Roots Archives Forum

Hail

Before i used to pick up alot of CD's, i made mistake an pick up cd pon rhino label, e.g early b "big bout ya"

cd quality worse, than poor.

then couple of bredda on this site tell me bout Rhino Label

does anyone know why dem cd releases are so bad?

Thanks.

JAH BLESS

Hi Ranking Trevor,

From what I have heard the poor sound quality comes from the fact that many of these CD`s are recorded direct vinyl source.

Listening to them it would appear that the vinyl copy was not of bery good sound quakity to start with and this has become even more evident with the transfer to CD.

I assume this process of mastering direct from vinyl occurs for one of two reasons. Either the master tapes no longer exist or they have not got the rights to the music.

This is suported by the fact that I have heard many peple refer to the Rhino releases as bogus.

Having said that I have the "United Dreadlocks" compilation and the "King Tubby v Channel One" dub and these are two decent releases with pretty good sound quality.

Dave

Greetings Rootsman,
I wonder if the quality labels like Blood & Fire, Pressure Sounds, etc. usually get ahold of the master tapes for the albums they rerelease, or do they have better sound engineers working off of the best vinyl copy that they can get? It seems like a lot of master tapes have been lost over the years (or burned and/or buried in Lee Perry's case!).

Roots,
Jah Chicken

hi jah chicken, i bought the congos 'heart of' double album a while back even though i already have the older version. its on blood and fire. sleeve notes refer to the fact that they used the original tapes, and while slightly damaged [start of fisherman] the sound they have managed to get is amazing. but sadly there is a lot of theft of artists material elsewhere and not only do we the buyer suffer but also the artists themselves. on the other hand i have to admit if i saw an LP i really wanted then i would have to purchase it regardless of origin. as for the rhino label, RT's complaint is not the first i've read about them. muss be very bad from time to time.

ites

ital kemar

Well... checking this post I decided to look after a rhino in my cd's collection... founda Delton Screechey "Answer Mi Question" and I only had to listen to the first two tracks to agree with previous posts... Sound quality is not that great, it really seems it was recorded straight from vinyl... even the volume level changes a bit from track to track.... the cd case and artwork are just fine... there's even a few notes on the sleeve refering to Delton's musical history... Not a horrible piece of shit, but certainly not the best cd for quality issues...

But I heard there's worst issues, this Delton Screechey is not that bad since it has a couple of tracks that are long unavailable from screechie's vinyl.... Also heard about the "bogus" story, but can't tell if it's true or not, thou there's seem to be a point on that....

Blessings,

Hi Jah Chicken.

Blood and Fire, Pressure Sounds and all these labels releasing legitimate compilations pay for the rights to release songs.

This enables them access, where available, to the master tapes. Where no master tapes exist, they use the best quality vinyl source that is available to them.

The sound engineers who remaster from these sources have access, in most cases, to state of the art equipment to enable them to produce high quality pressing of both vinyl and CD.

You will also notice that with both Pressure Sounds and Blood and Fire that the item issued features music from one source ie same artist or producer etc for that entire record.

This is because it is easier for the labels re-ssueing this classic music to have to deal financially with one source rather than paying rights here, there and everywhere just to get out one release.

This is how it should be because at least the people who made the music are benifiting from the fact they are being reissued

Dave

The Jet Star release of this pair are also recorded direct from vinyl. They didn't even bother to remove the pops and crackles on what obviously are fairly worn out old records.

http://www.roots-archives.com/release/1242

http://www.roots-archives.com/release/2483#rel2354

Actually, it was buying these very two CDs that started me back on the vinyl addiction. I played them and thought - hey, I might as well be listening to the original vinyl again - So I bought a record deck again. And the rest is history!

Most Rhino stuff i know about, is dire, ive heard about 1 good dub album with jah thomas on there, other than that all releases have been atrocious in my book