New Wave Outpost Forum

Has anyone else gotten the Motels reissues put out by Culture Factory recently?

They are CD vinyl replicas with supposedly awesome remastering and after seeing some glowing reviews on Amazon, I decided to get all four (a fifth, Shock, is coming at the end of the month).

Motels and Careful sound OK (I'd say on par with the BGO remasters from a few years ago), but All Four One and Little Robbers have some crazy distortion going on. I was kind of in disbelief when I heard it. There are many parts on both albums where they drums are distorted in an obvious and really obnoxious way. I was really disappointed.

Here's the link to Little Robbers (you can get to the rest from there):

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Robbers-Pa ... le+robbers

Anyone else tried these out and have comments on the sound?

I don't imagine Shock will have the 12" mixes of Shame and Shock on it as bonus tracks. This appears to be just a straightforward reissue of the original LPs?

[quote]Originally posted by Frnk6794
[br]Has anyone else gotten the Motels reissues put out by Culture Factory recently?

They are CD vinyl replicas with supposedly awesome remastering and after seeing some glowing reviews on Amazon, I decided to get all four (a fifth, Shock, is coming at the end of the month).

Motels and Careful sound OK (I'd say on par with the BGO remasters from a few years ago), but All Four One and Little Robbers have some crazy distortion going on. I was kind of in disbelief when I heard it. There are many parts on both albums where they drums are distorted in an obvious and really obnoxious way. I was really disappointed.

Here's the link to Little Robbers (you can get to the rest from there):

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Robbers-Pa ... le+robbers

Anyone else tried these out and have comments on the sound?


[/quote]

I bought all of these reissues after encouragement from some of the reviews. I agree with your assessment of the audio. I think that the first album sounds fantastic, and "Careful" sounds really good as well. My only problem with "Careful" is that some of the tracks seem a bit off in terms of the mastering. I think that I hear a slight distortion in "Danger", for example -- and it's not because it's brick-walled to death either.

I was shocked when I got to "All Four One" and "Little Robbers". Those are the definition of major brick-wall overload! I've said it before, and I'll say it again ... I like my music loud and yes, I like it brick-walled to an extent. However, these are going above and beyond, and the distortion can be heard on a number of tracks. I'm sorry, but "Suddenly Last Summer" is not supposed to sound pumped up and distorted.

A few of the tracks actually sound fine with their brick-walled sound ("Little Robbers", the title track, I'll accept), but several of them just do not sound right. They are simply way too loud and too harsh. Note that no mastering credits are given on any of these Culture Factory remasters. I imagine that since they are licensed from Capitol someone at Capitol may have remastered them. Who knows?!

I do have the BGO remasters as well, so I have those to go back to. I think that the sound is very well done on those. Yeah, I'll admit that I like them a bit louder than what is offered on the BGO remasters, but I'm not complaining! I'd rather have less than too much when it comes to mastering.

Aside from the sound issues, the vinyl replicas and packaging are very well done. It's a shame that we didn't get any bonus tracks on either the BGO remasters or the Culture Factory ones. "Some Things Never Change", for example, could have been an excellent addition on "Little Robbers".

I'm tempted to send an e-mail to Culture Factory complaining of the bloated sound on "All Four One" and "Little Robbers". I find it funny how they brag about the "high definition 96k/24-bit remastering" since they've completely ruined it. I hope that "Shock" doesn't suffer the same fate ...

[quote][i]Originally posted by budaniel[/i]
<br>I don't imagine Shock will have the 12" mixes of Shame and Shock on it as bonus tracks. This appears to be just a straightforward reissue of the original LPs?
[/quote]
Unfortunately! Missed opportunity by Culture Factory and BGO, unless Capitol would not license the bonus tracks. B-sides such as "Some Things Never Change" (probably my favorite Motels song) and "Killing Time" are sadly missing as well from these reissues.

[quote]I bought all of these reissues after encouragement from some of the reviews. I agree with your assessment of the audio. I think that the first album sounds fantastic, and "Careful" sounds really good as well. My only problem with "Careful" is that some of the tracks seem a bit off in terms of the mastering. I think that I hear a slight distortion in "Danger", for example -- and it's not because it's brick-walled to death either.

I was shocked when I got to "All Four One" and "Little Robbers". Those are the definition of major brick-wall overload! I've said it before, and I'll say it again ... I like my music loud and yes, I like it brick-walled to an extent. However, these are going above and beyond, and the distortion can be heard on a number of tracks. I'm sorry, but "Suddenly Last Summer" is not supposed to sound pumped up and distorted.

