Republic, Get Ready, and Waiting For The Sirens' Call are out Stateside now. Amoeba in San Francisco has a big display of them alongside Music Complete and the 12" of Restless.

They do not come with downloads.

I picked up Get Ready, as it's the only one I didn't already have on vinyl. It sounds nice and clean, but it's very quiet. It really should have been spread across two records to improve the fidelity, as 51 minutes is about 9 minutes longer than what can comfortably sit on one slab of vinyl.

They look great. They obviously still have the original artwork files, which has been a problem for many vinyl reissues. You can tell when something like, say, Disintegration by The Cure had to be scanned from an old copy and the vinyl reissue looks a little murky.

Really looking forward to Singles!

Edited by user 04 November 2015 11:00:35(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Those codes don't quite work these days. They don't seem to allow ADA.

The answer is:

Republic is digital from the start, until put onto an analogue medium (vinyl).

Get Ready started life on analogue tape, then moved onto digital (pro-tools etc) for the rest.

WFTSC was similar to above.

Edited by user 06 November 2015 03:46:55(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Not really, the multitracks are analogue, but then it went digital for all subsequent production/mixing/editing (in pro-tools).

So, to remain analogue you'd have to mix, produce and edit the whole thing from scratch again.

This is never going to happen (unless you're The Beatles and it's relatively simple).

Same as what?

They were originally done the same way, this time however you get to remaster them and produce a 24/96 master to cut from (they would have been done from 16/44.1 back at the time).

Don't forget they were all unavailable with originals selling for loads of money, in this rejuvenated vinyl era. It's obvious that they should be reissued on vinyl.

FWIW, the previous five albums all exist as analogue masters and the 2015 remasters (on digital shops currently) are from those. Obviously they are now digital as they haven't been put onto an analogue medium as yet.

I think you'd all spot the difference with some of those btw, Movement and Low Life, in particular, are much improved.

Edited by user 07 November 2015 13:01:59(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Long story, but I think that the problems locating the correct and final master, plus the very long vinyl lead-in times, meant that time ran out.

I'm not sure about the details of what they did previously.

There is a weird (and now obsolete) noise reduction system used on the Low Life masters, that could've be the reason.

It's been pushed back to early next year apparently.

Thanks for the update. That glitch on Sunrise always annoyed me. Always have had to remember to sub in the version from the box set as needed.

That glitch on "The Him" which was on the 2007 version of "Movement" has been corrected on the 2015 remaster as well. I seem to remember it being right at the very end of the song. My favorite of the 2015 remasters is definitely "Brotherhood." It sounds like lots of stereo emphasis was used, so you can hear all the different layers of guitar and backup vocals with much more clarity. The original CD pressings sounded very muddy and dense, so it's huge improvement. It's almost like hearing a whole new album when listening to it with headphones.

It's the V0 vbr mp3 version which was purchased from Amazon's US website. They don't offer Flac versions of the download as of yet, but I can confirm it's not just bad mp3 encoding because the songs are also available on New Order's YouTube page and Spotify to stream for free and both have the glitches as well. Two of the glitches I can remember, but the last one wasn't so obvious. I'd have to listen to the full album to remember the last one.

The first one is on "All the Way" right at 2:51. It's very abrupt, but it's like the tape jumps in speed for a split second.

The second is one is during the very first second of "Round & Round." It's difficult to hear without headphones, but you'll hear this weird squeak sound, which again, sounds like the tape speed is slightly sped up for a split second. I've compared it to the original CD I have and it's not present there, nor the 2007 remaster.

Edited by user 17 November 2015 09:09:34(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Sorry for a bit of a bump, here. I was just revisiting this thread to note down which reissues I want to pick up in the new year. I was particularly interested in the older albums (movement thru brotherhood) but it seems that the 2015 remasterings have been released only as digital so far. Does anyone know / has anyone heard rumours of whether there are plans to press vinyl from these remasterings? TIA

A related question, am I right in thinking that any digital copy for sale atm - in particular iTunes - would be the 2015 remasters? The Amazon ones are marked explicitly as such, but iTunes isn't (and iTunes is slightly cheaper for a higher quality file). The Brotherhood cover is not the 1986 original which suggests as such, but I'd like to be sure...

Yes I believe that iTunes are currently offering the 2015 versions even though they don't explicitly say so.

The use of the "cleaned up" sleeves originally done for the 2008 Collector's Editions is the give-away because I don't think those editions were ever offered digitally (?) for some reason Warners kept pushing the old Factory/CentreDate masterings (plus old artwork) on all digital stores right up until last year. These new 2015 ones do sound really good it's got to be said. The music has a warmth and depth to it noticeably absent on the tinny treble 80s masterings; PC&L, Low-life and Brotherhood particularly benefit although Brotherhood is still a really harsh sounding album at the best of times.

As has been noted in other threads they opted not to release the remastered Get Ready digitally so if you buy that you'll be getting the 2001 version.

This is a bit trainspotter-ish but when The Smiths back catalogue was remastered for the "Complete" box-set back in 2011 all the ordinary single-CD editions of the albums were replaced with the new masterings almost straight away. They sported updated liner notes and a "Remastered by Johnny Marr, 2011 etc" sticker on the box. The elderly WEA pressings were phased out almost immediately (as it should be). However when the JD/NO catalogue was remastered in 2007-9 Warners didn't seem to bother discontinuing the CentreDate versions. Even today someone could walk into HMV in 2016 and pay 6 quid or whatever for a 1986 mastering of Low-life whereas the album has been remastered twice since then.