Mark Knopfler – The Studio Albums 1996-2007

[rmarques821]

Nothing really new. Moving on...

[ustas]

News:

https://www.mark-knopfler-news.co.uk/solobox/

Plus – an exclusive bonus disc of studio b-sides from this period, entitled Gravy Train: The B-Sides 1996-2007

the greatest joy

Great news. As it's announced all albums were remastered for LP and CD by by Miles Showell (Abbey Road Studios), the same guy has been responsible for Local Hero LP remastering and he was trying to find and finally found the original master tape which never used for all previous releases including original CD and vinyl.

GH is pure analogue recording (multitracks and mixdown). STP was recorded in digital and analogue. But both were mastered too bad, using HDCD. STP on DVD-Audio also sounds bad. I hope that these brilliant albums will sound better.

[ustas]

So these "never released before" vinyl records will be made out of a digital master, right?

Read the Miles Showell interview. I assume he prefers to work with original masters. If there were analogue masters, he would use it.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/interview/dire-straits-and-mark-knopfler-half-speed-mastering-details-revealed/

[Love Expresso]

Thank you ustas and greetings! Nice to see you.

LE

[dustyvalentino]

Well, I'm happy to have these albums on vinyl.

But Golden Heart and ST first time ever on vinyl.

I mean I will be grateful to have them. I’m happy they finally got a release.

[ustas]

Thank you ustas and greetings! Nice to see you.

LE

[dustyvalentino]

I think this is ridiculous anyway. CDs in 2021? Come on... These vinyl records are most certainly transfers from digital, "remasters" made absolutely nothing to the recordings, it sounds 100% identical. So what's the point? The last time I played CD was somewhere in 2010 or so. The design is questionable, to say the least, bonuses are minuscule. Just give people a full discography in awesome packaging in 24 bits! Like The Beatles did a million years ago with their collection in the form of an apple. Jeez...

I buy cds and records and play them every day.

Great to have a choice.

Don’t want them? Don’t buy them.

[dustyvalentino]

News:

https://www.mark-knopfler-news.co.uk/solobox/

Plus – an exclusive bonus disc of studio b-sides from this period, entitled Gravy Train: The B-Sides 1996-2007

the greatest joy

Great news. As it's announced all albums were remastered for LP and CD by by Miles Showell (Abbey Road Studios), the same guy has been resposible for Local Hero LP remastering and he was trying to find and finally found the original master tape which never used for all previous releases including original CD and vinyl.

GH is pure analogue recording (multitracks and mixdown). STP was recorded in digital and analogue. But both were mastered too bad, using HDCD. STP on DVD-Audio also sounds bad. I hope that these brilliant albums will sound better.

Hi Ustas

Thanks for the info.

Hopefully these remasters will have better dynamic range, like the original DS albums.

[quizzaciously]

News:

https://www.mark-knopfler-news.co.uk/solobox/

Plus – an exclusive bonus disc of studio b-sides from this period, entitled Gravy Train: The B-Sides 1996-2007

the greatest joy

Great news. As it's announced all albums were remastered for LP and CD by by Miles Showell (Abbey Road Studios), the same guy has been resposible for Local Hero LP remastering and he was trying to find and finally found the original master tape which never used for all previous releases including original CD and vinyl.

GH is pure analogue recording (multitracks and mixdown). STP was recorded in digital and analogue. But both were mastered too bad, using HDCD. STP on DVD-Audio also sounds bad. I hope that these brilliant albums will sound better.

So great to see you Ustas! It's been an eternity!

I wonder if this release will hurt the price of rare limited LPs like "The Ragpicker's Dream". I think many people will buy this box just to resell individual LPs and especially rare ones, GH, STP, RPD, SL... It will happen for sure. The Ragpicker vinyl, which I happen to own, commands ridiculous prices. Not like "All The Roadrunning" LP though, this bad boy costs like a decent guitar!

[ustas]

I wonder if this release will hurt the price of rare limited LPs like "The Ragpicker's Dream". I think many people will buy this box just to resell individual LPs and especially rare ones, GH, STP, RPD, SL... It will happen for sure. The Ragpicker vinyl, which I happen to own, commands ridiculous prices. Not like "All The Roadrunning" LP though, this bad boy costs like a decent guitar!

All The Roadrunning LP was mastered by legendary Stan Ricker and this vinyl sounds more better than CD. I never had Ragpicker's Dream on vinyl, but CD sounds very good.

