Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[shadow]

I'm relistening to the two remasters and currently in Oxygene 8. And I hadn't noticed it before, but the treble continuously keeps dropping throughout. It's really odd that this went through the final mastering stage. Will listen to the vinyl again tomorrow and see if that one has the same flaws. Truly bizarre!

Edit: Nope, vinyl has the exact same problems. What a bloody disaster

[Velodynamic]

I listened to all the vinyls tonight and the big problem for me is the damn static pops and
clicks the whole time! I mean my old 140 grams vinyls of Oxygene 1-6 sounds better then this new release.
Oh well, they are nice to look at. Better hang that transparent plastic thing on the wall.

[Phil]

Dynamic Range of the Trilogy

Hi-Res & CD :
Oxygène 1 = DR9* (1983 : DR12 - 1997 : DR9)
Oxygène 2 = DR7 (1997 : DR8)
Oxygène 3 = DR6

Vinyls :
Oxygène 1 = DR12 (1977 : ~DR12)
Oxygène 2 = DR12 (1997 : DR12)
Oxygène 3 = DR10 (by privileging this version your ears will say thank you )

* : It's the 3rd remastering of Oxygene (1-6) by David Dadwater aka D. Perreau.. (2011 = DR7 / 2015 = DR6 / 2016 = DR9)

[Pat Gleeson]

Oxygène 3 = DR10 (by privileging this version your ears will say thank you )

* : It's the 3rd remastering of Oxygene (1-6) by David Dadwater aka D. Perreau.. (2011 = DR7 / 2015 = DR6 / 2016 = DR9)

Exactly what I've done - ripped Oxygene 3 from vinyl at 24 Bit/96kHz - burned it to BLU Ray Audio

[Phil]

Exactly what I've done - ripped Oxygene 3 from vinyl at 24 Bit/96kHz - burned it to BLU Ray Audio

Personally i don't use anymore dedicated players since many years now, i made a "Jarre-Database", HD audio & video files are played via a compact jukebox "media-player-recorder" connected to network, TV screen & "Hi-Fi" audio system.

It's a very nice system to watch & listen everything you want in few seconds : files on hdd/lan (9 To), Web Radios, TV channels (and record them),...

(This kind of system is sometimes a bit long to configure... but not more expensive than some bluray players)

[Pat Gleeson]

Personally i don't use anymore dedicated players since many years now

Each to their own Phil
As long as it's done right, it doesn't matter how it's listened to ...

[feline1973]

I finally picked up a copy of the trilogy today - haven't listened to it yet, but I noticed that the booklet claims Oxygene 7 - 13 is a remaster by Dadwater "from the original analogue tapes"
Funny that, as it was surely recorded on digital to begin with in 1997?! I mean Jarre was recording on digital in 1984!

I also note that Francis Rimbert and Michael Geiss lose all their previous credits. Parsimonious, much?

[Pat Gleeson]

I finally picked up a copy of the trilogy today - haven't listened to it yet, but I noticed that the booklet claims Oxygene 7 - 13 is a remaster by Dadwater "from the original analogue tapes"

All the 2014-15 remasters have this statement on them. A cut-and-paste job, for sure ...

[Pat Gleeson]

Funny that, as it was surely recorded on digital to begin with in 1997?! I mean Jarre was recording on digital in 1984!

Yes, but stopped. Rendezvous, Revolutions and Chronologie were recorded in analogue - Cities In Concert and WFC were digital recordings. The AAD, ADD and DDD recording logos were not printed on JMJ CD's I have after 1994, so I can't give a definitive answer to whether Oxygene 7-13 is a digital recording or not.
Many artists however began reverting to analogue recording in the mid 90's in reaction to the perceived metallic harshness to digital recordings. Kate Bush reissued her back catalogue on her own label a few years ago. The only album remastered was 'The Red Shoes', where the digital masters were remixed in analogue for what Kate said was "a warmer sound".

[feline1973]

Hmmm.... well I'm comparing flac 'secure rips' of the original Oxygene album (a Polydor CD I bought in the late 80s) and the 2016 Dadwater remaster, and really I think I prefer the original. The Dadwater is just pointlessly "louder" and with a bit more treble.
Comparing key moments such as the beginning of Oxygene Part 2, where the bass line comes in whilst the original sequence is still rolling around, the remaster just makes the sequencer too loud and bright, it's quite unnecessary! The original master doesn't need to be any "louder", the new one just adds some marginally ear-fatiguing compression for no particular reason.

[feline1973]

Hmm, and on a cursorary listen I have much the same inital opinion on the original Oxygene 7–13 compared to the 2016 remaster: the tracks do not need to be any "louder", and pimping the audio in this way just, to my ear, removes bottom end and replaces it with a more hectoring tinny top end, where overly brighty high end sounds are too squished up and actually 'masking' the rest of the arrangement a bit.

[shadow]

It could be that the albums were indeed recorded and mixed digitally but stored on magnetic tapes for archival purposes. Don't forget that many of the old formats that were used on computers in the 80's are effectively dead and the only sure way of having a backup that would last would be to store it in an analog fashion. Pixar ran into this problem when they wanted to re-render the original Toy Story in a higher resolution and had to redevelop the tools they used for their newer films to support the original files because they were simply far to outdated.

[feline1973]

I think that's extremely unlikely in the case of Oxygene 7–13 ... it's only from 1997 and any digital audio format from then is still easily supported today.

With early 80s digital tape formats (or indeed experimental 1970s ones), where you had a few pioneering manufacturers (3M, Mitsubishi, Sony...) bringing out digital multitrack machines, it can be difficult to get a vintage machine to play these back on, but this is Jarre we're talking about here! Sourcing vintage machines is what he does

Pixar animation isn't really comparable - there you're talking about the actual animation software, all we're talking about here is the recording digital audio onto tape or hard drive, it was nearly always in the same underlying PCM format.

No, this whole "remastered from the original analog tapes" thing is just a bullshit marketing phrase, that some idiot in a suit thought would help sell more CDs, even though it's patently ridiculous and untrue.

[feline1973]

Basically it looks to me like I wasted my money buying the "trilogy" 3CD set - I could've just bought the CD of Oxygene 3 for half the price. The two Dadwater remasters are audibly worse than the masters I already owned.
Oh well worse things happen at sea...

[Finaero]

Even though the Trilogy set wasn't as bad as people made it out to be, I can't really recommend it to anyone unless someone wants to have Oxygene 7-13 on vinyl (even though the Trilogy Boxset and Oxygene 7-13 1997 LP prices appear to be on the same level these days). The 2016 vinyl remastering for that one isn't that bad, in fact, I think Oxygene 9 sounds better on that one than in my 1997 LP (might be just a problem with my copy, though, after all I did get it for 4 or 20 euros back in 2008 or 2007).

As for Oxygene 3 the album itself, the actual non-Boxset vinyl is actually better than the one in the boxset so all in all I guess the boxset can be avoided unless you can really get it for cheap.