King Crimson - Heaven & Earth box set (18CD / 4 BD-A / 2 DVD-A)

[jimfisheye]

My order at Barnes And Noble got cancelled today because the supplier couldn't supply it........could it be completely sold out already?

This will be available for a spell. It's just back up to $200 territory everywhere.
The Lark's Tongues box was the one that sold out during pre-order.

 

[znpnine]

No problem with the sub on my DVD-A of Reconstrukction.

Hey all, a subscriber on the Life in Surround YouTube channel has asked whether there is something amiss with the bass on the two DVD-As.
He says the stereo plays with plenty of bass, but the surround mix leaves his sub idle. I do not recall this problem. I'll be investigating.
Meanwhile, can anybody do some rips and wav analysis, to help determine what the bass in the mixes is like, and maybe help our surround friend troubleshoot?
Thanks.

I also noticed zero sub activity on TROL DVD-A. Still haven't got TPTB DVD-A yet so can't check that one.

 

[gene]

Just got my set yesterday. It is MASSIVE!
So much stuff. Can't wait to listen to the 5.1 mixes

 

[jimfisheye]

First choice listen: ProjeKct X: Heaven And Earth in 5.1

Ahem... Yeah, it's not on this set anywhere! I'm not kidding and this is tragic! I fear this isn't a faulty disc that is going to be corrected either. One of the early track listings for the box clearly mentioned stereo and 5.1 for PX. The bluray and DVDA cases in the set both only list it as stereo. There is no mention of a 5.1 mix for it in the box credits either.


On to ProjeKct One
The same stereo mixes but this had to be next.

Noticeably better than the 16/44.1 Club downloads. More than I expected them to be.


The Reconstruction Of Light in 5.1

What in the hell is going on?! Wow this is different!
I don't know what I think of it yet. The mix is great! Love the vocal mix particularly in the title track. Pat is going off the deep end with ambitious new parts. You can still tell the band become disembodied in a few spots. Frying Pan took a hit. Overdubbing drums... Fidelity-wise a very improved mix over the original. It's a completely different album. It's still damn fine work and overall improved in many ways. The surround mix is greatness. Now I'm sadder about PX. The one duplicated track between the two - you instantly hear the cohesion in the band come back. Man... It was the damn title piece of the box!

More ProjeKct One to listen to before the other two 5.1 offerings. Intense collection for a King Crimson fan. Not nearly enough surround for this forum.

 

[stormchaser]

I also noticed zero sub activity on TROL DVD-A. Still haven't got TPTB DVD-A yet so can't check that one.

Wut? I'll check mine again this weekend, but I definitely had sub content.

 

[rtbluray]

First choice listen: ProjeKct X: Heaven And Earth in 5.1

Ahem... Yeah, it's not on this set anywhere! I'm not kidding and this is tragic! I fear this isn't a faulty disc that is going to be corrected either. One of the early track listings for the box clearly mentioned stereo and 5.1 for PX. The bluray and DVDA cases in the set both only list it as stereo. There is no mention of a 5.1 mix for it in the box credits either.

The “Heaven & Earth” album was NEVER mixed in 5.1 surround. I think you just assumed it had been mixed and would be included, but that was never the case.
It was only “Reconstrukction” and “Power to Believe” that were mixed in 5.1

 

[jimfisheye]

The “Heaven & Earth” album was NEVER mixed in 5.1 surround. I think you just assumed it had been mixed and would be included, but that was never the case.
It was only “Reconstrukction” and “Power to Believe” that were mixed in 5.1

It was very clearly listed as both stereo and 5.1 in an early ad for the set. (I didn't take a screen shot, sorry.) It's one of the 3 main albums in the box... so, made sense.
I'd still buy this box over again knowing this, mind you! There's so much of everything else here that I'm into. But if given a choice, I'd personally take a 5.1 mix of Heaven And Earth instead of the other two. So it's still disappointing. PX has stayed in regular rotation for me while these other two particular KC albums not so much. Live versions of the material run circles around them!

 

[hwkn]

I ended up ordering the cd/dvd-a sets and forgoing the boxed set completely.

 

[jimfisheye]

Finally resigning myself to listen to the newly mastered 24 bit stereo Heaven and Earth...

It gets worse! Adding insult to injury... The stereo mix of Heaven and Earth is one of the ones that was a straight transfer from the 16/44.1 CD master - at the wrong speed. (ie The header was written as 48k instead of 44.1k - the mastering mistake they mentioned and will eventually be providing downloads for at 44.1k) Both the bluray and the DVDA.

