He co-wrote with David Bowie
on Low, Heroes and Lodger, was a founder
member of Roxy Music, as well as the producer of U2's The Joshua
Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, All That You Can't Leave Behind,
Talking Head's Fear of Music and Remain in Light,
Devo's Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and many more.
But that's just part of the story.
Now Brian Eno's groundbreaking
albums have been digitally remastered and reissued in special edition
digipak packages as part of a series called "Original
Masters." Very often when albums are remastered, the
tapes are re-equalized, remixed, in other words altered from the
way they were originally delivered by the artist. Not so with the
albums in the "Original Masters" series.
Using an ATR analog mastering deck with Aria Reference Series class
A discrete electronics, Simon Heyworth was able to coax a higher
level of fidelity out of these recordings than ever before heard,
while keeping the orignal mastering intact.
"What I quickly learnt was that many of the EQ'd Production
Masters at the time were absolutely 'spot on',' says Heyworth, "and
why shouldn't they be when you think about it, this was the end
of a long artistic endeavor and are we saying that they didn't get
it right at that point? This is nonsense of course because if it
was a landmark recording and sold lots of albums it must have been
right! The Artist and Producer all decided at the time that this
was 'it'. Should we be tampering with that piece of art-after all
we don't go around saying let's Re-master a great painting."
The result is a clarity and depth of sound to these
albums not heard since their initial playback in the recording studio.
And more important, no attempts have been made to re-equalize, remix
or in any way tamper with the original EQ'ed analogue production
masters. These "Original Masters" sound just as Brian
Eno originally intended them to be heard.
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