A few of the tracks actually sound fine with their brick-walled sound ("Little Robbers", the title track, I'll accept), but several of them just do not sound right. They are simply way too loud and too harsh. Note that no mastering credits are given on any of these Culture Factory remasters. I imagine that since they are licensed from Capitol someone at Capitol may have remastered them. Who knows?!

I do have the BGO remasters as well, so I have those to go back to. I think that the sound is very well done on those. Yeah, I'll admit that I like them a bit louder than what is offered on the BGO remasters, but I'm not complaining! I'd rather have less than too much when it comes to mastering.

Aside from the sound issues, the vinyl replicas and packaging are very well done. It's a shame that we didn't get any bonus tracks on either the BGO remasters or the Culture Factory ones. "Some Things Never Change", for example, could have been an excellent addition on "Little Robbers".

I'm tempted to send an e-mail to Culture Factory complaining of the bloated sound on "All Four One" and "Little Robbers". I find it funny how they brag about the "high definition 96k/24-bit remastering" since they've completely ruined it. I hope that "Shock" doesn't suffer the same fate ...
[/quote]

I am glad it is not just me! I thought I was going crazy after reading the high praise the sound quality got on the Amazon reviews.

It sounds like we have exactly the same preferences in terms of remasters and sound. I prefer louder remasters, but not ones that sound distorted and overblown to the extent these are!

Yeah, on Little Robbers, I think the title track and maybe "Tables Turned" sound OK. It's a real shame what they did to the majority of the album (and All Four One), though.

After being out of print for so long, we can only hope they didn't mess up the sound on Shock, but my hopes are not high (we'll find out soon). I wish BGO would have done Shock as well, so we could have a full set of Motels remasters with consistent sound. I emailed them about it at the time and they said it was possible but had no immediate plans.

And I too have always wondered why we never get any bonus tracks on Motels reissues. I'd love to see "Long Day" and "Some Things Never Change" (which I really think should have been included on Little Robbers, by the way. It would have made an excellent closing track after "Footsteps").

I have [i]Shock[/i] on pre-order. Only doing so because I've never found a CD of it. I did get a Culture Factory reissue of a Moon Martin album and it sounds fine, but not sure how this one will sound.

I've noticed that none of their stuff has bonus tracks. It could be that they only do straight reissues, or it could be due to the labels that own the masters charging more for bonus tracks. I've explained this in other posts, but for example, if Wounded Bird wants to license an album from Warner/Rhino, the guarantee is very low if it's just a straight reissue (they have to agree to a 2,500 unit "guarantee."). However, adding bonus tracks suddenly changes the project from a reissue to a "compilation," so the guarantee goes up. This could be the case here, too. I know Sony doesn't change the guarantees for reissues when bonus tracks are added.

I've written to BGO in the past to tell them to do a 2-fer of [i]Shock[/i] and [i]Policy[/i]; I also wrote to Cherry Red to tell them to do [i]Shock[/i] with bonus tracks (providing they don't screw it up) and they did write back to tell me that they've had a few requests for that one and that they were "investigating" it. So we shall see. At least I have the single mix of "Shock" on one of those [i]Living In Oblivion[/i] CDs.

"Words like conviction can turn into a sentence"

Have the original CD pressing of Shock and of course it has no bonus tracks but the sound is very good.....I guess because it was released well before companies started making them so loud.

I'll skip these remasters in favor of my originals.

[quote]
After being out of print for so long, we can only hope they didn't mess up the sound on Shock, but my hopes are not high (we'll find out soon). I wish BGO would have done Shock as well, so we could have a full set of Motels remasters with consistent sound. I emailed them about it at the time and they said it was possible but had no immediate plans.

And I too have always wondered why we never get any bonus tracks on Motels reissues. I'd love to see "Long Day" and "Some Things Never Change" (which I really think should have been included on Little Robbers, by the way. It would have made an excellent closing track after "Footsteps").
[/quote]

I plan on buying "Shock", regardless. Let's just hope that it isn't bloated and overdone, but I have a feeling that is what we'll get.

As for "Some Things Never Change", well, I agree. It would have been a perfect closer to the "Little Robbers" album. I'm still surprised that it was just tossed on the b-side of "Suddenly Last Summer". What a missed opportunity. Of course, "Summer" was a big hit, so it did manage to get a good exposure as a flip-side.

[quote]I've written to BGO in the past to tell them to do a 2-fer of Shock and Policy; I also wrote to Cherry Red to tell them to do Shock with bonus tracks (providing they don't screw it up) and they did write back to tell me that they've had a few requests for that one and that they were "investigating" it. So we shall see. At least I have the single mix of "Shock" on one of those Living In Oblivion CDs.[/quote]
I agree about the two-fer of "Shock"/"Policy". I'm surprised that they haven't tackled it yet since I can't imagine that licensing would have been any more difficult than the previous Motels two-fers.