Looks like the title piece of the set is another lost master then!

I'd still buy this set over again knowing this ahead of time. Lots of other stuff on here. But goddamn this sucks!

Moving on to the 5.1 remix of Power To Believe.
This is a high point in the set! I really really like David Singleton's surround mixing! This is refreshing to hear like this. This is improved to the level of Thrak or Lizard! The stereo mix as mastered on their original CD was a bit stepped on. These guys didn't go off the deep end with volume war mastering during that period like everyone else but it WAS the audio dark ages and influenced by it. The stereo mix will retire forever with this one.


The Construction Of Light always paled next to their live recordings from the period with this material.
The 5.1 Reconstruction of Light will be a little bit of a fans only novelty with the not completely in the pocket drum overdubs.
The 5.1 remix of Power To Believe shines.


I emailed them and posted to their forum (which hasn't appeared or been updated in a week) asking when the download page would be going up and if there was any chance the 5.1 Heaven and Earth existed and would be included. Not holding my breath though. Not much activity on their forum anymore compared to years past.


From the book:

On the question of King Crimson making and recording new music:
RF. "The world in which groups like King Crimson are able to make albums is probably gone for good."

Looks like the retrospective tours they've been doing since 2008 are a final farewell and there really isn't going to be an active band writing and improvising new music coalescing out of it.

Then again, the USA album credits ended with "RIP" in 1975 too. And look at everything that came to life after that!

 

[antoine555]

I'm still waiting to rip the pair of standalone DVD-As... When the heatwave will be over

 

[Philip Spinner]

Been going through the box set this past week. Nowhere near done but after listening to many live tracks on both blu ray and cd I've concluded that all of these sound board live tracks sound so much better than all the live tracks on previous box sets. I'm sure it's due to better technology. Some of them sound fantastic through Involve. At times I heard things swirling around. Never experienced this on previous live recordings by them.

 

[jimfisheye]

Liking the quad mix of EleKtriK - Live in Tokyo 2003 a lot!
Ballsy mix. Very discretely right in the middle of Pat's drum kit. All kinds of 4 corner activity from that.

Curiously shy on providence. I think this is obviously another David Singleton mix. That this is uncredited gives me just a small sliver of hope that we will get that briefly mentioned 5.1 mix of Heaven And Earth when their download page finally goes up. Crossing my fingers but not holding my breath anyway.

Repeated listening of The Power To Believe is still greatness.

Repeated listening attempts of The Reconstruction of Light, not so much. The mix work and fidelity is wonderful. The new parts Pat was going for are over the top ambitious and there are some moments of greatness. But the whole band is slightly not in the pocket anymore vs the original. This is a nice collection of interesting bonus tracks for sure but no more.

 

[jimfisheye]

I also noticed zero sub activity on TROL DVD-A. Still haven't got TPTB DVD-A yet so can't check that one.

The 2 album mixes are 5.0 and the live mix is 4.0. So there's no isolated Lfe-only content in these mixes. All the bass lives in the main channels.
No lack of bass content in the mains though! The mixes are big.

A properly calibrated 5.1 system reproduces bass content from the mains vs the Lfe channel identically of course. Something off kilter like a small top array - that needs speaker management to redirect the bass content in the mains to the sub to mix with any Lfe content - not dialed in with proper speaker management would cause someone to remark on lack of bass with any 5.0 or 4.0 program. But of course no one around here would be making such mistakes.

 

[jimfisheye]

The download link on dgmlive for the corrected tracks is still not activated. (Still gives you page not found.)
I've tried posting a couple times to the forum. I see newer posts up but none of mine asking about the download page or the 5.1 remix of Heaven and Earth (if it exists). Maybe this means they're working on it and it will be up soon?

 

[~dave~~wave~]

The download link on dgmlive for the corrected tracks is still not activated. (Still gives you page not found.)
I've tried posting a couple times to the forum. I see newer posts up but none of mine asking about the download page or the 5.1 remix of Heaven and Earth (if it exists). Maybe this means they're working on it and it will be up soon?

A Hoffmanite observed recently there's a month-long break coming in the world tour and hopefully they'll have time to get around to it then.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

https://www.dgmlive.com/news/heaven-and-earth-bluray-and-dvda-issues

Heaven and Earth BluRay and DVDA issues – An update from David Singleton

Thank you to everyone for your patience while we have worked to resolve the BluRay and DVDa issues with Heaven and Earth. We have inevitably also received a few angry emails – but no-one could be more angry than us. Everyone works incredibly hard to make these boxed sets the treasures that we all wish them to be – and for a few of the included albums (all mastered perfectly at our end) to then appear incorrectly on the final BluRays and DVDAs was forgivable (anyone can make mistakes) but totally unacceptable.

