Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Jote]

Zoolookologie 1984 vs. 2024

Obviously the volume has been upped a lot (loudness war), but the new version has a lot more high. But then there's the distortion with the bassdrum...

zoolookologie84.mp3
zoolookologie24.mp3

There's an audible glitch at 3:09 BTW

[Jote]

From FB

There are *loads* of clicks during the opening minutes of Ethnicolor. And I mean loads. They're more subtle than the big glitches later in the track, but they sound like the sort of garbage a CD player (or other old digital storage) produces when it has trouble reading data. I suspect the reason the artifacts later on are noisier is because there is more going on in the track, and there is more damage at those points.
Clicks I've heard so far:
0:29
0:32
0:33
0:50
0:58 (x2)
1:11
1:21
1:30
1:36
1:45
1:51
2:19
2:39
3:33
3:42
And two honking noise glitches at 9:58 and 10:25.
Diva has a weird drop in left channel volume in the last 30 seconds of the track that the previous releases didn't have (i.e. it sounds like the audio is moving to the right).
Zoolookologie has a glitch/dropout at 3:09... although more like the tape stopped briefly, i.e. the track feels like it briefly slows down. Again, not present in previous versions.
Ethnicolor II has a right-channel dropout at 2:09 but that one isn't new per se - it happened in the 2015 remaster too (and much more noticably at that). But the 2000s Sony remaster did not have that problem, so it's still something of note.

Adding a click at 1:18 and a "honking noise glitch" around 9:18 (mostly right channel) and 9:28 (hard to spot, easily mistaken for a sound effect, but it's there)

[rinogurr]

SIDE ONE

DO YOU SPEAK IN COLOUR?
ALIEN ROMANCE
MEDIA MANIA

SIDE TWO

ZOOLOOK
TACTICS
ZOOLOOKOLOGIE
DO YOU SEE IN RHYTHM?
CANCION DEL FUEGO FATUO?

[Finaero]

I also noticed the click around the 3:33 mark in the new mastering, but since there's something similar in the 1984 CD one, I let that pass - but only the first one, because of course the noisefest continues after that.

Nothing like that in the 1997 one, however.

[Dr_Jones]

Nice, an alternative tracklisting... with 8 tracks? Three tracks on side one. Mabye Ethnicolor or Diva was split up later? Or Moon Machine was planned to be on side one?

[Jote]

Nice, an alternative tracklisting... with 8 tracks? Three tracks on side one. Mabye Ethnicolor or Diva was split up later? Or Moon Machine was planned to be on side one?

There are 7 tracks (3 + 4).

Side 1:
Do you speak in colour?
Alien Romance
Media Mania

Side 2:
Zoolook
Tactics
Zoolookologie
Do you see in rhythm?

The eighth track rinogurr listed is obviously a translation of the last one.

Anyway, the first two are likely Ethnicolor and Diva and the last one side two is Ethnicolor II. I'd say Media Mania is Blah Blah Cafe.

Sigh. This is the stuff that should be in the 40th anniversary edition. Complete with the whole story - where the titles came from, why were they changed. And so on and so forth. Instead we're just finding out by accident and can only wonder.

[Robi83]

Nice, an alternative tracklisting... with 8 tracks? Three tracks on side one. Mabye Ethnicolor or Diva was split up later? Or Moon Machine was planned to be on side one?

There are 7 tracks (3 + 4). The first two are likely Ethnicolor and Diva and the last one side two is Ethnicolor II. I'd say Media Mania is Blah Blah Cafe.

Sigh. This is the stuff that should be in the 40th anniversary edition. Complete with the whole story - where the titles came from, why were they changed. And so on and so forth. Instead we're just finding out by accident and can only wonder.

Absolutely!
And we are wondering why the music industry and the quality in general is decreasing. Semi-deaf experts and "I give a piece of sh*t on anniversaries" artists are selling themselves over and over again with well-built promo campaign. Aren't you, JM?

