Fire was 11 years ago, but for the first time, it's discovered that 100s of thousands of master recordings were lost in that fire.

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/universal-fire-music-masters/


"While details on exactly which recordings were lost has not been revealed, master tapes from the following artists are believed to be among those destroyed:
Elton John
Eric Clapton
The Eagles
Aerosmith
Steely Dan
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
The Police
Guns N' Roses
Nine Inch Nails
Nirvana
Soundgarden
Tupac Shakur
Beck
Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Al Jolson
Bing Crosby
Ella Fitzgerald
Judy Garland
Billie Holiday
Chuck Berry
Aretha Franklin
John Coltrane
Count Basie
Ray Charles,
Sammy Davis Jr.
Les Paul
Fats Domino
Loretta Lynn
B.B. King
Quincy Jones
Burt Bacharach
Joan Baez
Neil Diamond
Sonny and Cher
The Mamas and the Papas
Joni Mitchell
Cat Stevens
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Jimmy Buffett
Don Henley
Iggy Pop
Barry White
Patti LaBelle
Yoko Ono
Sting
R.E.M.
Janet Jackson
Queen Latifah
Mary J. Blige
Sonic Youth
No Doubt
Snoop Dogg
Hole
Sheryl Crow
Eminem"

And a much longer NY Times article posted a few days ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html?module=inline

Also got the Chess recordings of Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, and Little Walter.

Fire is bad.

dang....

Ah man, Yoko Ono masters were lost? Dang.

So this stuff has all been digitized and the original recordings lost in a fire?

Sucks and all but it smells like some kind of insurance scam.

Remember to back up your data.

C@LAg said:

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Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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So this stuff has all been digitized and the original recordings lost in a fire?

Sucks and all but it smells like some kind of insurance scam.

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except with the masters loss, they will never be able to generate, better, higher quality digital or other versions of these songs. we are now stuck with the best digital version they have. and no, CD quality is not "great" or "best" by any stretch.

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True.

When I think about the economics of the situation. It seems like a pain in the ass to store, preserve and insure. Is there really a market somewhere for someone other than the original artist to mess around with the master recordings of stuff?

Sure if you owned one of those master recordings, it would have some value, and be cool and all ... but it like some physical asset like art or precious metals that costs money to to store. Thats kind of how I look at it.

The market for deluxe editions with alternate versions and mixes is pretty substantial. This represents quite a few artists that we'll be unable to learn more about based on their work in the studio. There might be some live recordings and whatnot, but it seems like the ability to get better insight into Steely dan in the studio or some unreleased Tom Petty gems has gone up in smoke.

62strat said:

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Yoko Ono

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C@LAg said:

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...and no, CD quality is not "great" or "best" by any stretch.

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Don't tell that to this guy as he goes on a 50 min spiel on digital audio

I'm going to take an unpopular stance and say, so what?

Musical tastes and perception is completely subjective.

I fully realize there is a loss in sound quality in something like satellite radio. I can tell a difference between what I hear over terrestrial airwaves, what I hear on Sirius XM and what I experience at lives shows.

Do I care? Not really. My brain is too busy processing many other critical functions to let the quality of audio surface to the forefront of my concerns.

Music is meant to be experienced in person in my opinion, and no amount of super duper high quality audio can replicate that. I can be happy just listening to tracks of my favorite bands I will never get to see like The Doors.

A bunch of the material may have been garbage. Just because there's an outtake of Tom Petty busting balls in a studio session with his band mates doesn't mean it is culturally significant.

Sure I think it is a tragedy historical artifacts were wiped out in a fire but digitization has presented me with products I am happy with.

I liken this to cheap wine vs Expensive wine. Most often I can't tell the difference.

All those songs lost, like tears in the rain.

Shife said:

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I'm going to take an unpopular stance and say, so what?

Musical tastes and perception is completely subjective.

I fully realize there is a loss in sound quality in something like satellite radio. I can tell a difference between what I hear over terrestrial airwaves, what I hear on Sirius XM and what I experience at lives shows.

Do I care? Not really. My brain is too busy processing many other critical functions to let the quality of audio surface to the forefront of my concerns.

Music is meant to be experienced in person in my opinion, and no amount of super duper high quality audio can replicate that. I can be happy just listening to tracks of my favorite bands I will never get to see like The Doors.

A bunch of the material may have been garbage. Just because there's an outage of Tom Petty busting balls in a studio session with his band mates doesn't mean it is culturally significant.

Sure I think it is a tragedy historical artifacts were wiped out in a fire but digitization has presented me with products I am happy with.

I liken this to cheap wine vs Expensive wine. Most often I can't tell the difference.

