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So what’s so wrong with the Perfect Collection boxes? I’ve got them and I love them. It’s a shame I can’t read the Japanese text but musically they are wonderful for this Big G fan.
Very good question. Ive been enjoying the heck out of those boxes ever since I acquired them a few years ago. They are beautifully designed, comprise many great bonuses and sound reasonably good and in some cases great.
A budget re-release would be a fantastic way to make all this wonderful music available again.
The only (minor) downside are the Japanese language booklets. On the other hand, learning Japanese does seems an awfully enticing idea. 
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We sourced the music directly from their archives / original masters.
And there you have it.
And there you have nothing. Unless they come out and actually say they did these from the original tapes, not what was prepared for the box sets, I remain skeptical, oh, yes, I remain skeptical.
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I'm still not convinced that most buyers actually listen to their Mondo LPs - I'm sure some do. I imagine most are just collected in hope they rise in value and can be resold. Mondo knows their market.
Yeah but isn't this Waxworks?
MV
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Posted: |
Jan 14, 2021 - 12:27 PM
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By: |
Ostinato
(Member)
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Toho Music Corporation's releases have relatively good restoration work, but is ruined by the addition of copious amounts of unnatural sounding artificial reverb and other unnecessary modifications made to the original recordings. It makes details less apparent and reduces overall clarity among other issues.
I've had many opportunities over the years to sample their releases, and I've always had a tough time trying to listen to them. I haven't had the chance to listen all of their releases, but the worst I heard were The Birth of Japan and Osaka Castle Story, in addition to many of the scores included in the Perfect Collection boxes, though the Heisei and Millennium scores included with those boxes are pretty damned good.
However, I will certainly give credit where credit is due. Their releases went above and beyond with extra content. As someone who likes every note recorded released, I greatly appreciate this. In addition, the packaging design and booklet contents are absolutely stellar. As with Cinema-kan, who the torch for releasing these kinds of scores and so much more was passed to, the booklet contents are some of the most detailed and thorough I've seen when it comes to film music releases. Hell, this even applies to some of the old Futureland releases I have, which I absolutely treasure.
It's apparent that those involved with the questionable restoration work of Toho Music Corporation's releases have since learned the error of their ways, as they went on to work on Cinema-kan's releases, including veteran mastering engineer Yoshikazu Iwasaki. They now beautifully transfer and restore the scores without the modifications (for the most part) I've mentioned.
Please don't get my comments wrong though. I greatly appreciate the efforts Toho Music Corporation made with their releases, including the Perfect Collection boxes. As an individual who prefers having the music mastered and released true to the way the scores were recorded (with proper restoration work for damaged and deteriorated tapes), I only wished the audio quality was better.
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I'd like to point out that, as far as this box set is concerned, I do not think that anyone would expect Toho to haul out analog 2-track masters that are at least 35 years old--the oldest being 65 years old).
Would anyone really be foolish enough to be running those original tapes over ANY playback transfer system?
So even though there certainly is room for Bruce's skepticism, we have no reason to doubt that Toho used the best tapes that are the currently available for such a purpose.
Was Bruce skeptical of Toho or Waxworks?
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Posted: |
Jan 15, 2021 - 4:06 PM
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By: |
Ostinato
(Member)
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Which tracks from which albums in the Perfect Collection, exactly?
Entire scores, rather than specific tracks. In this case, the Showa scores. The modifications aren't apparent to those who only had the Perfect Collection boxes, but it certainly becomes noticeable when comparing them to the Futureland releases.
I'd like to point out that, as far as this box set is concerned, I do not think that anyone would expect Toho to haul out analog 2-track masters that are at least 35 years old--the oldest being 65 years old).
Would anyone really be foolish enough to be running those original tapes over ANY playback transfer system.
I know that Toho grants Japanese labels, namely Cinema-kan and Three Shells, access to the original tapes. Both recently accessed and made transfers of the tapes for Ikuma Dan's "Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto". The tapes are slightly older than the tapes for "Godzilla" '54.
I do have to say that many of the tapes for the Godzilla scores have been transferred countless times over the years in some form or fashion, with the tapes for "Godzilla" being accessed and transferred as recent as 2014. It's possible Toho has since made high resolution back ups of all of the tapes to prevent further deterioration, and it could very well be possible that's what Waxwork is using for their box set if such backups had been made at some point.
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