The founding members of CSN chose the Albert brothers to engineer this 1977 reunion.
Their most famous album is Layla. Ever heard a great sounding Layla? Me neither. Can you hear the sound of Layla in your head? That’s more or less what this album sounds like. There are better and worse Layla’s — we’ve done the shootout many times — just as there are better and worse CSNs, but we have never played amazing Demo Disc pressings of either and I doubt we ever will.
The problem with the sound cannot be “fixed” in the mastering, and here’s how we know: on either side some songs have wonderful sound — the midrange magic, the “breath of life” that makes the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album such a special listening experience — and some don’t.
That’s a recording problem.
It sounds like too many generations of tape were used on songs like Shadow Captain and Dark Star, among others.
But Just a Song Before I Go on side two can sound wonderful: rich, sweet, present and surrounded by lovely studio ambience.
So we listen for the qualities of a specific song that help us pinpoint what the best copies do well and the rest do less well and grade them accordingly, on a curve.
Animals will never sound like The Wall. You do the best you can with what you’ve got to work with.
What to Listen for
- Many copies have a tendency to sound dry, so look for the ones that are richer and more full-bodied.
- Many copies are opaque and flat, so look for pressings with transparency and depth.
- Many copies are lean down low and dull up top, so try to find some with more bass and real top end extension.
- And of course you need to find a copy that gets the voices right. CSN’s albums live or die by the quality of their vocals, a subject we’ve discussed on the site at length.
This is how we would approach the problem of finding a top quality CSN, and if you follow our advice, there’s a verg good chance you can find one too.
Further Reading