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Alto/Regis reissues, "newly remastered", are to be avoided

7/22/2016

4 Comments

 
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Alto and their companion label, Regis, (both a division of Musical Concepts) are budget labels which reissue recordings from other labels, similar to Brilliant Classics. They tend to draw from the ASV, Pickwick, Vox, Collins and Varese Sarabande labels. Absurdly, Alto and Regis often duplicate one another's titles. Weird, being that they derive from the same parent company. Most of their releases boast being newly remastered by their very own remastering technician, Paul Arden-Taylor. I own a few of these titles and find some of their efforts worthwhile (some rarities from the Melodyia label, for example) and others to be subtle at best. However, this Copland title on Alto draws from the Mercury label and is a dramatic sonic alteration from Mercury's CDs.

In theory, it was a great idea for Alto to gather together Antal Dorati's classic Mercury recordings of Copland's 3 ballets onto one disc. Previous Mercury CDs have them split up between 2 discs, as two different orchestras and recording dates were involved. Alas, so much for Alto's great idea - there's bad news about this release.


I hadn't listened to the Mercury Copland CDs in quite some time but I remembered them being spectacular - some of the very best in that entire series. As I began listening to this Alto CD (beginning with Billy The Kid), I was amazed at how lyrical and smooth it was. And the absence of background noise was striking. But as we approached the Mexican Dance and on to the Gun Battle, I was alarmed that this sounded nothing like a Mercury recording, nor did it have any of the vibrancy and energy that Dorati achieved at the helm of the LSO. The feeling pervaded into Appalachian Spring, where everything was lovely, but curiously lifeless and flat.

Baffled, I got out the original Mercury CDs to confirm these are the same recordings. They are. So I played the Mercury Billy the Kid, and - WOW! Immediately I was struck with what Mercury is known for, that sense of "you are there" realism. There was immediately a subtle bit of tape hiss, but also an audible sense of spaciousness and a clear defining of the large space in which the orchestra played. This sense of realism was completely absent on the Alto. And as the music began to play, it suddenly sprang to life and the sound blossomed into the huge acoustic with majesty, drama, splendor and sparkle. It was as if the LSO suddenly woke up from its slumber. It sounded absolutely wonderful.

Going back to the Alto, it is apparent that their remastering process set out to eliminate the tape hiss. And in so doing, it has stifled the dynamic range and a good deal of the treble frequencies. Another casualty is a significant muffling of detail and collapse of soundstage; it now sounds cramped and congested. Examples: the piccolo solo in Billy The Kid sounds like it was played behind a blanket. On Mercury, it lit up the acoustic with an airy, singing, wooden tone not heard on Alto. Likewise, the trombone and piano "duet" which follows it was muddied back in the mix so that it was difficult to hear them distinctly. Back to Mercury and the trombone sang out with a golden tone, the piano now placed clearly behind it - yet utterly defined in space. And the drums in the Gun Battle were so completely uneventful on Alto - the impact of mallet on drum head muffled, sounding like a "thud". They were frighteningly real on Mercury with hair-raising impact and realism. And so it continued throughout the remainder of the program.

As Dorati's complete Billy The Kid and Appalachian Spring ballets are among the glories of recorded music, it is appalling and unforgivable what Alto has done with these master tapes. Their remastering has smothered the life out of them. I can't imagine any sound system, no matter how modest or unforgiving, benefiting from this type of sonic degradation. I suppose if someone is adamantly opposed to hearing any hint of tape hiss, then this might be for you. But for everyone else, this CD is to be avoided.
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Another example of deleterious remastering efforts by Musical Concepts' Paul Arden-Taylor, under the budget labels Alto and Regis, can be found on a spectacular collection of Turina orchestral works, conducted by Enrique Batiz. One can only wonder, once again, why this label insists on meddling with a good thing. (Just witness the disastrous results on their recent reissue of Dorati's Mercury Copland ballets - see above). This Turina disc is less dramatic a degradation than heard on the Copland reissue; but nonetheless, it is not in any way successful.

