R.I.P. Ronnie James Dio

On May 16, 2010, we lost one of the founding fathers of heavy metal music. A career that has spanned more than 50 years; from the early days as the Vegas Kings in 1957 (which went through a few name changes and a few lineups), to Elf, then Rainbow, then to the peak of his career with Black Sabbath, and forming his own band Dio...back to Black Sabbath, back to Dio, and last, Heaven & Hell (which lead to, IMO, the album of 2009: The Devil You Know).

I thank my friend, and partner in this project, Josh, for getting me into Dio's music around 2007. I was familiar with Black Sabbath, but never really heard any of the Dio material. Once I heard some of it, I was instantly hooked. Ronnie James Dio had a very powerful, yet articulate voice...it was almost like poetry coming to life. And even into his last studio album, The Devil You Know, his voice remained the same...as great as it could ever be.

Dio, you will truly be missed. Your music will always live on. If you love hard rock or heavy metal music, you need to listen to Ronnie James Dio's wonderful voice.

We'll try to get some of Dio's music on this blog soon enough. However, we do have something to start it off. As you might be aware already, Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, and Live Evil were given the deluxe edition treatment in the UK, and all three were released on April 5th. That does leave one Dio-era album to go: Dehumanizer, from 1992. There is no doubt that it'll get the same treatment down the line, but for those that can't wait, The Audiography Project presents a custom remaster of that great album! The remastering is based on The Dio Years, the 2007 compilation album. While the album was remastered in the US, as part of The Rules Of Hell boxset, the quality was simply inferior to The Dio Years (at least, IMO). This release also includes one additional track: the alternate version of Letters From Earth, originally released on the TV Crimes CD single. Download it from Demonoid by clicking on the link below:

http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/2247572/8846090/


Rock on...

Def Leppard - On Through The Night (1980)

This album seems to be somewhat of a "bastard child" for Def Leppard, so I have my doubts this one will ever get the remastered + expanded treatment like Pyromania, Hysteria, and Adrenalize received.

I had done a script for the album which turned out well, but I always thought it'd be nice to add some bonuses. The most obvious candidates being The Def Leppard E.P. from 1979, the Wasted single from the same year (with the original versions of Wasted and Hello America), and Good Morning Freedom from the Hello America single, released in 1980. There's also some early demos floating around, which I would use as well.

So I did some searching around to see what I could get. Unfortunately, none of those tracks are available in lossless formats. Or maybe they are, and nobody is sharing them...who knows.

A while back, I purchased this:



One single down, and two more to go. If anyone wants to help on this one, that would be great...to be honest, the main thing I'd need help on is the demos in something that's not a lossy format. I don't mind getting the singles myself if I can find them at fair prices. I always wanted the Def Leppard E.P. anyway, so I'm proud to own it.

I'm not sure when this project will be completed, but for now, I offer you a little preview on the album itself, in remastered glory:

Def Leppard - Satellite

The MP3 doesn't do complete justice, but it'll give you an idea of the improvement compared to the original. When everything is done and ready to go, obviously, I'll be sharing the album in FLAC Level 8 (my preferred choice of format).

I guess there's also High 'N' Dry to worry about, but for now, I'd rather focus on this NWOBHM classic (that's New Wave of British Heavy Metal, for those who are confused)...

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UPDATE: The release is finally here. You can download it at this link:

http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/2184646/?rel=1269488248

First and foremost, The Audiography Project is not a one-man operation. I don't think I could handle it if I did this by myself. My partner-in-crime, Josh Richard, helps me out on a lot of these projects, in one way or another. In fact, it was his idea to do this one in the first place (and he sent me the album in lossless, no less). I'm a fan of NWOBHM, so this was a no-brainer...I couldn't refuse it, and I had a ton of fun doing this album.

I did obtain all 3 singles needed to get the bonus tracks rolling for this "deluxe edition". I will admit one thing, though. I wish the Def Leppard E.P. remasters turned out better than they did. It's not even so much that they sound bad, but the original source material sounded very low...like, really low. Here's a comparison of Ride Into The Sun, in MP3 format:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JPAOGHL1

The comparison is broken into two 30 second segments: the first is the original vinyl transfer, untouched, and the second is the remastered version, which can be found in its entirety (in FLAC) in the Demonoid post. The difference is like night and day, but yeah, notice how the original sounds so low. It made things a bit more difficult, so for that, I say it's not my best work.

