Yes, a flat transfer of the original Offord mixes would have been great to hear, but they were not included.
Gotchya. Just pure conjecture on my part, but I will guess that if the ELP 2.0 tapes were in any kind of shape to do that, Steven would have included that.
We all know the stories how many studios never even thought about archiving stuff, so all the precious 1970s music is hit or miss if 1st gen tapes even exist.AND the stuff may not even be marked as such... and record companies rarely even provide the actual 1stgen 2.0 master for today's mixes even
if they exist. So a guaranteed method to get the best signal from tape is by ripping the multi-tracks.
RUSH solved this dilema by creating their archives from digitizing their multitracks and storing that. Obviously you'd have to downmix that when needed.Even so, Alex Lifeson told a story how the tapes barely made the rip and some needed baking which is a one shot deal.
Hmm, doesn't Steve Howe keep guardianship of the CTTE master? Do we even know if it is 1st gen? Problem with a flat transfer is you get all 30 years
of tape degradation and frequency loss as well.
. But it sounds like Steve Howe's tape may be first gen and in good enough shape to do a neutral digital rip.
I know a listening goal(for me at least) is to get a feel for what it would have been like in the control room back in the day. But 35 years of humidity
and abuse sure can mess with magnetic tape.
Purists shudder at somebody, even Steven Wilson doing a new 2.0 remix, but ripping from the multi-tracks, cleaning up/fixing whatever tape degradation(in digital) and then needing to downmix to 2.0 is sometimes the only way to get a truly hifi result from a 40 year old piece of magnetic tape.
I really haven't heard Steven's
new 2.0 ELP mixes... I can't get the ELP 5.1 versions out of my player! That stuff sounds so nice.
