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For those wot like zappa

garyi said:
I was not overly impressed with the production values of sheik or a number of albums around that period (tinsel town is another)where frank had obviously taken on digital audio. Sounds a bit wolly, a little better on vinyl.
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Pretty much everything (except for the LSO recordings and a live recording made in New York ) were analogue to 1984.

To my ears, the original LPs of Sheik, Joes Garage & Tinseltown sound rather fine. Similarly for the Buffalo album from 1980.

The Ryko cds are a bit grim though. Perplexingly, the original EMI CD of Shut Up N Play Yer Guitar sounds stunning.
 
My Sheik is on CBS and was cut by Doug Sax at Masterdisk. About as good as it's going to get. I have a slightly later issue on EMI which is 'Digitally Remastered' and which I never got along with.

Paul
 
Likewise I remember the UK CBS originals sounding rather wonderful, certainly more than fine.

Tony.
 
Paul Ranson said:
My Sheik is on CBS and was cut by Doug Sax at Masterdisk. About as good as it's going to get. I have a slightly later issue on EMI which is 'Digitally Remastered' and which I never got along with.

Paul
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Tsk! My extreme case of geekness allows me (without even looking at the sleeve) to know that Doug Sax owns The Mastering Lab In Los Angeles and has no connection to Masterdisk. Sheik was mastered at Masterdisk by Bob Ludwig. Stan Ricker mastered the original Joe's Garage...As I said, geeky!

Those EMI digitally remastered, DMM cut reissues were crap though.
 
My Sheik is an all -2 matrixes Dutch press and (yet) sounds fabulous. As for best Zappa album I find it extremely difficult to pick one - there is so much great stuff to choose from. For example I've been spinning 'Roxy and Elsewhere' a lot lately and it's really grown on me - a truly superb album. For top three I would probably go with 'Uncle Meat', 'Freak out' and 'Burnt weeny Sandwich' but that would mean I'd have to leave out 'We're only in it for the money', 'Hot rats' and 'Cruising' which is not very fair... OK I guess my point is you cannot go very wrong with anything he did the first 7 - 8 years or so.

Carl
 
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