best sounding Yes albums

[Sonoacustico]

Hi people

I wanted to know what yesfans think about the best sounding yes album, I'm not asking about the "best album" or "best music" I'm asking you for the best sound quality in a Yes album. Can you name 3 of the best sounding Yes albums?

Greetings!


Claudio

[Jackaranda]

1) Talk
2) Going For the One
3) 90125

[Purple Wolfhound]

...but not impossible:

1. The Yes Album ~ still sounds like it was made yesterday.

2. Close To The Edge ~ a sonic masterpiece.

3. Drama ~ despite reservations about Trevor Horn's singing ability, this is still a well-produced "in your face" album.

Peace,

Phil

[Martin Riley]

Well, the first 4 albums in their new re-mastered form all sound wonderful

[Sonoacustico]

Interesting....

My votes go for
-90125
-Relayer
-Talk

[About The Round]

Fragile
Drama
Close To The Edge

[Tonydess]

ABWH
Drama
Fragile

[gathernear]

The Ladder

[bender]

Drama
Relayer
Close To The Edge
Talk gets an honourable mention.

[gt76yesman]

Magnification! The recording quality is superb!!!

[gathernear]

Magnification! The recording quality is superb!!!

Especially in 5.1 sound.


Larry

[Steve St Thomas]

My votes go for these three:

Time and a Word
Talk
Drama

Why those 3?

Time and a Word, regardless of the symphonic approach (which I thought was pretty interesting) has an awesome sound on vinyl, particularly from the Kaye / Bruford / Squire side of things. There are points on that album which outshine many an album from late '69/early '70.

Talk because it is simply one of the best sounding albums they ever did. If their recent albums sounded like this one, they might have half a chance.

Drama, because everything's clear. It's actually quite sparse, not very many overdubs or treatments. It could actually be played by 5 people on stage without much of a difference. It could have possibly used a bit more treatment!!! Fantastic sounding album. Plus it's Hugh Padgham. He kicks ass.

Why not the others?

Relayer -- Howe's guitar tends to overload the upper frequencies. This has been subdued on the remaster, but at the expense of Alan's drums, particularly on Sound Chaser.

Tales From Topographic Oceans --- really good recording actually, probably the best from the AHSWW line-up. It's just a shame that Wakeman doesn't participate all that much.

Fragile -- Wakeman and Howe tend to overdrive the mix. Can be quite annoying on headphones.

Close To The Edge -- It has varying degrees of recording quality. Siberian Khatru being all over the place.

continue later -- alex is crying

[relayeire]

GFTO
The Yes Album
Talk

the first two albums were very muddy, and TYA was a vast improvement... GFTO is impressionistic - the audio equivalent to the picture of that tree inside the gatefold... Talk has the advantage of being an all digital, no tape recording...

[new_sum_do_solve_ay]

Good question:

1) 90125
2) ABWH
3) Open Your Eyes (Surprise there's something good to say about this one... I think they were very sound conscious here: note the sound bites at the very end of the CD after 10 -15 minutes.)

Better than 'classic' Yes simply due to improvements in recording technology and digital mastering.

[CybrKhatru]

The Yes Album, for sure.

--Matt

[Steve St Thomas]

My votes go for these three:

Time and a Word
Talk
Drama

Why those 3?

Time and a Word, regardless of the symphonic approach (which I thought was pretty interesting) has an awesome sound on vinyl, particularly from the Kaye / Bruford / Squire side of things. There are points on that album which outshine many an album from late '69/early '70.

Talk because it is simply one of the best sounding albums they ever did. If their recent albums sounded like this one, they might have half a chance.

Drama, because everything's clear. It's actually quite sparse, not very many overdubs or treatments. It could actually be played by 5 people on stage without much of a difference. It could have possibly used a bit more treatment!!! Fantastic sounding album. Plus it's Hugh Padgham. He kicks ass.

Why not the others?

Relayer -- Howe's guitar tends to overload the upper frequencies. This has been subdued on the remaster, but at the expense of Alan's drums, particularly on Sound Chaser.

Tales From Topographic Oceans --- really good recording actually, probably the best from the AHSWW line-up. It's just a shame that Wakeman doesn't participate all that much.

Fragile -- Wakeman and Howe tend to overdrive the mix. Can be quite annoying on headphones.

Close To The Edge -- It has varying degrees of recording quality. Siberian Khatru being all over the place.

The Yes Album ---- good sounding, but as is the case when they're about to kick somebody out of the band, they mix people lower than others. Kaye is very hard to hear in certain segments of this album, where Howe drowns him out, particularly on I've Seen All Good People. You can hear Kaye's playing something on Piano, but all you can truly hear is when he does a Jerry Lee Lewis style roll. Howe is just too loud in the mix. Drums and Bass are really good though.

Going For The One --- Muddy, overdone, overdubbed, reverbed, no dynamics whatsoever. Tormato compared is a shining example of a good sounding album.

Tormato --- Good sounding album. Let down by diverging tastes amongst its band members.

90125 --- Great sounding album. The difference between the demos and the end product is truly startling to hear. Glossy, shining. Great sounding album. But not as good as TALK.

Big Generator --- Let down only by the media its on. This is a great sounding album with tons of layers. May have been a bit too ahead of its time. Needs to be revisited.

