McCartney FAME CDs: A Conclusion

[Xenu]

Today, after a long and nigh-unbearable wait, my FAME copy of McCartney II came in the mail. You may recall that the common sh.tv consensus is that the FAME variants of Macca CDs, when available, are the best available versions (save for the DCC discs, of course). This revelation has, unsurprisingly, caused recent eBay auctions of these titles to skyrocket, but I managed to snag myself a Macca II because...well, uh, nobody likes that album, I think.

First impressions: the album is packaged *very* similarly to the way my other copy of Macca II (the US version with bonus tracks) is packaged. Hmmm. Same note with regard to the bonus tracks and everything.

I lovingly inserted it into my CD-Rom drive, and fired up EAC. I extracted everyone's favorite track, Temporary Secretary, for comparison purposes. I had recently included Temporary Secretary from my US copy on a little compilation I made called "Aural Black Death," so I extracted it from that CD. What would I find?

I loaded both tracks into Cool Edit Pro. Hmmm...while the waveforms looked *very* similar, Cool Edit was drawing them slightly differently. They were, however, pretty close to being in sync, with no detectable drift anywhere in the song (you know where this is going).

I zoomed in. Aha! My US version started a few samples earlier (and, of course, this could be due to the fact that I never bother correcting offsets). I corrected the difference between the samples, lining them up perfectly, and did a null test.

Nothing. Complete silence. Not even that weird static that CEP insists exists every once in a while.

Conclusion? Scientifically, the two discs are *exactly the same*. Repeat: *exactly the same*. My infinitely superior methods have determined this. At least in this particular case, the idea of the FAME CD being a flatter, more accurate approximation of the UK master tape is utterly shite, as it's exactly the same as the US disc (which isn't too terribly shabby).

One must, of course, then wonder the following: is this true for *all* of the Fame discs? Specifically, I'm thinking of Wild Life (which has the same bonus tracks in both of its configurations, Fame and US) and London Town.

So another "REALLY! THIS OBSCURE PRESSING IS FAR SUPERIOR" rumor bites the dust. I gotta say, I was sad to see it go.

...


HAHAHAHAH!

[thomh]

This is one Macca CD that I do not have. Is the U.S. release the same as the '93 UK EMI remaster and who mastered this?

Thanks,
Thom

[Rspaight]

But did you mark on it with a green pen first?

Ryan

[Beatlesfan03]

This is one Macca CD that I do not have. Is the U.S. release the same as the '93 UK EMI remaster and who mastered this?

Thanks,
Thom

No. The FAME CDs are different masterings than the 93 series which were remastered by Peter Mew.

[thomh]

But did you mark on it with a green pen first?

Ryan

'Fraid it's not that easy, Ryan. The color of the pen is dependent on the seasons and the astrological sign of the person handling the CD. So if it is winter and you are a Virgo with a bad moon rising you would use a black pen for the greatest effect.

[Xenu]

This is one Macca CD that I do not have. Is the U.S. release the same as the '93 UK EMI remaster and who mastered this?

Thanks,
Thom

The release I'm talking about is the FAME UK disc, which predated the '93 remaster. THIS is the same as the US disc, despite reports lauding it (and the rest of the FAME series) as being clearly superior to anything out there.

[thomh]

No. The FAME CDs are different masterings than the 93 series which were remastered by Peter Mew.

Yes, I know that. However, AFAIK the regular UK Macca II was also released in 1993. So is the regular US and UK the same? And was this a remaster that escaped Mr. Mew's no-noise.

[Xenu]

No idea.

[Rspaight]

I just wanna know what the track list for "Aural Black Death" is...

Ryan

[Xenu]

1: Spirit - Potatoland Theme
2: Brian Eno - Baby's On Fire
3: The Beatles - What's the New Mary Jane? (aborted "single" version, stereo mix)
4: The Ballroom - Crazy Dreams
5: Elastik Band - Spazz
6: Brown'Nose - Medical Doctor
7: David Bowie - Little Toy Soldier
8: Frank Zappa - Lemme Take You To the Beach
9: The Free Design - Kites Are Fun
10: The Association - Broccoli
11: The Turtles - Can You Hear the Cows?
12: The Collectors - Space Alien
13: Clover - Ice Cream Man
14: The Zombies - Butcher's Tale
15: The Mops - Participation
16: The Hollies - After the Fox
17: The Wonders - San Francisco
18: The Beach Boys - Little Pad
19: David Bowie (yeah, again) - The Laughing Gnome
20: Spinal Tap - The Majesty of Rock
21: Paul McCartney - Temporary Secretary
22: Gong - Pot-Head Pixies
23: Can - Turtles Have Short Legs

...

So can someone un-banned post my findings at sh.tv, pwease?

[Rspaight]

So can someone un-banned post my findings at sh.tv, pwease?

Oh, hell, no. I've paid my dues in that department, thankyouverymuch.

Grant? Dr. Ron? Thom? (I guess Ed Bishop gave up on us...)

Ryan

[lschwart]

So, has anyone been able to establish that what Dave says is true of McCartney II is true of other Fame and Capitol titles?

I'd really like to know!

L.

[Xenu]

I'd normally be willing, but it's tremendously hard to find 'em, and I don't feel like paying for duplicates of albums I generally don't care to listen to.

That said, if McCartney II's the same, as the others tend to have identical track lineups in both iterations, well...

[lschwart]

By the way, Dave, thank you for doing the comparison and bringing this to our attention. I hope someone gets a chance to do a little more comparing. I paid about $17 for a copy of "London Town." I like it fine, but I'd like to know if I could have gotten the same sound on an $8 used Capitol!

L.

[Xenu]

JWB kindly sent me CDRs of the London Town FAME/Capitol discs.

Well now. These *are* different, seemingly. Capitol is clearly NRed, and not too well either (although this may have been introduced in later pressings; who knows?). I also had difficulty getting them to sync. They stayed *almost entirely* in sync, but there was drift (measurable in samples) across the length of a few tracks. This could imply that they're derived either from a) realllly close A-->D sources, or that b) some sample loss occured in one or the other at some stage.

So yes. The Fame disc clearly wins out in this case.

Random question, though: does anybody own the 1993 remaster? I ask because I downloaded MP3s that claim to be from that edition from Soulseek, and they clearly have hiss, and in fact sound very similar to the Fame disc.