Ready! Set!! Go!!! Adventure Tour 2017 compilation album

[tangerinesun]

The compilation album created as merch to accompany
the 2017 AU/NZ tour… it's what again?

I can't say from personal knowledge, there's this about
the LP edition at Amazon in the US:



Count DeRola
★★★★☆ 4.0 out of 5 stars
amazon.com/gp/review/R1CUG9XIKE3MZE

I read about this record online and thought it was going to be live tracks
from their current Adventure tour…

--------------

Hasty, because how would they be able to sell a live LP on the very tour it's
a live LP from? Sort of understandable, though. Unreleased tracks should
have made a much bigger noise. But Valve can hardly be bothered to list
the album's contents, never mind explain them.

Count DeRola goes on:

--------------

• Jump Into The New World, Bad Luck Song, Green Tea, Wasabi
  Previously released on vinyl (on Adventure and Overdrive).

• Pop Tune, Giant Kitty, Super Group, BBQ Party, Ramones Forever
  Previously released on CD, but not vinyl.

• Banana Chips, Twist Barbie and Riding On The Rocket
  Live tracks previously released on the CD Live In Osaka (2006)…
  They have been remastered [ necessarily, for vinyl ] but they just
  don't hold up to the strength of the rest of the record.

• Perfect Freedom is the highlight, sung mostly in Japanese and is
  different from the track on the US release of Free Time.



The Count is a confessed vinyl junkie, which is an expensive fate to suffer.

If you're not one of those, then according to this account there's nothing
on the record that has to be new and different. While the engineers were
fiddling with Live in Osaka, they might have remastered those tracks for
CD as well. But you could have them individually as download files if you
don't need artifacts for your museum.




SHONEN KNIFE
Ready! Set!! Go!!! Adventure Tour 2017
Released 2017 Sep 15
℗ 2017 Valve/Shonen Knife
14 Songs – 48 Minutes


Physical releases

At the Valve Records online store: 
www.valverecords.com.au/shop/index.php 
$30 AUD – 12" vinyl LP (S&H additional) 
$10 AUD – 12cm audio CD (S&H additional) 
Extra treats 
$30 AUD – Tour t-shirt printed in 4 colors on white (limited remainder stock) 
$5 AUD – Tour poster printed on recycled paper 


At Amazon.com: 
smile.amazon.com/Ready-Set-Go-Adventure-Australia/dp/B0754H24P5/ 
$14–18 USD and up — used copies of the LP and CD from partner stores 


I wouldn't bother with the other online sellers, maybe eBay if all else fails.



Digital streams


From Spotify:




From Apple Music: 
itunes.apple.com/nz/album/ready-set-go-adventure-tour-2017/1278129473 


Deezer, too if you happen to belong.



Digital downloads

At bandcamp in the Consume/Valve store: ($10 AUD – FLAC / MP3)
consumevalve.bandcamp.com/album/shonen-knife-ready-set-go 


At iTunes: ($18.99 USD – 128K AAC)  <== hello, suckers!
itunes.apple.com/nz/album/ready-set-go-adventure-tour-2017/1278129473 



Tracklist:

 1.  Jump into the New World  (03:21)
 2.  Pop Tune  (03:18 
 3.  Banana Chips  (02:32) 
 4.  Giant Kitty  (04:35) 
 5.  Ramen Rock  (04:25) 
 6.  BBQ Party  (02:32) 
 7.  Green Tea  (02:59) 
 8.  Bad Luck Song  (04:11) 
 9.  Twist Barbie  (02:27) 
10.  Wasabi  (02:54) 
11.  Super Group  (03:53) 
12.  Perfect Freedom (Japanese Version)  (03:30) 
13.  Ramones Forever (English Version)  (03:51) 
14.  Riding on the Rocket  (03:37) 

[tangerinesun]

Yes, they did re-master some songs for the CD version


I hate not knowing, so I did a quick comparison between downloaded FLACs
from Valve, and AIFF files copied off P-Vine's CD, to see what they might have
done to the songs they took from Live in Osaka.


And it was not nothing, it was something after all.


These recordings were originally captured and mixed by Noriya Maekawa
of TAG RAG RECORDS, assisted by Jun Morino, from the performance at
Fandango in Osaka on December 17, 2005 (Osaka Space Christmas).

Atsushi and Naoko produced for Tomato Head.


We don't know how many separate channels were recorded, and we don't
know what had to be solved on the spot, or what simply had to be lived with.

Anyway, they sacrificed a lot of bass and low-midrange. Everything below
800Hz tapers off, with a steep drop from 80–50Hz and a peculiar scoop
near the bottom of where Atsuko's bass is sitting.

But they kept the dynamics, and they went as loud as technically feasible.
The frequencies that get loudest are only a hundredth of a decibel away
from banging into the ceiling.

So, for Live in Osaka they wanted clarity and a maximum of live band feel,
even if the overall balance suffered. They had to roll off the bass, and they're
not trying to cover up for that. It's an austere and honest presentation.

〜〜〜〜〜

When they re-mastered for Ready! Set!! Go!!, they tried to undo some of
those decisions by adding compression and juicing up the low end to the
extent possible.

They took back 0.1dB of headroom, while compressing everything upward
by a couple of dB and bumping up the bass. Average loudness went up
even though the peaks were shaved.


Statistically, the difference to "Riding on the Rocket" looks like this:


Engineering is numbers



Here are before-and-after power spectra for "Riding on the Rocket".
You can see everything jump up toward the top, closing the gap between
average loudness and peak loudness, and also the scooped region in the
bass puffs up a little.



