SKIP: So, shifting to something more recent, are we going to see a remix or remaster of Vapor Trails?
Alex: You know, Rich Chycki just remixed a couple of the songs for the Retrospective that's coming out [Retrospective III], and he did such a great job that we're so tempted to just remix that album, because we've never been pleased with the mix, and particularly the mastering on it. It's a dangerous precedent that you set by doing that, because you want to go back and re-do a bunch of things. We were never happy with that one - there are a lot of reasons for that. We're to blame for a lot of that - the way we recorded it was very impulsive. We didn't spend a lot of time on getting sounds, and we used a lot of the stuff that we did in the writing phase, rather than re-recording things. So, to maintain the pure energy of what those ideas were, we gave up a bit on the sonic end. But Rich just has this way of mixing and hearing this band that translates so well into our heads, and he did a great job. He remixed "One Little Victory" and "Earthshine". They sound so big and powerful and heavy and thick...and round, whereas the original recordings are very compressed, and a little bright and scratchy. So we listened to those and we thought "well, look...what is the point in remixing it really? We would just be doing it for ourselves...and...so...well, ok why not - let's do it!" So, we're sort of toying with the idea, when we have some spare time, of just remixing that whole album, just for our own peace of mind.
SKIP: Well, I think the fans would love that. In fact, before I did this interview...there are a couple of Rush fan message boards that I hop on once in a while, and I mentioned that I'd be interviewing you, just to see if there were any questions that I hadn't already thought to ask, and the one that was hands-down the winner was "will there be a remix of 'Vapor Trails'?"
Alex: Yeah
SKIP: Speaking for myself, I love that album, and I'm not so much an audiophile, but I know that a lot of people were complaining about it...I guess it's kind of a trend in mastering these days, that everyone pushes the levels so high that everything ends up clipping and distorting.
Alex: Well, that's exactly what happened, and it kills all of the dynamics. That record was a very emotional record for us, and it was very fragile. From the heavy stuff to the more melodic stuff, it was a very fragile representation of the band, in the way it was recorded. In mastering, unfortunately that's exactly what happened. It was a contest, and it was mastered too high, and it crackles, and it spits, and it just crushes everything. All the dynamics get lost, especially anything that had an acoustic guitar in it. Anyways, it's something that we're thinking about. We're kind of busy right now, we have our hands full. But it's certainly something that, once we have some spare time, we could get Rich working on. He and I are doing a lot of stuff together these days.
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