I want to Re-Mix Highway 61' Revisited

[leigh]

Gaaah, this is like Lucas "fixing" Star Wars to make Greedo shoot first. It is what it is, and one man's "improvement" is another's desecration.

Wellll... it depends. Chopping out the harmonica? Yeah, that kind of content manipulation borders on desecration.

Remixing/remastering an album? More like getting a new print made of an old film, or a new transfer of the analog master to digital. Finer resolution, a clearer perspective on what the artist's original vision was... anyone who's listening to Dylan on CD is already taking advantage of this. If you insist on hearing him as he was heard back when his records came out, you'd have to find vinyl pressings of that era, and play them back on a record player of that era. And if there's a certain historical interest in re-experiencing his records exactly as they were heard back then, well, then that's cool.

However, being more into the music than the history surrounding it, I settle for the CD, played through whatever I've got around. And, as such, my experience of the album is sonically closer to the session master tapes than playing a 60's vinyl pressing on 60's record player would be. Remixing the record through some nice modern gear would also put the final product closer to the session master tapes. See also the Beatles recent "Love" album. Sounds great, it rings beautiful and clear as a bell, and hasn't been beat to within an inch of its life by overlimiting either. I would love to hear someone do that with Highway '61.

my 2 euros....

Leigh

[leigh]

See also the Beatles recent "Love" album. Sounds great, it rings beautiful and clear as a bell, and hasn't been beat to within an inch of its life by overlimiting either.

I realized I should clarify: I'm talking about the sound quality on "Love", not about applying the mash-up thing to Dylan...

[honkyjonk]

Highway 61 isn't bad for Harmonica at all compared to a few other albums.

JWH for sure, though. It's probably 700,000 times louder than the rest of the music. I still love it.

Freewheelin is bad too. A lot worse than Highway 61. Blond on Blonde is slightly worse than Highway 61 in this regard too, from memory.

The worst is when you're listening to a dubbed cassette on your car's cassette player. Shiza. It's so piercing you have to turn it down to the point where you can't hear anything at all, but when your ears stop hurting, you know the harmonica solo is over and you can turn it back up again.

Yeah, I think it's just a symptom of him playing into the same mic he was singing, and a standard of not pulling down the fader in the mix during the harmonica break? Maybe because there was enough guitar in the vocal mic than it would sound wierd to take that much guitar out for the breaks? I don't know.

I personally really like the harmonica solo after the 12 versus of Desolation row. It seems lower and richer than some of his other solos. Probably a lower pitched harmonica. And then "Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time that the door-knob broke. . . . " Awesome point in rock and roll history right there.