Scum 20th anniversary edition sound problem.

Question: What\'s wromg with the N.D. \"Scum\" Anniversary disc from 2008?

Audiowise, this release sure offers a much better sound quality compared to the original CD release. However, someone must have slept through the Quality Control part. Starting at the eighth track (Siege of power) you can hear that the audio is speeding and slowing (not the band, mind you...). And in the next track (Control) it gets ridiculus! Listen from the beginning and notice the crazy speed-up at around 0:25!! What\'s up with this? It is NOT supposed to sound like this, never did.
Will there be a corrected version?

Cheers! From: jernberg@gmail.com

Answer: Well spotted my eagle-eared friend!You are right, I can hear a subtle upward change in pitch during the song "Control" which gives the impression of speeding up.It is really hard to notice unless you are massively familiar with the album. Heck, I even just played it to my label manager who could hear nothing amiss. You are the very first person to point this out, but the 20th anniversary edition with DVD is sold out and wont be re-printed anyway.The reason its hard to notice is because to the untrained ear, the band varies speed so much on the album, from extreme sludgy slow riffs to chaotic extreme high speed noise, that in the context of the song, the pitch variation you pointed out seems "normal". But its definately a mistake in the master, yes, sorry if it spoils your enjoyment of the album, but 99.9% of listeners don't seem to notice it.

We can't explain it, its somehow got on this pressing.I can only guess that during the mastering from original tape, some kind of tape slippage occured, but that would result in slowing down of the tape- this is sped up.Its some kind of analogue error, I dont think digital mastering can have such a speeded up effect, though I'm not sure, so will ask the audio experts.

One thing I have noticed is that when we revisit the old masters of Earache's classic early titles, many of which were recorded in the 80's, the modern day mastering software accentuates some of the sounds- the high and low end- which due to restrictions of analog equipment in the 80's werent present on the original printing back in the vinyl and cassette days. When we remastered Altars of Madness from original master tapes we opted to scrap the new modern master because it sound so UNLIKE the 80s version, and kept with the original instead.

PS
Heres the soundfile of CONTROL taken from the original CD from 1988, Scum and FETO together, Ampex master tape of A-side of Scum was already 2 years old at that point.

NAPALM DEATH Control 1988 CD (with FETO) by digearache

Now compare to CONTROL from the SCUM standalone CD from 1994, master tapes were 8 yrs old by that point, its noticeably different,mastering made it a bit louder.Its from same source original tape!

NAPALM DEATH Control taken from CD 1994 standalone Scum by digearache

Unfortunately I can't upload the 2007 Dualdisc Uk 20th Anniversary edition because my mac cant rip dualdisc, so cant play here the actual song you are mentioning in the question, but i'll work on getting a rip up here.I already reckon it might have been taken from this 1994 CD, that would explain it.

I should point out there have been a zillion printings of the CD in the 20 years, at myriad plants and using different masters (often a regular CD) and they are all fine.Even in this case the album is fine -its the song CONTROL which suffers this pitch change.

Feel free to comment on the differences, as I have no simple explanation for them.

As I mentioned in the answer- the reason remastering of Altars was scrapped was because of the vast change in the audio when remastered 15 years after the event.It seems vintage tapes played into a pristine digital software mastering suite era 2000 sounds 'off' when compared to the original master which was made back in the 80s era analogue environment.

I think the same thing happened here with Scum, our ears want it to sound the same as 80's vinyl, but coming off 8 yr old analogue tape in an analogue mastering environment, it doesn't, sadly. To sum up, that's the 'beauty' of Ferric Oxide, its not digital perfection, nor is it bad quality control, you simply get whatever is on the tape on the day you run it.