Roots Archives Forum

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mysterious-Mys ... ystic+eyes



No soundies up yet , I'm going to hold off buying until I know they have improved the crap sound quality of the original release.

Big up's Burning Sounds

j j

nice, thanks for the heads up, been waiting for this one.

-jbo

Please let us know the sound quality of the CD DB.

cheers
j j

I see it's for sale at dubvendor now, at least the lp. Any verdicts about the sound quality?

I listened to this on Spotify a while back, not having any previous knowledge of the group or album. I wasn't paying much attention, had it on in the background, but I do remember there was some weird warbling/pumping affecting the vocals. Is this the issue?

below the comments of someone who made a rip of this album (not me):

The previous ripper of this album may have had a point in mind when
keeping the bitrate very low since this is one crappy Linval Thompson
production! The microphone wiring appears to be broken so that - on
some tracks - it is all but impossible to make out the lyrics.

Still the riddims are without flaw if allowing for the fact that
Linval Thompson delivered several albums to Burning Sounds on very
noisy tapes - almost as poor as Dolby B cassette tape quality!
(Original vinyl "silence" trails behind each track for inspection.)

I therefore re-rip this album using audiophile equipment capable of
mustering every ounce of content out of these hardly played vinyl
grooves. If you got good playback equipment, you might want to
substitute this rip for the old low-bitrate version. Check the four
second demo clip to see if you can distinguish between the differing
precision in the old rip and its replacement. Notice how the initial
cymbal crash is absolutely clean in the new one?

I regard this as one of the few collectable Burning Sounds LPs simply
because beneath that messy recording these are hard roots tunes and
the Revolutionaries play in that hitting yet somewhat restrained 1978
style. Simple yet classy.

I have come across "I Hold The Handle" in a 12 inch mix on the
Thompson Sounds label (see the I-self 12 inch folder) where the group
is named "Roots & Soul". Perhaps "Mystic Eyes" was simply fabricated
for the UK release, to go nicely with the album title...

Have played this a few times and it sounds wonderful to me

Agree the vocals sound horrible - buried, inconsistent, muffled in and out. Jah Raver just reviewed the 180g vinyl http://midnightraverblog.com/2016/08/bu ... 80g-vinyl/
and loves it, no mention of sound quality issues.

Glad the 180g gets good feedback. I am planning on getting my hands on this, and it would be sad to hear poor quality.

The sound quality was due to recording issues so not much a new press can do to better it. I think the original sounds OK. Not as bad as one might think from reading all comments. It was a great press but a bad recording. Instead of the other way around as it used to be with a lot of reggae records.