Angelic Force reissue

I preordered this CD when Roxx first announced it.  While the songs seem to be well written and played, the original sound source has degraded to a point where the remaster is not pleasant to listen to.  You can tell this came from a cassette, and there is a lot of hiss and noise.  I probably won't play it again as it is quite painful to hear.

Ah bummer.  Haven't checked my mailbox in  few days so I will let you know what I thought when I get a chance to listen (probably this weekend).

I may try to run this through Audio Cleaning Lab to see if I can make it cleaner.  I don't mind listening to demos, but they need to be decent quality.

That's why I didn't order. I had the same reaction to the Crossforce CD. It sounded like I was listening to an old tape. While it IS cool to have I only played it a couple of times.

I am glad that I wasn't the only one who thought that Crossforce didn't sound that great.  I played it a couple of times and haven't listened since.

It's funny.  I could buy a couple of cheap bootleg discs from Retrospect Records knowing that they would not sound great.  I play some of those quite frequently.  But, I've come to expect a bit more from both Retroactive and Roxx Records.  Hearing this was disappointing.

Running the album through Audio Cleaning Lab definitely helped.  The high end noise is distortion from the tape itself that affects the cymbals and guitars.  There is just too much background noise in the higher registers.  I was able to run a "de-esser", remove any DC offset (hum caused by cables or not grounded equipment), and a pop reducer.  While mine doesn't sound like a big budget recording by any means considering the source material, it worked.  This sounds more like some of the demo tapes I used to transfer to CD-R now.

I will also think twice from ordering product like this in the future.  I shouldn't have to doctor it myself to make it listenable.

If anyone else buys this and doesn't like what you hear, I will send my MP3 versions to you if you so choose.

Yeah and because of Crossforce I haven't ordered anything else that was a remaster of a cassette demo. I really like the new art for Angelic Force tho. Has an old school Pure Metal Records look to it.

I finally listened to my copy last night and for me it sounded pretty decent (especially if it was from a cassette demo).  Its true you can tell it wasn't recorded with any kind of high quality studio treatment.  But given that I don't have the trained ear of someone who engineers, produces or masters music I'm probably missing some of the sounds that irritate someone with a more refined ear.