Four waves of remastering Olivia's pre-digital albums (Physical and earlier)

I have classified the remastered issues of Olivia's predigital era CDs into four waves of rereleases. That's a generalisation, the CDs tended to be issued piecemeal, there are no doubt exceptions. I don't know the Japanese releases that well, though Japan is a major market for Olivia's music.

The first wave - 1985 to early 1990s, before digital limiting

This was the first wave of MCA CDs, as the CD format started to pick up momentum. Physical, MCAD-5229 was naturally the first one to be released, not only due to its phenomenal chart performance but it was the most recent non-CD release. Many of Olivia’s back-catalogue CDs were released in 1987-1992, Have You Never Been Mellow, MCAD 1676, Clearly Love, MCAD-31111, Come On Over, MCAD-31082 , Don’t Stop Believin’, MCAD-1610, Totally Hot MCAD-1642, Making A Good Thing Better MCAD-1682

MCA did good work here - these are the albums they released in this group

This lacked the early UK material, though MCA did release If You Love Me Let Me Know in the late 1980s which covers a lot of this early work.

We don't know the exact details of how these CDs were made. Talking about CD production in general, mastering engineer Greg Calibri told CNET in 2008

In the early days CDs were typically mastered from the LP master, Calbi explained. "It wasn't until the mid-'80s that we starting mastering for CD. Vinyl was still No. 1; CD and cassette masters were taken from the LP master."

That's consistent with how some of these early CDs sound, if you look at the packaging these Olivia releases weren't high-budget jobs, with a fairly generic back cover and inlay

It's not tremendously surprising, therefore, these sounded similar to the LPs, with the same dynamic contrast between the tracks and between loud and soft within a track. It's possible the variation in peak loudness between the ballads and the go getting tracks was part of getting enough running time on an LP side, and happened to work well for Olivia's albums. Chapeau to John Farrar and the mastering enigneers if the sequencing was done with this in mind.

Olivia's early albums before Have You Never Been Mellow

Olivia and John Farrar recorded all the albums before Don't Stop Believin' in the UK, and the US release and international release diverge before Have You Never Been Mellow. Fortunately, Olivia's UK record company EMI released a 48 track compilation of Olivia's early work in 1994, 48 Original Tracks

The unimaginative title 48 Original Tracks is because this was part of a series of EMI artists called Country Masters having nn Original Tracks CD albums, mostly double CDs. This double CD covers all of her eponymous first album, a.k.a. If Not for You in Australia, nearly all of her second album Olivia, most of Music Makes My Day and a fair number of tracks from Long Live Love. The mastering is a cut above, there are no vinyl versions so this was made for CD, not pulled straight off a LP master. We got lucky here - this was released in 1994, apparently 1994 was the year the first digital brick-wall limiter with look-ahead was mass-produced, which was to start the loudness wars. It wasn't used on 48 Original Tracks, which is a good-sounding release that fills in most of the holes, bringing us up to the point where MCA pick up the story. Only a few tracks are missing, and the lovely song Rosewater is shortened on 48OT compared to the one on the original Australian version of the Let Me Be There CD.

Festival released a number of Olivia's albums in Australia in this period, and there were early releases in Japan, including Physical in 1984. Festival releases pre-1998 fall in the same category as the MCA releases to my ears. Festival's original non Digitally Remastered¹ Let Me Be There, D 35026, for instance, has the long version of Rosewater, as well as the track Brotherly Love missing on 48OT and earns its place in my collection for that reason.

This first wave of releases were all produced before the advent of look-ahead limiters, which means intentional brickwalling was not possible. This history means Olivia fans are therefore lucky to have most of her back-catalogue available in digital form before the loudness wars started.

These are always going to sound quieter than recent remasters. This is easily fixed at no cost. Turn them up a little bit, but beware of the psychoacoustic effect. Humans will always prefer the louder version at first hearing. Don't immediately compare a remaster with an early CD, without trying to match volume levels between the two.

What did these sound like? People who grew up with hearing Olivia records found these were similar. Really low frequencies take up a lot of groove space on LP, and these will have been mastered with vinyl in mind, so perhaps some of the criticism of these early releases as being thin/bright are also a result of this provenance. Most listeners found the 48 Original tracks compilation was good.