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It's already been likened to this on the thread, but worth repeating. This is same as losing original works of art from different artists. Yes, that which the world deems most notable might already be on display somewhere. And Joe Normal can order a poster of the work off the internet for $2.

But the other work and sometimes the other attempts at a famous work, are usually stored or secured for numerous legit reasons. Some of the greatest muscians of a generation are on that list. Some of the greatest of the 20th century are on that list. Losing original work from them is a big deal.

policywonk98 said:

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Shife said:

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I'm going to take an unpopular stance and say, so what?

Musical tastes and perception is completely subjective.

I fully realize there is a loss in sound quality in something like satellite radio. I can tell a difference between what I hear over terrestrial airwaves, what I hear on Sirius XM and what I experience at lives shows.

Do I care? Not really. My brain is too busy processing many other critical functions to let the quality of audio surface to the forefront of my concerns.

Music is meant to be experienced in person in my opinion, and no amount of super duper high quality audio can replicate that. I can be happy just listening to tracks of my favorite bands I will never get to see like The Doors.

A bunch of the material may have been garbage. Just because there's an outage of Tom Petty busting balls in a studio session with his band mates doesn't mean it is culturally significant.

Sure I think it is a tragedy historical artifacts were wiped out in a fire but digitization has presented me with products I am happy with.

I liken this to cheap wine vs Expensive wine. Most often I can't tell the difference.

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This is same as losing original works of art from different artists.

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The same as???? Um..this IS losing original works of art from artists.

I meant to say same as losing works of art from visual artists like painters, etc.

Shife said:

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I'm going to take an unpopular stance and say, so what?

Musical tastes and perception is completely subjective.

I fully realize there is a loss in sound quality in something like satellite radio. I can tell a difference between what I hear over terrestrial airwaves, what I hear on Sirius XM and what I experience at lives shows.

Do I care? Not really. My brain is too busy processing many other critical functions to let the quality of audio surface to the forefront of my concerns.

Music is meant to be experienced in person in my opinion, and no amount of super duper high quality audio can replicate that. I can be happy just listening to tracks of my favorite bands I will never get to see like The Doors.

A bunch of the material may have been garbage. Just because there's an outage of Tom Petty busting balls in a studio session with his band mates doesn't mean it is culturally significant.

Sure I think it is a tragedy historical artifacts were wiped out in a fire but digitization has presented me with products I am happy with.

I liken this to cheap wine vs Expensive wine. Most often I can't tell the difference.

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That's not controversial or unpopular, its obtuse.

Shife said:

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I'm going to take an unpopular stance and say, so what?

Musical tastes and perception is completely subjective.

I fully realize there is a loss in sound quality in something like satellite radio. I can tell a difference between what I hear over terrestrial airwaves, what I hear on Sirius XM and what I experience at lives shows.

Do I care? Not really. My brain is too busy processing many other critical functions to let the quality of audio surface to the forefront of my concerns.

Music is meant to be experienced in person in my opinion, and no amount of super duper high quality audio can replicate that. I can be happy just listening to tracks of my favorite bands I will never get to see like The Doors.

A bunch of the material may have been garbage. Just because there's an outtake of Tom Petty busting balls in a studio session with his band mates doesn't mean it is culturally significant.

Sure I think it is a tragedy historical artifacts were wiped out in a fire but digitization has presented me with products I am happy with.

I liken this to cheap wine vs Expensive wine. Most often I can't tell the difference.

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It's not just quality it's about remixing and rethinking the songs that have already been released. A couple of great examples are from the Beatles. They haven't recorded anything new for almost 50 years but in the last 15 years we've gotten two "new" albums that aren't just a reordering/reissue of known songs, they are newly mixed and changed songs.

Listen to the songs on Let It Be: Naked which is a stripped down and remixed version of many of their songs from Let It Be. I think mostly they are superior to the originals.

And there is the more extreme mash up and remix that is the Love album from the Beatles show that Cirque du Solei does. This is a unique vision for their songs using the original sounds and tracks the Beatles laid down.

It's not just about quality or finding obscure takes. Without the master tracks these two albums wouldn't exist and I personally think both of them are fantastic.

Shife said:

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I'm going to take an unpopular stance and say, so what?

Musical tastes and perception is completely subjective.

I fully realize there is a loss in sound quality in something like satellite radio. I can tell a difference between what I hear over terrestrial airwaves, what I hear on Sirius XM and what I experience at lives shows.

Do I care? Not really. My brain is too busy processing many other critical functions to let the quality of audio surface to the forefront of my concerns.

