A Sonic Introduction To The ABBA Remasters
Rudolf Ondrich
A Sonic Introduction To The ABBA Remasters
To put it bluntly, the continuing effort into the sonic “upgrading” of the ABBA back catalogue to CD has been rather disappointing. Remasters seem to be getting louder and louder, inferior quality master tapes have been used for some versions, and some seem to have both strange equalisation choices as well as heavy noise reduction. With all of this, ABBA audiophiles are left with not many avenues to get decent sounding ABBA CDs.
The first ABBA CD release was “The Visitors” back in 1982. At that time, Polar did not have the necessary equipment to master CDs, so the task fell to Polydor, ABBAs representative in Germany. After hearing The Visitors on CD in late 1982, both Benny and Bjorn were apparently so impressed with the results that they let Polydor release the entire back catalogue on CD themselves, with little intervention from Polar. Over the next 10 years (finishing in 1992 for Waterloo and Ring Ring) Polydor released the entire ABBA back catalogue themselves. Sonically, these CDs seem to be a flat transfer of the LP cutting tapes (presumably the ones sent to Germany) without any noise reduction, additional compression or equalisation changes. Because of the lack of compression and noise reduction, most of these CD titles are generally seen by audiophiles to be the best ABBA CDs sonically.
In 1992 to 1993, Michael B. Tretow (ABBA’s studio sound engineer) remastered a select number of ABBA tracks (not the complete back catalogue) for what would become the ABBA Gold (1992) and More ABBA Gold (1993) compilations. In 1994, he revisited these remasters, making them slightly louder while remastering more tracks for what would become the Thank You For The Music (1994) box set. Sonically, these remasters are the best (not counting the unremastered Polydors). Tretow kept most (if not all) of the original dynamic range intact, and appeared to use the original stereo mixdown tapes for the source (Which are the best source for the ABBA tracks as they are lower generation from the LP Cutting Tapes). He also did not use any noise reduction processing at all. The only issues with the Tretow remasters is that they tend to be rather bright (ie have a unnatural level of treble), and as a result some tracks sound rather harsh. However, his remasters are considered to be the best from the remaster series due to the lack or near lack of compression, and a lot of rarer ABBA B-sides and other rarities make their first (and subsequently sonically best) CD appearance through his remasters.
In 1997, a much anticipated remaster of all of the ABBA albums was finally undertaken by Jon Astley and Tim Young with Michael B. Tretow. These remasters seemed to have used many different source tapes, from stereo mixdown tapes to single master tapes to LP album cutting tapes. Unfortunately, these are the worst ABBA remasters sonically (and also in the artwork department too). Despite using mixdown tapes for a lot of the tracks, huge amounts of noise reduction was added (most likely CEDAR, as Astley was remastering virtually everything with CEDAR at that time), huge amounts of compression (the 1997 and 2001 remasters have the smallest dynamic range of any ABBA remaster), and the 1997 remaster contains strange equalisation choices. One notable feature of the Astley remasters is that he tried to repair what seems to be a tape dropout or a bad edit on Dancing Queen at around the 2.07 mark. He made this remark about his repair in an interview with “Sound on Sound” magazine in 2002 -
“However, I also did a lot of Abba stuff, and there are dropouts on a lot of that which are quite severe in some places. There was an Abba fan who wrote to me saying 'Why does the backing vocal on the second line of the second chorus of 'Dancing Queen' now not go on as long as it used to on the vinyl version?' I couldn't think what he was on about, but when I looked at the file, I saw that there was a dropout there and I had taken the first chorus, which was just the tiniest bit shorter and pasted that in to sort out the dropout.”
Many audiophiles feel that Astley’s repair is inferior to the original version of the fault, stating that the repair sounds like that the girls can not sing in tune.
In 2001, Astley revisited his 1997 remasters. While reversing the strange equalisation choices made on the 1997 editions, he added even more noise reduction processing. Due to the heavy noise reduction used, (especially on the 2001 remasters) many songs sound completely different (most notably dense songs such as Bang-A-Boomerang, Eagle and Summer Night City) from any other remaster. Both Astley remasters are considered by many to be the worst CD versions of the ABBA albums. Many say that the amount of compression and noise reduction used deadened the sound, and took away the original ambience and feeling of the recording. Some go so far as to say that he remixed the ABBA catalogue, as his remasters sound so different from anything previously.