I do hope you enjoy it nonetheless, and Josh and myself will continue to add more projects as time progresses..

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard Of Ozz (1980)

30 years ago, Ozzy Osbourne released his first solo album, Blizzard Of Ozz. The album proved to be a success, even though the singles released weren't exactly a commercial success. Within those 30 years, we've seen the album released, re-released, remastered, remixed...and the list goes on. Anyone that knows me knows how I feel about remixes being passed off as the real deal...I hate it. That's pretty much what happened in 2002, when the drums and bass were redone for that "remastered" release.

That's not what we have here. In 1995, the album was given the remastered treatment, and that one has the original versions, at least. The quality, IMO, is a noticeable improvement compared to the original release.

One thing I vowed in this project was to make things as complete as possible...this release is no exception. While the album tracks are exactly the same as the 1995 re-release, I threw in 6 bonus tracks. Those tracks are as follows:

Crazy Train (Single Version) - This track differs a bit from the album version, and not just because it's shorter. It sounds like it was remixed a bit, so some guitar parts sound louder, and the end, while it still fades, doesn't have that wicked, high-pitched laughter that the album version has.

You Looking At Me Looking At You (Crazy Train 7" Single) - The rare B-Side that never got an official CD release (although it was on the 2002 re-release, with redone bass and drums, so it's no longer the same song). I actually included two versions of this song. This is the first of the two. Sounds more like an earlier mix of the song, so it's lacking in some parts, but it does have the drumstick countdown in the intro.

You Looking At Me Looking At You (Prince Of Darkness EP) - This version of the song wasn't released until 1984, but it sounds like a complete mix this time. Gone is the drumstick countdown intro, but the bass and guitar sound more "settled", like everything is in place. Also added is the cowbell during the chorus. The guitar at the end fades in, while it just kicks in normally in the Crazy Train single. There are some other subtle differences too, but I think that covers the basics.

You Said It All - Another unreleased song. This one is actually a soundcheck recording, and not an actual live track, so the crowd noise you hear in this song was dubbed in later. Originally released on the Mr. Crowley Live EP, from 1980.

Mr. Crowley (Live) - If I was gonna include You Said It All, I might as well include the other two tracks from the Live EP (which marks the first official live release featuring the late, great Randy Rhoads on guitar). I normally don't include live stuff in my releases, since I like to focus on studio work, but I can make a few exceptions here and there. Recorded live from Gaumont, Southampton, UK on 10/2/80.

Suicide Solution (Live) - Same deal as the live version of Mr. Crowley.


If you have a torrent program like uTorrent or Vuze, you can download this release from Demonoid:

http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/2178065/22115225/

Hope you enjoy...


Side note: This release was done on March 19th, which marks 28 years since the unfortunate passing of one of the greatest guitarists ever, Randy Rhoads. May his legacy continue to live on for many years to come...

An introduction...

I'm sure anyone who is visiting this blog for the first time will probably sit there and wonder "what the hell is all of this? Audiography Project? Pfft..."

Allow me to explain.

The whole point of this project is to build a huge music archive, in the best possible quality. Unfortunately, there's a lot of pre-1995 albums that have been given poor treatment. When CDs officially became the norm in 1990, a lot of albums were basically rushed onto CD. While a good portion of them have eventually been remastered with improved sound quality, and even bonus tracks, there's still a lot to go. Factor in anything that never got a CD release, and the list grows even more. What is a boy to do?

I've been working with audio editing programs since I was 13. I've basically fiddled with all (or close to all) of the features that they have. My program of choice is Adobe Audition 1.5 (I've tried the later editions, and to be honest, I just don't dig them...1.5 offers everything that I'm looking for).

The first remaster I ever did was the album "Revenge" by KISS...this was in 2007. Why I didn't make a blog 3 years ago to talk about it...who knows. Since then, I've done my fair share of albums that remain as barebones, plain-as-day CD releases. You'll get to hear them soon enough. I'm working on getting an external hard drive, to store all of these FLAC files...then it's seed, seed, seed from there. It won't be limited to just custom remasters either. This is "the audiography project" afterall, so we will gather anything and everything music-related, whether the song is from 2010, or 1910!

Every chance I get, I'll either post a preview of an upcoming project, or I'll just post links to finished and shared projects. Feel free to comment, and give your input on stuff. More to come soon...