Top layer: realtime spectrum / Bottom layer: historical maxima / Orange trace: right channel realtime



Another way to look at it, which exaggerates the difference between old and new. 
Click a thumbnail for the el grande view: 


      
Waveforms shown above melodic range spectrograms from Sonic Visualiser


What it sounds like is if you had been listening through a pane of window glass,
and then somebody took that away. Not quite so thin. Noticeably more like
what you'd expect in a studio recording.

Is the revision better?

I think most people would prefer the revised tracks if they could do an A/B comparison.

It's a noticeably murky mix toward the bottom, but we've learned to expect a certain amount
of compression and oomph in the low mids.

A dull thump from the kick drum is more prominent now, although the bass still sounds like
Atsuko is somewhere in the rear with her volume at 5.

[tangerinesun]

Listening is believing


The original P-Vine CD release versus the remaster for Valve Records, 
done A/B/A/B/A as a downloadable 16-bit WAVE file: 

mega.nz/#!xTg3EQAB!pYgZpPPwu6NnZZd-MPtLLZPGLoy7OMnDCPGc2bx3mSE

[Broccoli Man]

The Count DeRola definitely helped me to decide whether or not to purchase "RSG", and I'm thinking not. I don't know where he got the $40 price tag from; I see it listed as much lower on the same page he did his review. I was on Amazon looking for other SK stuff and came across the "RSG" album and his review. While you posted the link above, here it is for those of us too lazy to click:

4.0 out of 5 starsPreviously released material but this high priced knife still cuts
ByCount DeRolaon October 25, 2017
Format: Vinyl|Verified Purchase
I read about this record online and thought it was going to be live tracks from their current Adventure tour. Perhaps it's because the album is called Ready! Set!! Go!!! Adventure Tour 2017. I'd seen them twice on this tour and the Naoko, Atsuko and Risa combo is phenomenal. Well, this arrived the other day and it turns out that it's a compilation of previously released material. Jump Into The New World, Bad Luck Song, Green Tea, and Wasabi were all previously release on vinyl (on Adventure and Overdrive). Pop Tune, Giant Kitty, Super Group, BBQ Party, and Ramones Forever were previously released on CD but not vinyl. The three live tracks (Banana Chips, Twist Barbie and Riding On The Rocket) were previously released on the cd Live In Osaka (2006). They have been remastered in an attempt to match the quality of the more recent material and they're good but they just don't hold up to the strength of the rest of the record. Perfect Freedom is the highlight, sung mostly in Japanese and is different from the track on the US release of Free Time. Is it worth the $40 price tag? It depends on how badly you want to hear some of these songs on vinyl. I'm one of those vinyl junkies who thrills at hearing the warm bass on Pop Tune for the first time. But if you're looking for live tracks, this is not the record to buy. I hope they release a real live record with their current line-up. Shonen Knife puts on one of the most exciting shows I've ever seen. It's strange that they haven't put out a live record that really captures the power of the Knife.

[tangerinesun]

Jan 20, 2018 9:54:56 GMT -5 Broccoli Man said:

The Count DeRola definitely helped me to decide whether or not to purchase "RSG", and I'm thinking not. I don't know where he got the $40 price tag from; I see it listed as much lower on the same page he did his review. I was on Amazon looking for other SK stuff and came across the "RSG" album and his review. While you posted the link above, here it is for those of us too lazy to click:

4.0 out of 5 starsPreviously released material but this high priced knife still cuts
ByCount DeRolaon October 25, 2017
Format: Vinyl|Verified Purchase
I read about this record online and thought it was going to be live tracks from their current Adventure tour. Perhaps it's because the album is called Ready! Set!! Go!!! Adventure Tour 2017. I'd seen them twice on this tour and the Naoko, Atsuko and Risa combo is phenomenal. Well, this arrived the other day and it turns out that it's a compilation of previously released material. Jump Into The New World, Bad Luck Song, Green Tea, and Wasabi were all previously release on vinyl (on Adventure and Overdrive). Pop Tune, Giant Kitty, Super Group, BBQ Party, and Ramones Forever were previously released on CD but not vinyl. The three live tracks (Banana Chips, Twist Barbie and Riding On The Rocket) were previously released on the cd Live In Osaka (2006). They have been remastered in an attempt to match the quality of the more recent material and they're good but they just don't hold up to the strength of the rest of the record. Perfect Freedom is the highlight, sung mostly in Japanese and is different from the track on the US release of Free Time. Is it worth the $40 price tag? It depends on how badly you want to hear some of these songs on vinyl. I'm one of those vinyl junkies who thrills at hearing the warm bass on Pop Tune for the first time. But if you're looking for live tracks, this is not the record to buy. I hope they release a real live record with their current line-up. Shonen Knife puts on one of the most exciting shows I've ever seen. It's strange that they haven't put out a live record that really captures the power of the Knife.

Count DeRola's report is also broken down for easier digestion a couple of posts higher up: 
shonenknife.proboards.com/post/20397 

The remastering of the live tracks is something that wouldn't be very hard to
do for yourself, but for $10 AUD the CD-quality digital download from Valve at 
Bandcamp is cheap enough that I don't mind paying to have this compilation. 

The Count spent $40 on the LP because he has a vinyl fetish, and he paid
a markup at Amazon for what he could have bought direct from Valve.

Prices at Amazon have fallen since excitement about the tour faded 
and used copies came on the market.