This program was originally a 1994 IMG Records (part of the Pickwick Group) release from the legendary Brian Culverhouse (notably of Varese Sarabande fame). The original recording is typical of Culverhouse - bold, glitteringly "present" and absolutely thrilling. Enrique Batiz is a perfect conductor to match the sonics. However, in their remastering efforts, Regis has apparently attempted to tame it a bit for some reason (it didn't need it). It is subtly less bright and less realistically "present". But most detrimentally obvious, it is now not clean. It sounds to be slightly distorted, strained and less focused. The result is an unmistakable brashness and roughness - a more abrasive listening experience than the original. Not pleasant. I scratch my head wondering how Mr. Arden-Taylor hears this as an "improvement", or even an acceptable result. Going back to the original IMG CD, one hears the aural equivalent of cleaning the streaky film from a dirty window - it is clear as a bell, with effortless dynamics and sounds absolutely splendid.

The more I hear of Paul Arden-Taylor's remastering, the more I intensely dislike them. I will avoid these Alto and Regis reissues in the future, no matter how rare the repertoire might be. In most cases, the originals can be found on Amazon from their many, splendid Marketplace sellers. The extra effort of seeking them out is well worth it. (Here's a pic of the original IMG release.)
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4 Comments
Paul link
7/2/2023 01:53:13 am

Dear David - I discovered your post only recently. I hope the following response will be of interest.

Alto is indeed a label of Musical Concepts, but Regis is a separate company, no longer issuing new releases. A few deleted Regis titles have been reissued by Alto, hence the apparent duplication.

Due to copyright restrictions, the Copland had to be transferred from vinyl. As would be expected, it needed considerable noise-reduction processing, which was done with great care, but of course it never stood a chance of sounding as good as the original master, which I wish we could have used. I am rather pleased that you do not appear to have detected the vinyl provenance, but disappointed with your erroneous assumption that there had been “deleterious” remastering of Mercury's fine recording (why would anyone do that?)

Your comments on the Turina are puzzling, in view of the fact that it came from one of several masters supplied on CDR by none other than Brian Culverhouse himself (who, I might add, was fully confident that he was delivering his work into safe hands). I did not tamper with the audio in any way. I have never had a copy of the original release available for comparison, so can offer no explanation as to why the Regis version sounds inferior, if indeed it does.

In the case of digital sources, despite my "remastering" credit which usually appears by default, I do not actually remaster as such, unless there are known defects which need attention. Normally, my brief is merely to check and recompile as directed by the label manager. I can assure you that I have neither the time nor the inclination to make gratuitous, dubious modifications to the work of other engineers!

The vast majority of these budget releases have been very well received. If you have encountered others you dislike, they are most likely to have been vinyl-sourced - never the ideal donor medium, but every effort is made to obtain the best possible results from it.

Regards - Paul

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Stad
8/23/2023 11:49:17 am

Seeking to acquire Schneiderhan / Jochum’s recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto on CD, i used my streaming subscription to test the sound quality of the DG original recording on my B&W speakers (through my Quad preamp/amp + Musical Fidelity dac), and then compared this recording with the Alto edition of the same concerto on my same Hifi system. The test result is that the DG original is very obviously more spacious than the Alto one. And beside this, in the Alto, the low frequencies were boosted at the expense of the overall balance which brings a wierd impression: It’s as if percussions were positioned in front of the strings on the stage...
At this, i removed the Alto edition from my basket and confirmed my order of the much more convincing DG original edition.

Reply
Paul
9/1/2023 04:40:24 am

DG: from their original master, presumably;
Alto: from vinyl.

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Enrico
1/20/2024 12:54:51 pm

Just to defend Regis, it's not correct to advise people to avoid their re-issues/remasters in general. Maybe there were one or two that presented challenges (e.g. no access to master tapes), but my experience of e.g. the Jennifer Bate Messiaen re-issues (originally on Unicorn-Kanchana in the 1980s) has been universally positive.

These were digital recordings originally, so Paul's point above about "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" may well have applied. The series of CDs was mastered at now-defunct West London mastering house Finesplice, whose reputation seems to have been one of universal admiration.

So maybe "avoid a small number of Regis re-mastered CDs", but anyone avoiding them all will be missing out.

I can't vouch for Alto, as I haven't got any of their releases.

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