the 5-disc edition...and the US version of "Singles".

I'm not a fan of duplicates, collection-wise.

I was just in the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, NYC, last night, and all 5 reissues were on sale for $17.99 each (they LOOK great), and they DID play the remastered "Love Vigilantes" (from "Low Life"), and it sounded GREAT, BTW, but it's the bonus discs that are fucked up, not the albums (Disc 1's), correct???

Mostly, but the main discs still have the odd error or two. They're also too bright-sounding and compressed for my tastes.

K, so after reading through this thread I renamed some of the files and so on. Can someone please confirm that all this is correct, and anything else that should be renamed? Cheers.

My first post. I was about to buy all the remasters from Amazon, when I saw the thread about the issues.

Well, I hope they fix it...and if they're ever going to re-issue Republic please for the love of Gawd, have someone in Rhino check the quality before packaging it.

Hi all,

Just got back the following response from Dr.rhino@rhino.com

======================================================== Warner Bros. UK, Rhino and New Order regret that the initial pressings of the Collector Editions of "Movement", "Power, Corruption & Lies", "Low-Life", "Brotherhood" and "Technique" contain some minor audio problems on the bonus discs. We are now in the process of correcting the problems, but it should be noted that due to the age and condition of some of the original source tapes, the sound quality may vary. A further statement will be issued once the corrected product is available. At that time, the procedure for exchanging CD's will be announced. Thank you for your patience while we resolve this situation.

Dr. Rhino

I e-mailed Rhino and this is what I just received back. I can't decide if they're not going to do a much better job on the second pass (perhaps only fixing the errors on the main albums) or if they're just covering their asses in case they can't find ideal masters of some of the more rare material. Either way, I'm hoping band involvement produces better results than just leaving it all up to the label:

Dear Jake,

This is the only information that I have available at this time:

Warner Bros. UK, Rhino and New Order regret that the initial pressings of the Collector Editions of "Movement", "Power, Corruption & Lies", "Low-Life", "Brotherhood" and "Technique" contain some minor audio problems on the bonus discs. We are now in the process of correcting the problems, but it should be noted that due to the age and condition of some of the original source tapes, the sound quality may vary. A further statement will be issued once the corrected product is available. At that time, the procedure for exchanging CD's will be announced. Thank you for your patience while we resolve this situation.

Dr. Rhino

Warner Bros. UK, Rhino and New Order regret that the initial pressings of the Collector Editions of "Movement", "Power, Corruption & Lies", "Low-Life", "Brotherhood" and "Technique" contain some minor audio problems on the bonus discs. We are now in the process of correcting the problems, but it should be noted that due to the age and condition of some of the original source tapes, the sound quality may vary. A further statement will be issued once the corrected product is available. At that time, the procedure for exchanging CD's will be announced. Thank you for your patience while we resolve this situation.

Dr. Rhino

Lies in bold...

The tracks on the bonus discs aren't even remotely rare, and virtually all of them have been released in multiple territories, so there will be plenty of production masters around.

Isn't it bleeding obvious to everyone that the released product was in fact taken from listening copies only meant for the band to OK the track listing? Band members have been quoted saying these were compiled from various people's collections, not from master tapes. These copies are usually labelled "NOT FOR PRODUCTION" and I guess that's where it went wrong. Still, this should have been spotted before they were sent to the pressing plant. Are really Warner Bros too short of cash to employ QA staff? Or has the whole WB archive of the 20th century actually disappeared down the drain?

Amateurs...

Pristine masters of most of these tracks did exist up to only a couple of years ago, and I don't believe for a second that they've "suddenly" deteriorated. Go do your job!

Yeah, and it isn't just the bonus discs. The drop-out in "Sunrise" is from the first disc, for fuck's sake!

I wrote back to the e-mail Rhino sent me saying I hope they're aware of the errors on the regular discs as well (and listed them) and said I hoped they were planning to fix these too. I can see how the pop on "The Him" was missed in QA, but the right channel drop on "Sunrise" is IMPOSSIBLE to miss on even a casual listen.

MinusTheSnake wrote: ......but the right channel drop on "Sunrise" is IMPOSSIBLE to miss on even a casual listen.

Yeah, def true...I was vaguely aware of problems with these remasters but havent really taken much notice of which exact tracks are imperfect...but sometime last week I walking through one of the main entries of Hornsby Westfield shopping mall when SUNRISE was playing on my earphones and all the sudden...WHOAH, what was that??? That drop-out was so bleeding obvious!!!

Just got a call back from Rhino Records, same thing they said to you all, early 2009. He said they'll call me back when more info is available, which is excellent in my opinion, hope they hold up this time.

Have people been forwarding this thread URL to them as well? If they see it hopefully they'll correct ALL the errors: disc 1, disc 2, the artwork, spine mistakes, booklet errors, the lot.

This maybe has been addressed in the thread already but are there some copies that have no errors? I purchased all of the U.S. released albums and have not run into any of these problems.

James Carson wrote: This maybe has been addressed in the thread already but are there some copies that have no errors? I purchased all of the U.S. released albums and have not run into any of these problems.

Have you listened to "Touched By The Hand Of God" on the Brotherhood bonus disc? The first half a minute of that track is so obvious, that graphs aren't required to work out that it's an apalling transfer... :p

Just wondering,

Why are they still in the stores?

"We are now in the process of correcting the problems, but it should be noted that due to the age and condition of some of the original source tapes, the sound quality may vary."

I think they should take these CD off from the stores... but I guess need some cash