Also I do not like the mastering of 2 songs from Shangri-La (CD and DVD-Audio/SACD): 5:15 and Boom Like That. Dynamic range was compressed.  So there is a chance to listen it with better quality

[NicoMK]

Seems a nice idea for die hard collectors but who else is going to buy this? In my case, I have all the CDs already and I don't have a turntable. Remastered CDs? Back in the days, I bought all the Dire Straits remastered CDs and my ears found zero difference (not saying there was no but I couldn't notice honestly).

Bonus tracks? Fans have them already and they're all available on YouTube at least.

I would have considered buying the box if they'd provided something new, and the choice is vast: UNreleased tracks, alternate versions of some songs, a proper live CD or DVD from 2001 or 2002 (the famous London shows) or 2005 (a full NYC recording for instance as parts of it already exist) or 2008 or even 2013-2015, not the best years to me but I guess it's a matter of taste ; even a film or pictures of the recording sessions would be nice, a complete book of Guy's dairies : this would be quite something!

They have everything in their hands, so why not??

In the end, the box looks good and the vinyls are a good idea but I think that it's again another missed opportunity from Mark's management to offer something really NEW to the fans and, by extension, to the "general public" too and ultimately to sell well. I always wonder who makes the final decisions, if Mark or Guy are involved in any way or not.

I still cherish the day when they decided to record and release the "Real Live Roadrunning" DVD but it was 15 years ago…

[quizzaciously]

Seems a nice idea for die hard collectors but who else is going to buy this? In my case, I have already all the CDs and I don't have a turntable. Remastered CDs? Back in the days, I bought all the Dire Straits remastered CDs and my ears found zero difference.

Unreleased tracks? Fans have them already and they're all available on YouTube, at least.

I would have considered buying the box if they provided something new, and the choice is vast: UNreleased tracks, alternate versions of some songs, a proper live CD or DVD from 2001 or 2002 (the famous London shows) or 2005 (a full NYC recording for instance as parts of it already exist) or 2008 or even 2013-2015, not the best years to me but I guess it's a matter of taste ; even a film or pictures of the recording sessions would be nice, a complete book of Guy's dairies :this would be quite something!

They have everything in their hands, so why not???

In the end, the box looks good and the vinyls are a good idea but I think that it's again another missed opportunity from Mark's management to offer something really NEW to the fans and, by extension, to the "general public" too and ultimately to sell well. I always wonder who makes the final decisions, if Mark or Guy are involved in any way or not.

I still cherish the day when they decided to record and released the "Real Live Roadrunning" DVD but it's 14 years ago…

To be completely honest... It will sell anyway. The truth is, Mark has quite a lot of wealthy fans who don't care about anything and will buy anything, so why bother. I personally know a bunch of guys who will buy it just because it's out and it's from Mark Knopfler. If it will sell anyway, there's no need to jump over your head. Combine it with Mark's "doesn'tcareness" towards fans and we should say "thanks" for we fact that we have at least that.

I'm not too excited about this release as all other boxes, but to give them some credit, Golden Heart LP and Sailing To Philadelphia LP is an AWESOME idea and something that was missing for, well, 25 years already. A great addition to the collection, at last! I always felt strange that you have vinyl for all the new MK albums, but never had it for the most "classic" ones.

[quizzaciously]

I agree that making a box to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Golden Heart album is a strange idea. I would rather buy separate vinyl records, but there's no such option, but since all the vinyl albums up to 2007 a really rare or non-existent, you start to appreciate the idea. Also, if the album would be sold separately, it would have a distinctive LP decal design, but from the pictures, I can see we'll have just blue stickers on all the LPs. Not too personalized if you ask me, but that would make it such that old LPs would be as desirable because of the unique design, I think. So overall, it's a win-win, but speaking of unreleased material... Mark is just not that kind of a guy who releases unreleased material, we're kind of already used to that factor.

[Jules]

I wonder if the UK release of the box has the STP version that came out with both Do America and One More Matinee in vinyl, or is just the same stp lp to all countries...

Same with the US box, as STP in the US had Do America but not One more matinee

[JF]

I wonder if the UK release of the box has the STP version that came out with both Do America and One More Matinee in vinyl, or is just the same stp lp to all countries...

Same with the US box, as STP in the US had Do America but not One more matinee

I got the tracklisting info from universal France, and STP includes Do America both on vinyl and CD :

https://textes-blog-rock-n-roll.fr/un-coffret-des-5-premiers-albums-studio-de-mark-knopfler-le-11-octobre/