Wow! Thanks for posting Jim. Would be great to hear these.
I wonder if they would differ sonically from the retail CD, or if they're identical. I guess it's more likely the latter, but as I understand it final EQ and compression may have taken place when the DAT was transferred to the CD mastering workstation. So there's some scope for difference there, I guess. That said, Owen Morris has explained that nothing was altered from the mastered DAT he supplied to Sony/ Creation.
When I’d finished mixing Oasis’s first album a year later, Oasis’s management allowed me to master the album myself. Again, in Johnny Marr’s studio, I mastered from half inch tape masters, though a TC Electronics four band stereo parametric equaliser and then into the Apogee A/D with soft limit on and then into an Apple Mac running a basic stereo Sound Designer program for editing and assembling. Then I copied the edited stereo file to a DAT tape, which was then sent to a mastering house for ONE TO ONE digital cloning to have P Q coding etc. added, as needed for CD production. At NO STAGE did any other mastering engineer add compression or do ANYTHING other than copy ONE to ONE MY digital master.
I would then receive a test CD from the mastering room so I could check that the “mastering engineer” (person who copied a tape and added P and Q info based exactly on the timings I had specified) hadn’t fucked up and attempted to change anything.
A year later, when I mastered Morning Glory, the only difference was that I used a pair of Neve 1081 EQ’s instead of the TC’s. This gives the album its distinctive sound.
Just seen on the photo of the insert card that these were cassette duplication masters prepared by Patrick Bird of Magnetic Image Mastering. I contacted him a few years back and he explained that he was also involved in the following Oasis releases.
"Here's what I can remember of Oasis and Creation Records back in the nineties, you can incorporate any of this that you wish...
"Mastering" Live Forever instrumental backing track for Top Of The Pops (1994) "Mastering" & editing Whatever full backing track for Top Of The Pops (1994) "Mastering" Some Might Say full backing track for Top Of The Pops (1995) "Mastering" Roll With It full backing track for Top Of The Pops (1995) "Mastering" Wonderwall full backing track for Top Of The Pops (1995) "Mastering" Don't Look Back In Anger and Cum On Feel The Noize full backing tracks for Top Of The Pops (1996)
I also balanced the following singles for their accompanying videos: Live Forever Cigarettes & Alcohol Whatever Some Might Say Roll With It Wonderwall Don't Look Back In Anger
These would definitely sound different to the commercially available CDs. The source material for the backing tracks was always supplied on DAT, and yes the compression and EQ was altered to be more suited to television speakers.
I don't think there would be a way of getting hold of the backing tracks that I made, as there would only ever be two copies made - one for playback on set, and one for the editing suite for the final Betacam video master (where the sound effects would also have been edited in).
I also mastered a live Oasis concert from Cardiff Arms Park in March 1996. It was for radio broadcast only, I have a copy of it somewhere...
It may interest you that the crowd noise at the end of Whatever was taken from the Creation Records Ten Year Anniversary at The Royal Albert Hall (where they played Shakermaker, Live Forever and Whatever with Noel on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Bonehead on grand piano).
Amongst other times, I was also present when Noel replaced Liam on Later With Jools Holland in Dec 1995.
For your info Liam was there and did actually perform the songs, but due to a sore throat and a below par performance, this was re-recorded with Noel singing the songs.
Somewhere in my archives I also have the backing track master for Whatever, and two VHS recordings of the tour which includes Liam and Noel backstage at Glastonbury advising Robbie Williams that he should leave Take That and start his own solo career... Must dig those out!"
Interesting. These are cassette production masters. "Morning Glory" and "Familiar to Millions" are the only two Oasis cassette albums that have unique masterings compared with the CD versions. In the case of Morning Glory, The Swamp Song goes directly into Some Might Say on the CD, but there's a side change between them on the cassette. Side 1 (Swamp Song) fades out, and side 2 starts with the back masked speaking right before "Some Might Say"
For what it's worth, all other albums have clean outros for their respective last tracks on Side 1 and clean intros for their respective first tracks on Side 2 already present on their CD masters, FTM being the exception.
If I had some gum, I'd chew a hole into the sun...
Haven't heard from Patrick as yet, but have discussed this with Tom S who adds that, based on the sleeve notes, these DATs are very likely the album as we know it: clone copies of the mastered CD audio that were sent to a processing plant (Magnetic Image mastering) to duplicate an additional run of cassettes when they were caught off guard by the huge success of the album.
The notes on the tape box seem to tell the story: the Morning Glory DAT is based on an August 95 master (for context, they finished mixing the album on 25.7.95), which was then duplicated for cassette at Magnetic Image in November 95.
If you have a copy of the official Oasis mag it shows the inlay cards of another two Morning Glory DAT masters, albeit much earlier in the production process. One relates to a cassette of monitor mixes done at Rockfield. The other goes with a DAT of what appear to be un-mastered final mixes from Orinoco.