A few people have chosen to interpret my original remarks as “it doesn’t matter – it’s only a small problem, it’s only a few geeks.” Nothing could be further from the truth. It is correct, as I pointed out, that almost all the material affected was never originally intended for inclusion and was only added at the last minute as bonus material. But anyone who thinks that I would tolerate any amount of music being roughly a semitone sharper than the producers or musicians intended does not know me well.

Others have also worried that they have been penalized in buying early copies, as later buyers would get corrected versions. If that were the case, this could have been more easily solved long ago. Unfortunately, we are usually only able to manufacture these boxed sets once, and there is therefore sadly no opportunity to remanufacture the material.

The solution has taken much longer than expected, partly because in this 50th anniversary year of all years, everyone’s time was already over-committed, and we found ourselves unexpectedly needing to check, clean up and understand someone else’s mess, while building a one-off solution. This has inevitably had some serious ongoing ramifications, both philosophical and practical, which I will address separately.

The good news for those kind souls patiently waiting is that the necessary web-pages are now being tested. An announcement should be made shortly.

 

[latinido]

Listened today The Reconstrukction of Light DVD AUDIO. No Sub chanel, First impression was something wrong with my system..

 

[H.A.L.]

https://www.dgmlive.com/news/heaven-and-earth-bluray-and-dvda-issues

Heaven and Earth BluRay and DVDA issues – An update from David Singleton

Thank you to everyone for your patience while we have worked to resolve the BluRay and DVDa issues with Heaven and Earth. We have inevitably also received a few angry emails – but no-one could be more angry than us. Everyone works incredibly hard to make these boxed sets the treasures that we all wish them to be – and for a few of the included albums (all mastered perfectly at our end) to then appear incorrectly on the final BluRays and DVDAs was forgivable (anyone can make mistakes) but totally unacceptable.

A few people have chosen to interpret my original remarks as “it doesn’t matter – it’s only a small problem, it’s only a few geeks.” Nothing could be further from the truth. It is correct, as I pointed out, that almost all the material affected was never originally intended for inclusion and was only added at the last minute as bonus material. But anyone who thinks that I would tolerate any amount of music being roughly a semitone sharper than the producers or musicians intended does not know me well.

Others have also worried that they have been penalized in buying early copies, as later buyers would get corrected versions. If that were the case, this could have been more easily solved long ago. Unfortunately, we are usually only able to manufacture these boxed sets once, and there is therefore sadly no opportunity to remanufacture the material.

The solution has taken much longer than expected, partly because in this 50th anniversary year of all years, everyone’s time was already over-committed, and we found ourselves unexpectedly needing to check, clean up and understand someone else’s mess, while building a one-off solution. This has inevitably had some serious ongoing ramifications, both philosophical and practical, which I will address separately.

The good news for those kind souls patiently waiting is that the necessary web-pages are now being tested. An announcement should be made shortly.

Has the announcement been made and I missed it?

 

[Plan9]

Has the announcement been made and I missed it?

No. It's just that David Singleton and most of us must not have the same definition of 'shortly'.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

https://www.dgmlive.com/news/heaven-and-earth-replacement-downloads

Replacement 48Khz downloads for HEAVEN & EARTH Boxed Set buyers.

As many of you will know, a small amount of the music on the BluRays contained in the King Crimson Heaven & Earth Boxed Set played at slightly the wrong speed due to an error by the authoring company.

The albums that were affected were largely the previously released versions of the Projekcts that were added late-on as bonus items, more specifically: Projekct X (Heaven & Earth), Projekct One (Jazz Café, KCCC 22, 4 Dec 97), Projekct Two (Space Groove, Live Groove) , Projekct Three (Masque), Projekct Four (West Coast Live), Fripp, Rieflin & Gunn (Repercussions of Angelic Behaviour), BPM&M (XtraKcts & ArtifaKcts).

There is now a webpage where purchasers can download a correct version of these albums. To do this, you will need a unique code.

To receive your code, please send an email to [email protected]. You will need to include some form of proof of purchase. This could be an email order, a copy of a receipt, or indeed a photograph of the box. Those who purchased through Inner Knot or Burning Shed should be receiving a separate email notification, and can simply forward that email as proof of purchase.