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(I *must* be settled in...)

Recently, someone posted on Oink the first in what promises to be a series taken from Zappa's "Old Masters" LPs. Those boxes (which, barring the first two samplers, I've never actually heard) always have intrigued me chronologically: they come out as Zappa is slowly transitioning to digital, yet at least some are released before the CD versions are "finalized." As such, they would seem to give a better insight into "what was done, when" (i.e. Uncle Meat uses the LP mix of "Mr. Green Genes," etc.).

The aforementioned first entry was "Zoot Allures." Here's an MP3 of three different versions of "Find Her Finer":

a) JWB's second-revision rip of the original LP.
b) The Old Masters version
c) The CD version.

I'd like to hear thoughts before I issue my own.

http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/finer.mp3

I don't know about the differences, but I did have an Old Masters Box 3 that I scored for 45 bucks plus tax, near mint nice.

Threw it up on ebay and got $750.00 for it last Feb.

It is the harder to find box out of the three of them, but d-i-g-i-t-a-l records going for that kind of money is strange.

I'd stick with all analog cuts of those peak period FZ albums. One Size Fits All, Roxy, and a few of the others like Studio Tan sound pretty spectacualar in their common stock pressings when found in near mint or better. Oh and Joe's Garage was an analog recording and mix, they will never top that one.

But why do I feel sad about what happened to these albums, and the state of mastering and playback?

Well, the conclusion I came to--that I guess I shouldn't be shocked nobody cares about--is that whatever digital indignities were done to Zoot Allures were largely done in 1987, when OM3 was released. He might've fucked around a bit more with the digital master come 1989/90, but it seems to have largely escaped the horrible butchering of the OTHER albums released in that batch. Basically, it's just doused in reverb and EQed kinda weirdly.

And yes, "Disco Boy" is missing the intro on the OMIII LP. Cinches it.

I think the OMIII is probably the least valuable of the boxen. Coming as close as it does to the period that produced the actual CD masters, it tends to reflect those pretty completely.

Xenu wrote:I think the OMIII is probably the least valuable of the boxen. Coming as close as it does to the period that produced the actual CD masters, it tends to reflect those pretty completely.

Yes, I agree that nobody cares. But box 3 is the more rare one as I believe fewer were pressed because these albums were not the most in demand when compared to the Verve and Bizare albums which had been OOP longer.