Saregama Revival series

[Naturelover]

Came across some CDs from Saregama which are part of what they have called "Revival" or "Classics Revival" series.

The blurbs on the CDs say
"Classics as they were meant to be"
and
"Original Voices, Original Music, Original Compositions.
Carefully re-recorded, in a modern studio, using the original instruments, and then overlaid with the original voice track.
So, these are not modern remixes or imitative recorded versions. Everything is original, as good as new."

Most of them say "Made in UK" and some in Singapore and India.
The ones that I have seen are from 2001.

Am sure many FMs will be familiar with this series. Would be curious to know how Bollywood music lovers have reacted to it.

Any opinions? They do sound very close to the original with slightly more emphasis on the instrumentation.
Some more information on them would also be welcome.

 

[hydra]

This sounds like a good thing! Where did you find these? Retail shop?

 

[sam9s]

I have like 5-7 albums of the revival series and I agree to what OP has said, the digitalization is done very carefully with keeping almost 99% of the composition original, just a subtle instrumentation added that too mostly as the song begins ....... and its all in stereo so yes its worth a collection .....

One of my fav rendition you can listen here ...

http://tinyurl.com/njutey2

You can accept the certificates if you get a certificate error its perfectly safe ...

 

[pradeepkamat]

Very good recording with enhanced bass ( I think it is added as background with new instruments.) In all there are about 40 cds of oldies.

 

[Naturelover]

This sounds like a good thing! Where did you find these? Retail shop?

Yes, retail shop. I see a few are available on line as well. Warning: There are mp3 versions also available.
Saregama has some on their site

 

[thampi]

i tried a few,but they dont sound like its original.especially the vocal.

 

[Sunil.M.J]

Hi all,
This is regarding the Revival Series,a true music lover will not go for such Gimmicks,they have spoilt the original tracks by adding some instruments over the Original Track,i have returned most of them and i will never touch them again,the wrong people are sitting in saregama and each time they dissappoint Music Lovers.

 

[venkatcr]

I have nearly all the Classic Revival albums.

Though I agree with what Sunil has said in terms of corrupting the music, I did an interesting spectrum analysis sometime ago of the music from these CDs. All these songs were ripped into Wav files using EAC with 90% accuracy or more.

(1) Album : Classic Revival 25. Song: Jalte Hain Jiske Liye

(2) Album: Classic Revival 26. Song: Huyi Shaam Unka Kayal Aa Gaya

(3) Album: Classic Revival 34. Song: Ye Dil Diwana Hai.

(4) Album: Classic Revival 43. Song: Kuch Tho Log Kahenge

(5) Now compare all that with an untouched song

Album: Vasanth Desai - Evergreen Memories. Song: Nain So Nain.

Do you see what I am getting at? I strongly believe Saregama has completely destroyed the nation's legacy of pre-70's music. I think they don't even have good masters and are holding on to a copy that is very near to a MP3. I even ordered for specific songs from their online stores and the results are also disappointing. I am not sure they are even interested in correcting their blunder. Do they even know what they are doing?

I recently heard some of these on a good system and, believe me, they sound completely flat. But then I love these songs so much, even an MP3 is good for me. I will always listen to these songs on a low quality system.

Cheers

 

[venkatcr]

I have like 5-7 albums of the revival series and I agree to what OP has said, the digitalization is done very carefully with keeping almost 99% of the composition original, just a subtle instrumentation added that too mostly as the song begins ....... and its all in stereo so yes its worth a collection .....

I am just listening to 2 songs from the album - Classic Revival 25 - Mera Saaaya Sath Hoga. The songs are : Na Thum Hame Jano and Yehi Woh Jaga. The silly guys at Saregama have added some sort of electronic hum throughout the song! My God, those guys must be completely dumb!!

Cheers (no Cheers for Saregama)

 

[shkumar4963]

Venkatcr: The analyses that you did are most appropriate when evaluating the impact of MP3 compression on an audio file. It is because in MP3 compression most high frequencies are compressed. Most old indian recordings don't have the same problem. The old recordings don't have much bass or lower frequencies. I am not sure if this analysis will show absence and then later refill or bass frequencies. May be a delta graph that shows addition and deletion of content at different frequencies between old OST and new revival series might help. I don't have an answer but would love to hear your coments.

 

[deba]

Saregama (formerly HMV) will cease to exist due to corrupt business practice of its owner.....

 

[haisaikat]

I have nearly all the Classic Revival albums.

Though I agree with what Sunil has said in terms of corrupting the music, I did an interesting spectrum analysis sometime ago of the music from these CDs. All these songs were ripped into Wav files using EAC with 90% accuracy or more.

