Author Topic: DREAM THEATER Unveils Career-Spanning Box Set: 'The Studio Albums 1992-2011'  (Read 14172 times)

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Offline son_ov_hades

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I know why they can't include WDaDU, but it's so incredibly annoying to see them pretend the album doesn't exist.
"Ok, these guys are only catering to the hardcore fanbase that already bought the $8000 meet and greet package complete with signed LaBrie eye patch"

Offline RaiseTheKnife

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They acknowldge WDADU plenty when they play those songs live.  Remember, OAMOT alomst made it into this tour.  DT has not rights to that album, and their hands are tied in that regard.  What more could they do in this situation? Heck, they might not even be able to give RR permission to repress When Dream and Day REUNITE because of issues with MP/Ytse James.

Offline robwebster

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Kind of weird to only include these 10. I can see why DT12 was left out, as most people who might be interested in the box probably already own it since it's DT's most recent album and came out not too long ago, so if someone got into the band through DT12, they wouldn't   want to"rebuy" it. But why leave out WDADU?

Because they don't have the rights to the album.

I could think of plenty of other reasons, but that's the first one, so I'll stop there. :lol

I strongly concur with your "other reasons." :lol

Speculation time - is DT making a statement about which of their albums count as "official"? I certainly hope so. Even not, I'll choose to see it that way anyway.  :angel:

I've seen this for sale in the HMV down the road from me: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Album-Series-Dream-Theater/dp/B005DEVGFG

Not only is this kind of thing not new, it's not even new for Dream Theater! Standard music business. Eleven discs is a robust package, but it's just a low cost, low risk shelf-filler - if it sells, neat, if not... who cares! As with the "Original Album Series," I don't know if DT would have even had to sign off on it. It doesn't look like a flagship release, nothing anyone would have taken their time to make special, like Greatest Hit - just another way for the record label to package the music they have rights for. Great if they get bites, fine if they don't.

Offline DarkLord_Lalinc

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Saying they don't acknowledge WDADU is plain silly. They played two songs from that album in the last tour (Ytse Jam and A Fortune in Lies).
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Offline Grizz

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But honestly, what else is out there that hasn't been released in some form already?  Not much.  I mean, they could throw in a few live tracks that are not on official releases, but in terms of extra studio stuff, there really isn't much else out there.  They would have had to record something just for this release.
Cleaning Out the Closet, the ATCO demos, the Awake B-sides... I am aware that these are all releases but they're quite obscure.
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Offline wasteland

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As somebody said already, I would have gladly spend the money for the box had it included COTC. I can't say I am the majority in this, but I think that a percenage of fans wider than the hardcore group would have been lured by a "60 minutes worth of DT music that has never apperared on a Dream Theater album!".
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Offline RaiseTheKnife

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But honestly, what else is out there that hasn't been released in some form already?  Not much.  I mean, they could throw in a few live tracks that are not on official releases, but in terms of extra studio stuff, there really isn't much else out there.  They would have had to record something just for this release.


You Not Me Radio Edit.    There I said it, and yes it does exist.  If I remember correctly it features a different guitar solo.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2014, 08:27:28 PM by RaiseTheKnife »

Offline Sacul

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They should include a disc with all the International Fans Club releases.

Offline Grizz

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But honestly, what else is out there that hasn't been released in some form already?  Not much.  I mean, they could throw in a few live tracks that are not on official releases, but in terms of extra studio stuff, there really isn't much else out there.  They would have had to record something just for this release.


You Not Me Radio Edit.    There I said it, and yes it does exist.  If I remember correctly it features a different guitar solo.


If this is a typo it's hilarious.
else std::cout << "No.";
"I raised the baby, I changed the baby's diapers.  Whenever the baby had projectile diarrhea, I was there in the line of fire.  I even got a little in my mouth!  I sacrificed so much for my baby.  Now my baby hates me and thinks Mike Mangini is its real father!"

Offline Zook

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Also, WDADU was released from the record label that Universal Music Group bought or something like that?  Is that why that album is not included?

As Blob mentioned above, it is owned by another label, and neither DT nor RR have the rights to it.

Don't rights usually expire at some point?

Offline rumborak

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This might be more relevant to DT's PR department than the actual sales they make of this. Almost no effort, but you're bringing the band into the news again.
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Offline BlobVanDam

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Plus, given that Roadrunner is notorious for compressing albums (notice DT's problem with that really took off once they signed with them), I wouldn't be surprised if they "remastered" the 90s albums to sound more modern, aka louder and not as good.

Given that it's a re-release of every single album in one box, I'd expect they've just dumped the existing masters on there. It doesn't appear to mention remastering, which they'd probably point out as a feature, as it would also let them double dip with long time fans who think they're getting a different/better version of the same albums.
I wouldn't mind having some of the albums remastered, just not in the way they would remaster them. :lol
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Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.

Offline rumborak

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They did remixes for the Best Of album, and that was already rather a mixed bag (especially the "resnaring" of the IAW tunes)
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Offline BlobVanDam

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They definitely wouldn't go to the trouble of remixing. It would be a remastering at most. I wouldn't mind remasters if done properly, but in 2014, that's rare.
Only King could mis-spell a LETTER.
Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.

Offline ?

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I know why they can't include WDaDU, but it's so incredibly annoying to see them pretend the album doesn't exist.
I believe the band has little to no involvement in this (there's still nothing on DT's official FB page) and the announcement was probably written by a clueless RR guy :P

Offline rumborak

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Am I the only one getting a kind of retrospective vibe from these kinds of box sets? Like, I have the same kind of "era-spanning" box sets for Genesis and David Bowie, but the assumption is always that something has come to an end after that era to justify a release of a set.
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Offline robwebster

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Am I the only one getting a kind of retrospective vibe from these kinds of box sets? Like, I have the same kind of "era-spanning" box sets for Genesis and David Bowie, but the assumption is always that something has come to an end after that era to justify a release of a set.



