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Even if you only have a little reggae, chances are, you'll have this disc. The motion picture's pretty good, too, especially on the Criterion Collection DVD.

So I got the old CD because the new one's done by Erick Labson, and listening to the new one at a friend's house, it sounded bright and really loud.

Well, the old CD sounded okay, at least for awhile, not real good but not harsh or over the top.

I got curious over the weekend and compared the old CD to two sources: Jimmy Cliff's the Ultimate Collection issued by Hip-O Records and the four-disc Reggae Box, issued by Universal/MCA/Polygram/Interscope/Island, POSSIBLY through Hip-O as well, I forgot.

The former (Ultimate Collection) was mastered by Labson, the latter four-disc set by Gavin Lurssen. I also got The Very Best of Toots and the Maytals but that was compared later and will be discussed later.

Both have a few tracks found on The Harder They Come soundtrack. As you may know, The Harder They Come actually repeats the title track and "You Can Make It If You Really Want," using different mixes each time. For the record, both the Reggae Box and The Ultimate Collection use "The Harder They Come," but they both use a different mix.

After matching all the levels and filtering out 3 or 4 db at 10k on the Ultimate Collection, one thing's clear: the remastered CD of The Harder They Come is pretty crappy.

On the old CD and new remaster of the soundtrack, the steel drums occasionally sound like they're coming from a tin can, but Lurssen works WONDERS on a few of those tracks because those instruments sound better on his work on the Reggae Box and/or the Very Best of Toots and the Maytals. Maybe it's better sources - the Reggae Box seems to use better sources on many tracks, it even includes a few stereo remixes of previously mono-only tracks - maybe it's better EQ, maybe it's the tubes, but Lurssen's mastering is better. He may have used some compression since his mastering is louder - not as much as Labson's mastering of the same tracks but still louder - but he makes it up for it in so many ways,

On top of that, a few, not all, overlapping tracks have the channels reversed on the Jimmy Cliff CD, but the same tracks are NOT reversed on the remastered edition of the soundtrack. Strange because Labson is credited on both - Gary Moore is also credited on the soundtrack remaster but it doesn't say which he songs he did. The Jimmy Cliff CD is bright and compressed, too, but the compression is actually less than what was used on the soundtrack remaster, but not by much.

On the old The Harder They Come CD: the fade-outs are a touch longer, so if you crank it up, you hear a tiny bit more music.

[edited to remove false impressions]

[The previous post was so off, I decided to 'correct' it. I don't want people reading it first and getting wrong impressions. The following just elaborates on what was corrected.]

Okay, I don't know what the HELL I was thinking or hearing, but I just got the remastered edition of The Harder They Come from the library. First off, the mastering is different from the Jimmy Cliff comp even though Labson did both. You know how I said some channels were reversed? Well, Labson apparently messed up on the Cliff comp, because on the remastered edition of the The Harder The Come, the channels match the old CD.

Second, the Cliff comp is DEFINITELY compressed, and Labson apparently added a slightly stronger dose of compression on the remaster of the soundtrack CD.

Third, Labson definitely jacked up the highs on both CD's, and the WORST crime he committed was on a mono track on the soundtrack. OUT-OF-PHASE. My God, you have to be DEAF not to hear how phasey "Shanty Town" is on the remastered soundtrack. On the old CD, it's JUST FINE.

The Cliff comp still gives you the unedited version of "Sitting In Limbo," a few seconds at the beginning, that's all, nothing scandalous, and it's a nice comp, but for the love of God, AVOID THE REMASTERED edition of the soundtrack.

And all that shit I said about the denoising, I don't hear it anymore. I don't know what the hell I was thinking with that, maybe I was thinking of some other CD I heard, but I'm listening right now and don't hear it.

I used to have the old CD. It's great music, but I thought it sounded lousy. I picked up an LP, Mango pressing, several years back, and I liked it a lot more than my CD, so I sold it. In retropect, it probably didn't sound as bad as I thought it did, I just liked the LP better.

There was a thread at SHtv a couple of months ago. In it, the consensus was that the old CD sounds better than the reissue, with Hoffman chiming about the exact same thing you mentioned, the Shanty Town out-of-phase mistake. He said that was the only time that Shanty Town was in phase, including LP releases.

I'm glad this was already covered over there - wish I knew that before:!:

I'm in the process of making a 'definitive' CD edition, using the best sources and adding some bonus tracks - basically all the bonus tracks on the Deluxe Edition I don't already have on other CD's.

I loaded up all the relevant tracks from the old CD, the remaster (actually credited to Labson in the US and Gary Moore in the UK), the Jimmy Cliff comp, the Reggae Box, and the Very Best of Toots and the Maytals. I tossed out EVERYTHING from the remaster because it was inferior in every case.

The Jimmy Cliff comp, I kept tracks that made up the bonus tracks, but I also kept "Sitting In Limbo" because it's the unedited version. I had to turn down the volume and remove the top end boost. That's the ONLY Harder They Come track from that comp I kept, and again, not for sound quality.

The Reggae Box and the Very Best of Toots were both done by Gavin Lurssen, and there's a handful of overlapping tracks between the two. Gavin mastered them a bit louder - turn them down by 70% to match - but the tube sound is obvious and sounds GREAT. Smooth, more lifelike, all that shit I said about NR, I think that confusion was brought upon by how great Lurssen's mastering sounds compared to the same tracks, and listening to it now, it's not NR, just better tonality. The steel and snare drums sound really crisp with GOOD tonality. On the Very Best of Toots, there's two overlapping tracks with the old soundtrack CD, and Lurssen's mastering has an AMAZING bass cloud. I don't know if he used different tapes with more bottom, if he boosted it, whatever, but I used his mastering for those two tracks, one of which runs a few seconds longer in the fade-out for more music.

For the rest of the soundtrack, I used the old CD, which is roughly half the program.

MK wrote:Third, Labson definitely jacked up the highs on both CD's, and the WORST crime he committed was on a mono track on the soundtrack. OUT-OF-PHASE. My God, you have to be DEAF not to hear how phasey "Shanty Town" is on the remastered soundtrack. On the old CD, it's JUST FINE.

When you say phasey, do you mean the use of the phasing effect (a la "Itchykoo Park," etc.)? Because "Shanty Town" had that effect on the original vinyl edition of The Harder They Come.

The version on Rhino's Desmond Dekker hits CD doesn't have that sound, so maybe the master was botched in 1972 and they went back and used that recording for the remaster.

Yeah, flanging. I never heard the original vinyl, but I think it's the only track in mono and it's definitely not on the old CD.

I don't think it was one of the songs recorded for the film, either, just another song they used that was previously released.

Not having heard it, is it one of those cases of mono tape, stereo head, output summed to mono? Or something else?

Could be, Luke. Here's the deal: on the other forum, they mention the stereo head/summed to mono problem on various remastered Verve jazz CD's. I don't know if you've heard those, but I have. On The Harder They Come remaster, the phasing is SOOO obvious, not nearly as bad as what you're supposed to hear on those remastered Verve CD's. They must have REALLY messed up somehow.

Not having heard it, is it one of those cases of mono tape, stereo head, output summed to mono? Or something else?