[Jote]

Well, the people have spoken

[cactus128]

Who on earth passed this through quality control!?!?! It is seriously FUBAR. It's just not sellable, give it away, maybe.

I've never heard anything this bad, I don't know if they can airbrush out the glitches, or if it is too far gone for the DAT master.

The mastering is actually quite good, there is very little clamping on ethnicolor as there was on the 30th edition, but it just looks like the DAT has failed and might as well chuck it in the bin.

[Jote]

I've never heard anything this bad

Then you must have missed the Rendez-Vous remaster from 2014 (IIRC)

[cactus128]

I've never heard anything this bad

Then you must have missed the Rendez-Vous remaster from 2014 (IIRC)

I have the 48/24 file from that release i think and it was reasonable, considering that they magically made a 48/24 from a 44/16 master. but there it is.

I didnt hear any glitches like this though. This is rough, it is like releasing a vinyl with a great scratch across it.

[Domestos]

Quants pointed me to this error on Moon Machine:

The 1986 vinyl rip:
mm1984.mp3

The 2024 remaster:
mm2024.mp3

And as a bonus: the 1991 Images version, 1 second into the track (most of the RV4 "noise" has faded):
mm1991.mp3

On the 1986 vinyl version, the melody starts at 10:00, the Images version at 9:00 and on this 2024 master at 8:00. That's because they cut 1 second of the RV4 "breath" from the Images version.

So they’ve not even bothered to use the original version of Moon Machine but the Images one?! Good lord.

[Quants0]

Quants pointed me to this error on Moon Machine:

The 1986 vinyl rip:
mm1984.mp3

The 2024 remaster:
mm2024.mp3

And as a bonus: the 1991 Images version, 1 second into the track (most of the RV4 "noise" has faded):
mm1991.mp3

On the 1986 vinyl version, the melody starts at 10:00, the Images version at 9:00 and on this 2024 master at 8:00. That's because they cut 1 second of the RV4 "breath" from the Images version.

They literally remastered the version of Moon Machine on the new edition from the Images version. Not from the original master tape. Got suspicious when I noticed it was about a second shorter than the Images version, which fades in from the previous track on the comp, Rendez-Vous 4. On the original B-side release in 1986 it has a bit of a fade in at the start, and since that fade in was missing that's what got me suspicious. And I'm pretty sure there's a slight remnant of that original transition in the new remaster.

I haven't listened to the entire thing. Ethnicolor alone was enough to convince me this wasn't going to be a great experience. Truly terrible. Extremely disappointed.

[Jote]

I have the 48/24 file from that release i think and it was reasonable

IIRC they ultimately fixed it, but there was like a tape speed fluctuation effect on it. There's a 31-page long thread about those remasters here. And here's a sneak peek (from 0:48)

considering that they magically made a 48/24 from a 44/16 master. but there it is.

Nothing magical about it, it's just empty bits and snake oil, obviously. High-res audio is snake oil in general.

[cactus128]

I have the 48/24 file from that release i think and it was reasonable

IIRC they ultimately fixed it, but there was like a tape speed fluctuation effect on it. There's a 31-page long thread about those remasters here. And here's a sneak peek (from 0:48)

considering that they magically made a 48/24 from a 44/16 master. but there it is.

Nothing magical about it, it's just empty bits and snake oil, obviously. High-res audio is snake oil in general.

I think they must have fixed it, listening to the 48/24 version now and it doesn't have that glitch.

Jarre remasters have always been full of cockups. even back in 1995 when they did the first lot, there were errors all over the place. But that was the entire catalogue and were probably a bit rushed.

This one is blatant robbery, and I am quite surprised that jarre let this pass. They would have heard the problems as soon as they put the DAT in the deck. I am surprised then that he did not just rerecord the album. It probably would have been quicker than trying to polish a turd. I guess he has the midi files and the samples. Would have taken about a week lol.