Music is meant to be experienced in person in my opinion, and no amount of super duper high quality audio can replicate that. I can be happy just listening to tracks of my favorite bands I will never get to see like The Doors.

A bunch of the material may have been garbage. Just because there's an outtake of Tom Petty busting balls in a studio session with his band mates doesn't mean it is culturally significant.

Sure I think it is a tragedy historical artifacts were wiped out in a fire but digitization has presented me with products I am happy with.

I liken this to cheap wine vs Expensive wine. Most often I can't tell the difference.

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I was kind of with you up until your last comment. There is a huge difference between even just good wine and cheap wine.

The fact that they have been so secretive about what was destroyed makes me think that they were hoping to continue to release remasters without having the actual masters to recreate them from. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road we find out several of these re-releases were this case.

I do think that is it ridiculous that they didn't seem have any plan in place on digitizing the individual tracks from their master collection for long term storage.

I've also never found any of these remixes from the masters or remastered versions of albums to have any real differences from the original releases of albums that I had before hand. The Beatles have probably had more work done in remastering than any other group and I can't really tell the difference from the mono versions and the remasters. I even went and tested the Let It Be Naked tracks against the normal versions of let it be and it sounds the same to me. I certainly wouldn't be able to pick out which is which in a blind comparison.

Is this a huge loss? Yes, there are probably a lot of masters lost in the fire of work we don't even know are gone that is out of print that we won't be able to recreate. There was probably all sorts of treasure lost in that material as well of studio outtakes and unreleased material as well. But I also think that for most albums the versions we have now are the best versions of the album available and there isn't a better version to be gleamed from the masters. These masters are decades old, on tape, and in a warehouse in god knows what condition. I know for a lot of them they are mislabeled and parts were already missing. But even the recordings they had how many had degraded over time or has scratches or damage from playback or handling?

Quote:

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I've also never found any of these remixes from the masters or remastered versions of albums to have any real differences from the original releases of albums that I had before hand..... .....I certainly wouldn't be able to pick out which is which in a blind comparison.

But I also think that for most albums the versions we have now are the best versions of the album available and there isn't a better version to be gleamed from the masters.

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My bro has had a monthly subscription to the mobile fidelity lab remixes for 25 years, and he swears by them.

Your last sentence is crazy. Without an analog master, we can never make it better than the best digital version we currently have, so for your sentence to be true it must assume remastering and digitizing technology will cease to advance. You don't think in another 35 years we'll have better technology than today as far as remastering and digitizing?

The remasters may be better versions but in my experience I haven't heard one yet that made a impression on me. I could be wrong in this and admit that for the most part I don't know the music note for note on these as much to really pick out very subtle differences. The remaster of Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine is my best bet as I've listened to the original hundreds of times and I still can't really pick out differences in the remaster other than it isn't as quiet. My point there was that the way some of these remasters are hyped about all the work they put into it my expectations are that it'll turn an album recorded in the 60's to something that sounds like it was recorded in the last 20 years and that's not the case. Even the best Beatles remasters available (which are the gold standard) sound like they were recorded in the 60's.

The point i'm trying to make is that because "all other copies" of the album came from the master we generally think of masters as these these flawless copies of the album when in reality there are a lot of factors at play in which the master could be damaged and no longer be the greatest version of the album available. These masters are on analog tape and there is physical contact with the tape every time they are played which could cause damage through scratches and wear. They are also many masters over 50 years old and likely stored in poor conditions without air conditioning at various times of their life which could cause the tape to warp or damage. And even stored in good conditions tape over 50 years old can simply degrade and become damaged without even being played. So it is possible that a high quality digital version of the track taken 20 years ago that does not degrade or lose quality over time may be better than the master which has had 20 years of further degradation on it.

Modern day library of Alexandria fire.

Jasomania said:

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The remasters may be better versions but in my experience I haven't heard one yet that made a impression on me. I could be wrong in this and admit that for the most part I don't know the music note for note on these as much to really pick out very subtle differences. The remaster of Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine is my best bet as I've listened to the original hundreds of times and I still can't really pick out differences in the remaster other than it isn't as quiet.

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CastleRock said:

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True audiophiles have dedicated setups with CD players, amp, speakers.

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This.. My brother has a mcintosh amp that is probably $5k, and speakers of equal quality to play it through. You listening in your computer, car or on your $30 earbuds is not going to compare, and is not the type of consumer that remastered cds are intended for.

I have a buddy with over $50K in gear in his theater room. While that does include video he has some high end audio gear. I have a pressing of Blizzard of Ozz on vinyl that we played back to back with his FLAC files and the vinyl sounded noticeably better. Not saying this is always the case but it is definitely not out of the realm of possibility.