The second wave - Festival Digitally Remastered editions in 1998

In 1998 Festival released a Digitally Remastered set of Let Me Be There, D 21035, Long Live Love D 21036, Have You Never Been Mellow D 21046, Clearly Love D 21037, Come On Over D 21038, Don't Stop Believin' D 36023, Making A Good Thing Better D 36277 ,Totally Hot D 36771, Physical D 53003

There were some others in the series. These had a bold Digitally Remastered flash along the bottom of the cover, and the inlay reprographics left something to be desired

What did these sound like? Louder, and a bit fuller. There's a reason for the loudness, I compared an MCA copy of Totally Hot MCAD-1610 with a Festival Digitally Remastered, using Foobar2k set up² to show peak gain and track loudness.³

On the left-hand side, you can see track peak loudness varies quite a lot, nearly full-scale on A Little More Love to -5dB on Boats Against the Current, which is noticeably quieter. I was used to listening to the LP, where Boats Against The Current really is a fair bit quieter than Totally Hot and Gimme Some Lovin'. I don't know if the producer and mastering engineer intended to use the dynamic contrast between the upbeat tracks and the slower ballad to emphasise the change, but it worked in the run of the album for me.

What's more telling, however, is the difference between the peak level and the LUFS perceived loudness (relative to full-scale, which is why you need to take the difference). That difference is more on the MCA release than the 1998 remastered version. You can contrast two Festival releases between the original Aussie GH2 and the 1998 Digitally Remastered version which follows it. The difference between track peak levels is also reduced in remasters. Modern practice thinks more in terms of individual songs than albums. Vinyl and early CD listeners tended to play albums - selecting tracks on vinyl LPs was more effort than queuing up a streaming playlist. Which release you prefer depends on how you listen.

The third wave - the Japanese Box Set in 2010 and SHM-CDs

These are pushed a little bit louder than the Festival 1998 releases. To my ears these are a little bit flat, the openness of Olivia's early albums is gone. They are bright to the point of harshess for me. But I have heard them with more dynamic range for half a lifetime. A younger listener who is more used to higher levels of compression may find these fine, and closer to how they are used to listening to music.

The fourth wave - Primary Wave Deluxe Edition releases

In October 2020 Olivia struck a deal with Primary Wave Music Publishing to handle her back catalogue. Primary Wave are in the process of releasing deluxe edition CDs and vinyl LPs of Olivia's music. They engaged Vinny Vero to curate these releases, and to chase down some of the more obscure tracks, which feature on bonus discs. These releases are worth buying for many fans simply because of the bonus previously unreleased and unheard tracks. For example the Primary Wave If Not For You bonus disc is a cornucopia of unheard material.

The presentation and the reprographics on the Primary wave releases we have had so far is gorgeous in its own right, and superlative compared to what Festival did to us in 1998 in terms of presentation. Just take a look at If Not For You Deluxe Edition or Physical Deluxe Edition.

I've only heard two of the Primary Wave releases so far. To me they follow modern practice in that tonal balance is good, but loudness variations are squished somewhat. Taken in the round, given the bonus tracks and the presentation Primary waves' releases are great, a significant cut above the Festival 1998 remasters.

so what?

Ideally, I'd be listening to Olivia sat in front of the stereo in the evening, with the lights down low, and perhaps the sound turned up a little. In that case, I prefer there to be some dynamic contrast, both between tracks and within a track. Lovely as Olivia is, I don't necessarily need her in my face all through the track - I need her to give it some on the Spencer Davis track Gimme Some Lovin' but maybe go easy on some of the ballads, so I can listen into them, get the tone colour as she sings the words on Borrowed Time and Never Enough. So I favour the grace and dynamic contrast of the first wave MCA versions. For all I know the producer dropped the level of the ballads to be able to get more tracks in on vinyl, but it worked with the album concept and enhanced my listening pleasure.

Other listeners may prefer the better tonal balance of more recent remasters. If I was in my car, or hearing the album on a smartphone on the train home, then there would be more background noise, and the 1998 Festival remasters might be better, because they would not drowned in the background noise as much. The listening environment was quieter when we listened to vinyl - nobody listened to LPs in their cars or jogging. I didn't get on with the 1998 Festival remasters, I sold all mine, with the exception of Totally Hot.

In the end it's down to you and your ears. It's worth being aware of the differences, however, as whichever style of remastering you favour, mixing and matching the different releases will lead to different volume levels at the very least.

Want more? seriously...?

There's a detailed comparison of the Physical album from the 1984 Japanese release, through the MCA release and on to the Primary Wave release. The CD by CD measurements give you some summary indications of ripped tracks from a number of different versions of Olivia's predigital CDs, and how to replicate this on rips of your own CDs to compare.

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