ABWH ---- Honestly, this album sounds so early 80's that its hard to believe it was made in '89. Compare this to King Crimson's Beat, or Big Generator. It sounds dated, low mixed and mastered, and like it was an idea Godley & Creme didn't bother with in the end.

UNION --- this whole album suffers from low mastering, and a pretty dull mix. I haven't heard it on vinyl as I have the others, and I'd like to, but this album just sounds flat.

KTA --- Decent. Odd choices in panned instruments on the newer material. Sounded like instruments had to be moved and eq'd to compensate for another instrument being introduced. Squire's Bass suffers the most.

OPEN YOUR EYES --- Pretty decent sounding album. If not for TALK, this would be the best sounding 90's album they put out.

THE LADDER ---- White's snare drum has too quick a cut-off time. Sounds like a snapping turtle. Really processed sound, certain points on this album actually hurt the ears.

MAGNIFICATION --- Better than The Ladder, but not by much. Still a really processed sound. Sounds a bit cheap actually. White & Squire sound good, and vocals are very present. Nicer than The Ladder, not as good as Open Your Eyes.

[proggtr1]

Big Generator --- "May have been a bit too ahead of its time."..as Steve St.Thomas has said...and I totally agree. Not that its my favorite album, but it is the best sounding...hands down....and is a tribute to Trevor Rabin's Engineering skills. When he left the band, all hope for stellar production left with him....everything he was involved in..(90125, Big Generator.and Talk) were all a marvel of engineering. Everything else as wonderful as it is...suffers and pales in sound comparison.

[Steve St Thomas]

Oops. Forgot the 1st Yes album. Good sounding album, very much orientated toward the Banks side of things, but Time and a Word outshines it in the Squire/Bruford/Kaye mix.

And when I say lack of dynamic on Going For The One, I don't mean they don't play soft or loud. They do. It's just that the whole album is an exercise in how many things you can put on top of this thing, and then that thing. By the time you get to Parallels, White starts disappearing in the mix. He's upfront in Going For The One, which has to be the punchiest track on the whole album, but by Parallels, he's not punching anymore, he's just thudding. There's so much overwhelming the mix of Parallels, that it sounds entirely different than the rest of the album. Would've been better with Fish Out Of Water production and engineering values.

Piano is recorded really nicely throughout the whole album, but the guitars take on this monotone kind of flatness after the 15th solo or so. Vocals tend to get louder on some songs depending what point you're at. It actually gets hard to discern certain lyrics and phrases because they are sometimes so far back in the mix they are hard to hear (Awaken & Wonderous Stories primarily) Though Wonderous Stories' lead vocal gets louder by its end. But by that point, there's so many instruments underneath it, I'm not sure if its turned up to compensate for what it has to compete against, or if it was purposeful. If it was purposeful, it's the only album in my entire collection that has decided to do things this way.

[fovman]

90125
Talk
Magnification

[scootwhoman]

For some reason, I feel like we are gilding lilies here. I mean, let's face it, Yes has consistantly, (well, usually, at least,) been fanatical about the quality of the recordings they release to the public. From the very first, with 'Yes', you are hearing extreme clarity and dynamic range for an album recorded in 1969. Compare it with most of the other major works released at that time, and there is not much competition.

Then, the band pushed things up a notch with the 'The Yes Album.' Eddie Offord was probably one of the best audio technicians in the industry in the early 1970's, routinely producing albums which rivaled 'Dark Side Of The Moon' in recording quality. Alan Parsons was able to do wonderful things when he had top notch gear and studio space, but Eddie did incredible things with mobile equipment in people's homes! (They didn't have much choice, as Atlantic was not going to pay for months of studio time when no radio cuts had been produced in a couple of years.)

Admittedly, the period between 'Relayer' and '90125' was not up to the incredible standards of the early 1970's, but '90125' was almost unmatched for a couple of years, at least by an entire album. (Anyone remember 'Black Cars Look Better In The Shade'?) It seemed like every soundman I knew used '90125' for calibrating his rig for a while there.

But soon everyone was going digital, and it became a matter of personal tastes how albums sounded, more than anything else. From 'Big Generator' on, each album seems to have its own unique 'sound', all of which I think have been exceptional, in part because the band has not succumbed to the compression craze. It is also important to keep in mind the evolution of speaker technology, from paper cones with 16 once magnets driving 12 inch woofers, to kevlar cones with 128 once magnets pushing 8 inch cones rated at 1000 watts.

My only beef with the recordings is the tape hiss on the 'Relayer' album. I was astounded when it was not cleaned up on the remaster, which is practically identical to the original, in my opinion. Also, the remaster of 'Relayer' fades out at the ends of the songs in a manner different than on the original album, which did not fade out, but ended quietly.

In my opinion, the three best Yes recordings are:

1.) The Yes Album

2.) 90125

3.) Tales From Topographic Oceans

[MrPhil]

Hi people

I wanted to know what yesfans think about the best sounding yes album, I'm not asking about the "best album" or "best music" I'm asking you for the best sound quality in a Yes album. Can you name 3 of the best sounding Yes albums?

Greetings!


Claudio

90125
The Ladder
Magnification