The assumption's ("always?") wrong - Train of Thought, for all its pros and cons, marked pretty much nothing at all!

Offline hefdaddy42

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This sounds like just a record company thing.  The band may have nothing to do with it.  They certainly haven't said anything about it beforehand.
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Offline wasteland

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I've always wondered why they left SDOIT out of that box ser.
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Offline BlobVanDam

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I've always wondered why they left SDOIT out of that box ser.

Being a double album would be my guess. It wouldn't be consistent with the other boxsets in that range. They might not be able to fit an extra disc into the standard box, so you'd end up with only 4 albums for the same price, so it wouldn't look like as good value despite the length of the discs. Any other solution would result in it costing more.
Those are great value boxsets for the price though, and they have them for a ton of different artists.
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Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.

Offline Tis BOOLsheet

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Pointless for me since I already have all the albums.

Offline BlobVanDam

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Pointless for me since I already have all the albums.

I assume most of us here have all of their albums, or at least the vast majority of the albums. I guess the target audience for this is new fans, although I don't know how many would get them in one go.
Only King could mis-spell a LETTER.
Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.

Offline Nearmyth

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Yeah I think the record company is just doing it because they can. It's kind of like "why" but also "why not?".

But yeah it would be a cool gift for someone getting into DT, or some fanatical DT collector. I feel like that's usually the point of stuff like this anyway :biggrin: I still think it's pretty cool.
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Offline Sacul

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I can only hope this leads to more HDtracks releases :)
Awake on 24 bits :hefdaddy

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I can only hope this leads to more HDtracks releases :)
Awake on 24 bits :hefdaddy

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Offline GentlemanofDread

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Now see if this box set was DT in 8-bit, I would throw all my money at it.
i don't even like dt but i had keyboard and an ipad so what the fuck
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Offline Grizz

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I can only hope this leads to more HDtracks releases :)
Awake on 24 bits :hefdaddy
I don't think that the increased dynamic range of 24 bit is that helpful.
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Offline rumborak

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If people really cared they would ask for the audio to be in floating point format, since that is quickly becoming the standard in audio processing these days.
Then again, many of those people who want 24 bit or 96kHz really have no idea what they're talking about and just know that higher is better.
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Offline Sacul

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I can only hope this leads to more HDtracks releases :)
Awake on 24 bits :hefdaddy
I don't think that the increased dynamic range of 24 bit is that helpful.
I was saying that, as the album production is amazing, it would sound way better in high resolution files, with more details. It doesn't sound compressed to me so I don't care about it's dynamic range.

If people really cared they would ask for the audio to be in floating point format, since that is quickly becoming the standard in audio processing these days.
Then again, many of those people who want 24 bit or 96kHz really have no idea what they're talking about and just know that higher is better.
I don't know of any website that sells music in 32 bits.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2014, 10:37:49 PM by Sacul »

Offline rumborak

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Awake in 24-bit would get you absolutely zilch. As this guy points out in this article:

https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=78

analog equipment can capture an SNR range equivalent to 12 bits. Meaning, you already got 2^4=16 times the resolution you need with the regular 16-bit Awake CD.

EDIT: Regarding your reply, no online store sells floating-point audio because people can already be easily enough be scammed by selling them 96kHz files. (Which for the most part are just the 48kHz files run through an upsampler)
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Offline BlobVanDam

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If people really cared they would ask for the audio to be in floating point format, since that is quickly becoming the standard in audio processing these days.
Then again, many of those people who want 24 bit or 96kHz really have no idea what they're talking about and just know that higher is better.

The reason the HDTracks versions have been better is 100% due to being a completely different master, so a lot of people probably mistakenly attribute that to "HD". I don't care how they pitch it, I'd just love to have all of their other albums without the dynamic range compression.
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Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.

Offline rumborak

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Oh, same here. I wish one didn't have to wait for a few months and then have to dish out additional money for a version of the album that isn't brickwalled. This has nothing to do with bit rate or bit depth, and all to do with JP liking that one knob all the way up to 11.
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Offline Rodni Demental

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I suppose it's good for new fans, but if I'm just getting into a band, and it's a band that's been around for over 20 years, I might feel a bit intimidated by the prospect of listening to 10 albums at once, I mean, it's kind of a lot to take in. Although, paradoxically recognising my own hypocrisy in that last statement, I would still complain about the lack of ACOS. I know it's an EP with mostly live stuff, but I would have thought that it is still quite a relevant album to include in a boxset like this. I also agree with everyone who thinks it needs some bonus content; even if it was just some artwork and little tidbits about some of the albums. But the fact is, there are some slightly rare DT studio/live songs that aren't as easily obtained physically. Come on Roadrunner dudes, your quick cash grab business plans are slacking, we would have thrown our money at you if we thought there was anything that resembled something new.  :lol

Offline Implode

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If people really cared they would ask for the audio to be in floating point format, since that is quickly becoming the standard in audio processing these days.
Then again, many of those people who want 24 bit or 96kHz really have no idea what they're talking about and just know that higher is better.

The reason the HDTracks versions have been better is 100% due to being a completely different master, so a lot of people probably mistakenly attribute that to "HD". I don't care how they pitch it, I'd just love to have all of their other albums without the dynamic range compression.

Completely this. I would very much like the unmastered versions. From what I've heard, that's what they've been putting on HDTracks.

Offline adastra

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I would buy this if there would be some B-sides and stuff like that.  Otherwise I think this is kinda pointless release.
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