At around 2005, Henrik Jonsson remastered tracks that were digitised by Johan Funemyr from the LP cutting tapes for what would become the Complete Studio Recordings (CSR) box set (2005). Sonically, most albums (ie from Arrival to The Visitors) seem to be louder and harsher versions than were presented on the Polydors. Generally speaking, Jonsson used very little noise reduction (if at all), left the equalisation alone, though unfortunately most likely using brick wall compression to make the tracks sound louder. Jonsson’s compression makes the music sound “boxed in,” thereby not allowing the track to “breathe.” Rather strangely, the CSR remasters of Ring Ring, Waterloo and ABBA (self titled album) are sonic improvements over the Polydor CDs. While compressed, the CSR remasters of these albums sound clearer and have a much smoother equalisation, as opposed to the Polydors which can be rather harshly equalised at times and a bit noisy. The CSR remasters are the loudest ABBA remasters, but somehow have a greater dynamic range than the Astley remasters. A few rare ABBA tracks not mastered by Tretow have their best sonic outing on this box set.
Various CD compilations, mainly between 1983 to 1992, were also issued which differ sonically from the album versions above. The first of these was The Singles – The First 10 Years (released in 1982 on Double LP, and 1983 on Double CD). It appears that The Singles used the original mixdown tapes, and not the LP cutting tapes. Strangely though, it seems like the bass was cut, and so the CD does not sound that “full” as compared to the Polydors. Another CD released in 1983 was the compilation Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (originally released on LP in 1979). This CD seems to have used exceptionally warm sounding master tapes, and sound superior to the same tracks on the Polydor masters of the albums. Another excellent Polydor compilation is ABBA International (1984), which contains excellent flat transfers of many ABBA rarities, and so many rarer ABBA songs make their best sonic appearance here. For the real audiophile hunters, the rather rare Pickwick compilation The Love Songs (1989) contains the only unremastered versions of Should I Laugh Or Cry and the original 1978 mix of Lovelight (not the edited remixed version used by Tretow in 1993 and 1994), though as an interesting side note, contains a horribly distorted version of Under Attack.
All compilations from 1992 onwards are sonic clones (or at least very close to sonic clones) of either Tretow’s, Astley’s or Jonsson’s masters. The 1999 reissues of ABBA Gold and More ABBA Gold contain rejigged Astley remasters that were later used on the 2001 remasters. Incidentally, the 1999 version of More ABBA Gold contains the only Astley remaster of the song I Am The City, which debuted on the original 1993 More ABBA Gold and to date has never been added as a bonus track on any remasters of The Visitors. The 1999 More ABBA Gold CD also contains a re-edited version of the single edit of Eagle, which has a very obvious edit point and sounds quite disjointed. The 2 CD set The Definitive Collection (2001) used Astley remasters, and also contain the first CD outings of the Promo extended remix of Voulez-Vous and the UK single remix of Ring Ring (However the CSR box set contains sonically improved versions of these tracks as they do not have as much noise reduction) In 2006 and 2007 the deluxe editions of Arrival and The Album were released respectively. These Deluxe editions are sonically clones of the original 2005 CSR remasters.
NB. In 1988, Polar (ABBA’s original record label) released domestic versions of Ring Ring, Waterloo and ABBA (self titled) remastered from their own mastertapes. Many audiophiles think that these remasters are sonically superior to the Polydor and CSR remasters (except Ring Ring where the CSR remaster is superior). Unfortunately I have never heard these CD releases and so I cannot comment on them. Also, the Atlantic (record label) compilation Greatest Hits (1984, original LP release 1975/76) is also held in very high regard in the audiophile community, but again I have never heard it so I cannot comment on the sonic aspects of this CD. Finally, the Spanish compilation album Gracias Por La Música (1980) was released on CD in Japan only in 1988. My research indicates that this CD is a flat transfer of the master tapes. In 1993, the Spanish compilation album ABBA Oro (replacing Gracias Por La Música) was released, featuring remasters by Tretow. Again I have not heard this CD, but my research indicates that it is like the other Tretow remasters – whilst no additional compression was applied, the equalisation is rather bright. In 1994 the compilation Mas ABBA Oro was released, featuring the Spanish versions of Happy New Year, Andante Andante, When All Is Said And Done, Slipping Through My Fingers and Ring Ring (which all remained unreleased on the CD format except Ring Ring, which was completely unreleased before). I do own this CD, and again while the equalisation is rather bright, all five Spanish tracks on that album make their first and subsequently best CD appearance sonically. The CSR remasters of the Spanish tracks, while ok, are noticeably compressed, while the Astley versions have intrusive noise reduction. Incidentally, the ABBA International (1984) compilation contains a rather pleasant, full dynamic range version of the Spanish version of Chiquitita.
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