BOO vs. DOAM production quality

[xk319]

I saw another member mention something about this in another thread, and I have always felt the same way. Why does DOAM sound so much better productin wise than BOO (to me at least)? Weren't they recorded at the same time? Were they mixed at a different time?

BOO always sounded more garage to me, more shrill in Randy's tone. DOAM on the other hand has depth and warmth, perhaps more reverb on Ozzy's voice rather than double tracking? And Randy's tone seems more gritty and brown. I can't put my finger on it exactly. Anyone have any thoughts on this or insight?

[Jazznroll]

I do like the sound of diary alot because you can hear more guitars ect and its rather earie which is 'rad man know what i mean', on blizzard i just find it a bit to hard to listen to with the 'bright bass' and sparse backing on some tracks, i still love em both for what they mean, cheers.

[Axian]

Well after the huge success of BOO I am guessing their was more money thrown at DOAM and plus obviously every musician wants to better themselves on their follow up albums.

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

I may have been the other member who expressed a dislike of Blizzard Of Ozz' production. The musicianship is of course wonderful, but the production is so dry and lifeless to my ears. There are plenty of older albums than Blizzard that still sound current by today's standards. An example that comes to mind is The Doors' Strange Days album. Diary Of A Madman is a vast improvement, but I still think The Tribute is the best album for a fresh set of ears, to have their first encounter with Randy Rhoads (in my opinion).

Matt

[Axian]

I prefer the tempo of the songs on tribute too I thought BOO songs were a tad bit slow.

[orion_damage]

Yeah I feel the same way, No Bone Movies on Tribute is awesome but on BOO its too slow and doesn't sound as good. Diary just sounds like there's more to it and thicker whereas BOO sounds thin and like it was done in one take

[No1UNo]

If you remember the Max Norman interviews that Jas O. did, Max explains a lot in the difference of the sound and production quality between those albums. To me, the most noticeable changes were the drum & guitar sounds. The Blizzard album is a classic and I'd never mess with it, but I always wished the drums sounded like they did on Diary. And obviously, Randy's guitar tone and experimenting with how it was recorded evolved - something that I thought was positive.

Ultimately, sounds and tones are subjective to each listener, depending on what he or she likes to hear.

[zennman]

You know what they should do? Maybe they should go in and re-record the drums & bass!!!! Remix the whole thing to give these two classic albums a new & modern punchy sound!!!!

Oh wait a minute.....

[Tito]

lmao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jazznroll]

You know what they should do? Maybe they should go in and re-record the drums & bass!!!! Remix the whole thing to give these two classic albums a new & modern punchy sound!!!!

Thats the best idea ive heard all millenium, we should begin a petition right away!!

[LosPer]

I was disgusted when I read that's exactly what Sharon did in 2002. Daisley was integral to the writing process, and she re-recorded all those songs just to cut them out of their relatively small royalties.

http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/04/sharo ... ble-crime/

[DMRX]

Thanks for that Link,Good read! Ive been listening to those albums since I was 6 y/o on/my Fischer Price Kiddie record player So when I first saw that they had ReReleased those in 2002 I didnt Know they were ReRecorded,afterall those were the first CDs I got back in the early 90s when I got my 1st CD player & I had also gotten the 95 Remasters too.To this Day I still prefer the Original 87 Versions as they arnt Mastered Too hot & have a Overall Clearer sound To my Ears!
Dont get me wrong I LOVE the 95 versions but when compared they just are a bit too loud for Digital Has Very Very unpleasant sounds when it is clipped.I just turn up the speakers a little bit on the 87 versions & they sound True to the records as I remember them.
I bought the 2002 Excited as the sticker said "Ozzys first two solo albums ReMixed & remastered Bigger & Badder than Ever" So when I got home & put on Blizzard (I bought that 1st) The Backwards Gong was Longer on the I Dont know intro & everything Kicked in I was like "Damn,theese are different!!" Then CrazyTrain started & I heard the Vibraslap & thought,""thats not right???? or even the same instrument" & I noticed the Harmony vocals on the Chorus for the 1st time,theyre locked in the 1980 mix & I assumed it was Ozzy but it was Noticably different.I just attributed it to the Remixing.Then Goodbye to Romance came on.
I was Jizzing all over the RICH ASSED Acoustic guitars that are way back in the 1980 version.
Then Dee was fairly the same then Suicide's intro guitar came in & Melted my Face!!!!
I musta started it over Ten times before it even got to Ozzys first line.
I went Right out back to the store & Promptly bought Diary,before I even listened to Blizzard all the way.It was then when I got back & listened again,That Gong is Definatly Longer & sounds a bit Off? This was Definatly a different Vibraslap,& Harmony Vocals & Crazy train was Played w/a pick on the record...this wasnt Right.It was Only then that I got to the back page of the Book that I saw it was ReRecorded! I was Livid but Honestly still anxious to hear Randys guitars in a different way it wasnt until I realised the Motive for the ReRecording & the way they were Discontinued & all of the Ozzy Hits packages all had theese versions that I began
to Protest them.I woulda just D/L them had I known that. I was tricked by the Sticker saying ReMixed & Remastered.... NOT ReRecorded!! I was also Duped around the same time by the Sticker on Down to earth claiming NEVER BEFORE RANDY FOOTAGE!! which just turned out to be "Parts" of songs from Afterhours in Quicktime no less,all pixilated & shit.I havent even made it through that album in its entirety,I wouldnt have bought it otherwise & felt Ripped Off 3x between the 3 albums.
I do recall reading More than once,the Randy & the band had prefered the Demo-esqe Quality of Blizzard as they were there for the Mixing.And that Diary they wernt there for
& wernt as satisfied w/it.I think thats why they had fired Chris Tsangarides because it was Too "Clean" sounding.
http://audiobooks.gs/mp3/ozzy-osbourne- ... rock000002

in this Interview Ozzy talks about Remixing Bark because of the "Clean" sound,he wanted it to sound more "street"

