[Jandek] HOW SONGS HAVE BEEN ALTERED

[GB]

> Is it possible to make a master list of the songs affected, or is it basically
> just all of them/too many?

I know this is directed towards Nate, but this has been discussed here some 
years ago, I once offered to take on the job of an album-by-album comparison, 
but no takers, would thus have maybe been a fruitless task; this from my first 
list posting in 2003:

 > has anyone done a sonic comparison of the original LP
 > and the CD?  The CD sounds somewhat like it may have been subjected to
 > aggressive digital hiss reduction -- "underwater" sound -- so I've always
 > wondered if the vinyl had the same acoustic...

No one has answered this, so I thought I might offer my two cents'
worth...

The vinyl issue of Ready for the House does sound distinctly different to the CD
reissue, specifically because of the noise reduction that has been used for all
of the Jandek CD reissues - it is indeed 'aggressive', and is presumably to
compensate for both the quietness of the original album and the amount of audible
tape hiss. It sounds like the original tapes have been put through compression to
level out the volume discrepancies, the aforementioned noise reduction has been
applied, and then reverb has been added, making the strict guitar left/ vocals
right stereo separation more central. And while the tape hiss is extreme by 
digital audio
standards, it isn't intolerable to listen to - and listen *through*, as the original
vinyl issues of the albums have audible detail that has been either lost in the
remastering, or removed completely: there are lots of little guitar clicks and
microphone bumps on Ready for the House that are almost inaudible on the CD, and
one loud thump on First You Think Your Fortune's Lovely that has been excised
completely, as well as the idiosyncratic CLUNK sounds that start and end many
of the early Jandek tracks (I cannot identify what this sound is - footswitch?
record button?), and which is missing on 5 tracks on the CD issue.
All of the early Jandek albums have been mastered in the same way, and tracks
that were noticeably quieter on the vinyl suffer the most extreme noise reduction
on the CDs (Birthday and Nancy Sings are specific examples), and certain details
have been edited out, such as the car passing on Nancy Sings and the
mikestand clatter on Point Judith...I could go on (is anyone interested in an
album-by-album comparison?)...but these little inadvertently recorded details
adds a dimension to the albums that seems to be gone, at least in the CDs I've
heard, and possibly by design rather than just to attain a 'cleaner' sound for
the CD issues...

(http://tisue.net/jandek/mail/archive/jandek-0310.txt)

> Also, do you know how the new LP releases compare with all of this?

The Jackpot issues are vinyl versions of CD masters, so just replicate what is 
already available on the CD releases.

Gavin