(1) Album : Classic Revival 25. Song: Jalte Hain Jiske Liye

(2) Album: Classic Revival 26. Song: Huyi Shaam Unka Kayal Aa Gaya

(3) Album: Classic Revival 34. Song: Ye Dil Diwana Hai.

(4) Album: Classic Revival 43. Song: Kuch Tho Log Kahenge

(5) Now compare all that with an untouched song

Album: Vasanth Desai - Evergreen Memories. Song: Nain So Nain.

Do you see what I am getting at? I strongly believe Saregama has completely destroyed the nation's legacy of pre-70's music. I think they don't even have good masters and are holding on to a copy that is very near to a MP3. I even ordered for specific songs from their online stores and the results are also disappointing. I am not sure they are even interested in correcting their blunder. Do they even know what they are doing?

I recently heard some of these on a good system and, believe me, they sound completely flat. But then I love these songs so much, even an MP3 is good for me. I will always listen to these songs on a low quality system.

Cheers

Thanks you venkat, you saved me from buying these

 

[venkatcr]

Venkatcr: The analyses that you did are most appropriate when evaluating the impact of MP3 compression on an audio file.... It is because in MP3 compression most high frequencies are compressed. Most old indian recordings don't have the same problem. The old recordings don't have much bass or lower frequencies. I am not sure if this analysis will show absence and then later refill or bass frequencies. May be a delta graph that shows addition and deletion of content at different frequencies between old OST and new revival series might help. I don't have an answer but would love to hear your coments.

Kumar, my suspicion is that Saregama has lost the original recordings and are pawning off their low quality copies. I have done this analysis on recent recording and the graphs are fine. Another possibility is that some idiot, when transferring to digital copies, has converted everything to low quality format without understanding what he is doing. I have seen some songs of YRF film songs being chopped off flat at 10KHz. There is something amiss at Saregama.

An MP3 will have a knife cut at 15KHz. Most of these songs have been chopped off somewhere between 5 and 7.5KHz. That is worse that even MP3.

I have been trying this on a number of pre-70s recordings, and the results are all disappointing.

Cheers

 

[Naturelover]

Oh My God!!
This is indeed alarming. All the more reason to get vinyl of old Bollywood.

I have a good bit of old songs on CD.

 

[prepress]

I have its all 15 volumes on MP3, after Vol.15 they repeated same songs and created them according to categories (Dev Anand, Mohd. Rafi etc like ACD). But first 15 volumes has different songs. I also have few ACDs of Classics Revival as well.
I would say it is not for serious listeners, seems it was made for those people who complain that these songs should have bass and treble.
However I love originals and don't like it much too but some of few songs are well re-created and sounds great. But most of the songs has loud music than vocal. Vocal based songs sound great too (as they have used limited instruments).

 

[Saket]

I have a few audio cassettes of classic revival series on HMV which I bought about 15-16 years ago,IIRC. The music was not overdone and synced well with the original track. In fact the addition was too subtle; so much that a casual listener would not even notice.

However, later series had not such perfection and IMO, the addition to music was overdone. The previous series was mastered much better.

 

[sarith]

I remember hearing a Malayalam collection of 70's Yesudas songs and I didn't quite like it. How about Hindi?(Digitally cleaned and re-mastered)

 

[HDDCS]

I have the Lata Mangeshkar edition of Solid Gold, and I hate it! I'm really sorry, I'm not very technical so I have no idea about the deeper stuff. Also, I just use Windows Media Player to test the tracks. I don't have high end systems either. From my observations, they've used vinyls and cassettes to source the tracks. And then they "digitally clean" the tracks by applying a lot of noise reduction- and what do you get????? REMASTERED AUDIO
To make all that worse, some tracks like "Rulake Gaya Sapna Mera", "Yeh Sama Hai Yeh Pyar Ka", etc. have a 4% speed shift which I find really annoying.

I would really suggest you to buy the Revivals instead of the regular albums by Saregama. They sound clearer, if nothing very fancy.

(please, if anyone finds my post offensive, inform me the same. Brawling on these forums wouldn't be something very desirable.

 

[HDDCS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zv2S3F2OXQ

Here's how much better the Revival version can sound after proper equalization and proper speed rate.

 

[Naturelover]

To make all that worse, some tracks like "Rulake Gaya Sapna Mera", "Yeh Sama Hai Yeh Pyar Ka", etc. have a 4% speed shift which I find really annoying.

You're so right. There has been some discussion on the forum on how these guys at HMV/Saregama have had little or no knowledge how to transfer the music onto CDs and have ended up with mp3 versions on CDs.