I think that they sould have an Original Mix & a New Mix (of the original tracks)
& Obviously Max Norman,but I doubt that!

[juray]

As I know Chris personally and he's my own band's producer (http://www.blancodiablomusic.com) - he actually got a massive ear infection and had to drop out of the Blizzard project - which led Max to take over on the Blizzard sessions at Ridge Farm...Chris will hopefully be able to set the record straight after all these years if we ever get to see Peter's documentary...I think most everyone will be surprised at how much Chris actually did on Blizzard and he has some insightful stories about the band and Randy...He and Randy bonded pretty close (they were the same age)...Chris is one of the nicest dudes you could ever meet! Cheers ya'll!

[stress2stress2]

Max Norman interviewed by Jas Obrecht about BOO and DOAM:

How did your role change from the first album to Diary of a Madman?
Pretty much the same. I had a little more influence, I guess, on the second one. The first one was a bit untogether in a lot of different ways, because Ozzy was trying to get things back together again, so he had a lot of things to do. He was doing a lot of running around, trying to get deals and so on. So that first one kind of fell together. The second one we had a lot more organized.
Did you change the recording strategy?
Yeah. In fact, for the first album, the drums were downstairs in that concrete room for some of the tracks. I didn’t do that on the second one – I put them in the main body of the studio with a lot more distance mikes on them. I think the drum sound improved on the second one. The first drum sound wasn’t as big as I would have liked.
There was a European tour between the first and second albums. Had Randy changed over that time?
He played better. He was just getting better all the time. I mean, he was shit-hot on the second album. The improvements were really noticeable. Stuff that would have taken longer to do didn’t take so long anymore, plus he had a lot more idea of what arrangements he wanted to do.
“Over the Mountain” has a lot more presence. Was that recorded differently?
No, all the backing tracks were recorded the same way. There’s a lot of different things we did on the guitars. We got into very curious extremes with recording some of the guitars. The basic setup was always the same, but we did a lot of stuff in the control room to change the sound around and get different kinds of feels.
You mean change the actual tonal quality of the sound?
Yeah, the tonality of the sound. Sometimes I would run him through a little compressor on the board before going to the amp, and stuff like that. I would help the EQ on his guitar by putting it through the board first, and then send it down to the amp downstairs. But generally the miking setup and the speaker setup were the same.
Was the “Flying High Again” solo multi-tracked?
This is the one where he goes [sings the triplets] and changes key? Yeah, that was triple-tracked, probably, playing the same part each time.
Do you know what effect was on it?
AMS, again.
“You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll” ends with some massive guitar sounds.
Yeah, that was one where he said, “Just roll it around to me, and I’ll whack some stuff on the end there.” That was pretty much a one-take, the main lead guitar going out there. Plus we put on some big, heavy-duty power chords towards the end there.
What’s going on in the beginning of “Believer,” right before the lick starts up?
Oh, I remember that. That’s guitar work, just messing around before the track comes in. We just got to like it, so we left it on there. There’s a few little bits and bobs like that. There’s little accidents that happen and you think, “Oh, that sounds great. We’ll leave that on there.”
To me, the rhythm guitar in “Little Dolls” sounds a bit like Van Halen.
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
The solo is mixed in the background too.
Yeah, I think that was one of the tracks we had a little bit of trouble getting to work very well. As for the solo being back, it may well be that we only put one track on that. Like I say, a lot of the reasons for Randy’s particular guitar sound is the fact that he triple-tracked a lot of it, and that just made it huge. So I believe “Little Dolls” may have been one of the ones where we didn’t do that, and it may have suffered somewhat.
At the beginning of “Tonight,” was Randy doing volume swells with the knob on his guitar?
Yes, he was.
Near the very end he gets into that jam where he flicks his pickup selector switch, like Hendrix used to do.
Yeah.
How long did that jam go on after the fade?
Oh, quite a long time. I think it was about another two minutes or something going on there. Some of the tracks were pretty long, and we had to do some early fades on them. Tantalizing stuff, you know. You hear it going out, and you think, “Oh, I wish it didn’t go out quite there!” But the timing. The first album was quite a long one – in fact, they’re both quite long. So we had to fade some things out to be able to get it on vinyl.

http://jasobrecht.com/randy-rhoads-max- ... interview/

[DMRX]

Wow Juray,Thats Awsome!!! I saw him in the Anvil Movie too! See the way theese things get way out of line??? I just recal hearing Ozzy saying in an interview that they were unhappy w/the Polished sound. Could you please share some of those insights??