Review of Shine On from ICE Newsletter

When Is A Pink Floyd Box Set Not A Pink Floyd Box Set?

   November 17 is slated by both Soney Music in America and EMI in
Europe for a new nine-CD Pink Floyd box set titled Shine On.  In a
move that will undoubtedly prove to be frustrating  for Floyd fans,
however, the group decided to include no new material, be they new
recordings, unreleased outtakes, alternate versions, remixed material
or live tracks.  The pricey set will simply consist of seven Pink
Floyd albums from the groups catalog (using up eight CDs because the
Wall is a double) plus one disc containing ten single A- and B-sides
from the '60s.  The Shine On box will offer two new selling points,
however: newly-remastered sound quality and an elaborate 112-page
hardback book chronicling the group's history.

   The seven albums slated for inclusion are 1968's A Saucerful of
Secrets, 1971's Meddle, 1973's Dark Side of the Moon, 1975's Wish You
Were Here, 1977's Animals, 1979's The Wall and 1987's A Momentary
Lapse of Reason.  The ninth CD is titled The Early Singles and
contains "Arnold Layne", "Candy and a Currant Bun", "See Emily Play",
"Scarecrow", "Apples and Oranges", "Paint Box", "It Would Be So Nice",
"Julia Dream", "Point Me At The Sky" and "Careful With That Axe,
Eugene."  The band - David Gilmour and company -  made all the
selections.  When pressed on the subject, British EMI's Steve Davis,
the group's product manager, told ICE, "It's a bit arbitrary.  Of
course everyone will say 'Where's Ummagumma, where's Atom Heart Mother
or whatever their favorite album is.  We made all sorts of proposals
that we thought might (appeal) more to collector's tastes, but this is
the one the band wanted, so this is the one they get.  Vissually, it's
stunning; they're all being packaged in black opaque jewel boxes.
When you stand all eight CDs together chronologically, there's a
complete image of a prism on the spines.  The group has been very
hands on, working patiently with (designer) Storm (Thorgerson) on all
of this.  The 112-page hardback book is fabulous, and will only be
available as part of the box."  To accomodate the book, Davis says
Shine On will measure roughly 10 by 12 inches in size.  The box set's
cover is said to be "very Pink Floyd," with a photograph depicting
three naked people suspended above a body of water.

   Besides getting the delux book, will it be worth it for fans to
spend a substantial amount of money to get the newly-remastered CDs?
To find out, we contacted James Guthrie, a long-time Floyd associate
who produced and engineered The Wall and The Final Cut, and Doug Sax,
a veteran Los Angeles-based studio engineer who handled the
remastering for the box set.

   "If somebody buys it, they're not going to get cheated," Sax tells
ICE, setting in his office at the Mastering Lab.  "Without exception,
everything went back to the master tapes.  We had all of the available
CD versions, and we didn't leave until we thoiught we had made a
substantial improvement.  Some of the early singles are not sonic
delights, but from a historical standpoint they're very illuminating."
We asked Sax if the average consumer would be able to detect the
improvements at home.  "The CDs are being made from first generation
digital tapes, and you'll hear that on any system," he replied.  "If
you put the two (old and new pressings) side by side, you'll
positively hear it.  In some cases, it's a small difference, if it had
been originally mastered well, and in other cases it is quite
substantial.  Probably the biggest (improvement) of any single disc
was Animals.  We went back to the original master and it was
substantially better, with a lot more clarity and impact, and some
actual true presence which the copy tape just didn't have.  Certain
subtle things have been done too.  When Dark Side of the Moon was
(recorded) it was done continously, but there was always a break for
the LP.  That's now been connected with a cross-fade; it's never been
connected before.  We even had the assistance of (original Dark Side
engineer) Alan Parsons; he came in and had a fresh look at the tape."

   Since he works closely with the Floyd camp, James Guthrie was a bit
more reserved, but he, too, feels that most of the CDs are an
improvement (except Momentary Lapse, which didn't require upgrading).
"We put a lot of time into this," Guthrie tells ICE. "I think it
should all sound better than what you're able to buy currently.  Dave
(Gilmour) went to Abbey Road, went through all the tapes and made sure
they were original masters."  We asked Guthrie about what many fans
feel is Pink Floyd's most important album, Dark Side of the Moon.  "We
had the original tape, which we felt sounded pretty good," he says.
"But we went out and bought everything we could possibly lay our hands
on, to see what everyone else thought it should sound like.  We got
American vinyl pressings, old English pressings, the normal CD and the
Mobile Fidelity CD.  We played them all, and I'm very confident that
we're going to sound a lot better than those.  It is slightly
subjective; when a mastering engineer gets a tape, he's either going
to start fiddling with it or he's going to try to preserve what was
intended by the artist and produced originally.  At that point, it
becomes a matter of taste.  Our new CD sounds more like the original
U.K. vinyl, and I think it's even an improvement on that."  And on the
average system?  "If you were to have the two side-by-side, I think
people will be able to hear the difference, yes."

   Since Guthrie originally co-produced Floyd's landmark The Wall
album, we asked him specifically about that CD as well.  "I'm hoping
we've made an improvement," he says.  "I think 1983 was the first CD
of The Wall, and we've made big strides in A to D (analog to digital)
converters since then.  It's a bit of a trade-off, though, because the
tape is also nine years older.  We had to do some restoration work on
these tapes.  Interestingly, the early tapes - Dark Side and even
earlier, for the singles - all played fine."
