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NEW WILLIAMS LIVE ALBUM OUT NOW FOR FREE DOWNLOAD, “John Williams and The President’s Own”


Disco Stu

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5 minutes ago, thx99 said:

FYI, the previous MP3 version of "For 'The President's Own'" has a bit more high-frequency information than the MP3 version featured in this new set.  Very, very minor differences, mind you.  Both have a relatively hard cut-off at 16 kHz so the differences are between 16 kHz and 22.05 kHz, but they can be seen in the spectrographic comparison below...

 

That's disapointing

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1 minute ago, Dr. Know said:

Too lazy to look this up, but who is this awful narrator on THE REIVERS?  Absolutely excruciating.

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

See here for the 2008 concert: http://www.jwfan.com/?p=2349

 

Quote

Suite from The Reivers, narrated by former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson

 

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

Woah!  That's really well done!

 

Scrolling down and having JW's face get bigger and bigger was unexpected...

 

Yeah that slow zoom on the pics as you scroll is a pretty cool aesthetic, first time I’ve seen that

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I was not aware that there is 2 hours 47 minutes of music. That's a Triple album!

 

The sound is not top notch, I wish someday we'll have this important archival document in FLAC quality.

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Just now, Fabulin said:

What sort of arrangements are used? Are they published by Hal Leonard?


I believe that some (most?) are Hal Leonard, but some works were “transcribed” by others, as mentioned in the liner notes and listed in the Special Acknowledgments section:

 

Mr. Paul Lavender of Hal Leonard for providing the transcriptions of Mr. Williams works, along with Jay Bocook, John Moss and Stephen Bulla

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8 hours ago, Bespin said:

I was not aware that there is 2 hours 47 minutes of music. That's a Triple album!

 

The sound is not top notch, I wish someday we'll have this important archival document in FLAC quality.

Be Glad Then, America is available for purchase as FLAC on presto so hopefully that trend will continue...

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I thought it would be interesting to compare interpretations/performances from the different JW wind albums we've had over the years. I chose E.T. since that's represented on all of the albums, although the tracks aren't identical over all the releases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which one's your favourite? I prefer the new release and the Naxos release.

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It's a release of a 2003 concert, and 2008 concert, and a 2013 studio recording.  The current administration has nothing to do with it

 

Quote

The Marine Band has been uniquely known as "The President's Own" since 1801 due to the historic connection to the President of the United States. The relationship between the Marine Band and the White House began on New Year's Day 1801, when President John Adams invited the band to perform at the Executive Mansion. Later that year, Thomas Jefferson initiated the tradition of Marine Band performances by requesting that it perform at his inauguration. The Marine Band has played at every United States presidential inauguration since. President Thomas Jefferson gave the title "The President's Own" in 1801. This terminology emulated a long-established British usage, where various military units were designated as "King's Own" or "Queen's Own".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Band

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Listened to the 2003 concert so far and mostly pretty pleased with the performances and sound! F&A kicks ass and this quicker reading of Nimbus is awesome.

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It's like a marriage and they're all dead... :stir:

 

2 hours ago, rough cut said:

Very savvy wepage.

 

I downloaded it, but promptly deleted it again when I realised it's all lossy mp3s.

 

Agree, mp3 is a disappointment - especially after JW in Vienna on HQCD.

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  • 2 weeks later...
19 hours ago, tee_oh said:

I love all the complaints about it being in mp3 quality. I could understand if you paid money for it but dude it's free. 

 

Indeed. Kids are spoiled these days. I grew up with friggin' cassettes! We DREAMT of the equivalent of even low quality mp3 files, much less these good quality ones.

 

I haven't played the whole album, but I've played a few bits -- the more rare stuff, and the Williams comments between tracks in relation to those. I'm very glad to own this, although I probably won't play it very often, since I've heard all the JW "evergreens" about a million times over the years. I tend to go for the rarer or smaller stuff.

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3 minutes ago, Thor said:

Indeed. Kids are spoiled these days. I grew up with friggin' cassettes! We DREAMT of the equivalent of even low quality mp3 files, much less these good quality ones.

 

Yes, but that's because cassettes were the best that was available (at least if you didn't have a record player or wanted to be mobile). But MP3 and lossless codecs work on the same technology and cost practically the same to produce. Offering downloadable audio files only with a lossy codec is a choice, and an unfortunate one. And yes, I'm happy to have free MP3s, but I'd also be happy to pay a little extra for a lossless version. That could even be a business model - free MP3s and cheap FLACs. If it's not a business decision to keep the lossless version for paying customers, the choice to not offer it for free/at all is even more unfortunate.

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4 hours ago, Thor said:

I could never hear the difference between a 320 mp3 and a FLAC. Not even before I got tinnitus. And since mp3s are smaller in size, that makes all the difference in the world to me.

 

I'm not saying I hear the difference. It's a practical decision. With FLAC (or a similar lossless codec), I don't have to worry about the bitrate being high enough or the encoder being configured correctly, and I don't have to worry about reencoding. That makes a difference for the longevity of files. Who knows what codecs will be common in 10+ or 20+ years. If MP3s are no longer supported then and you still want to play your old files, you'll *have* to transcode them (or buy new versions in a different format, if available). Likewise, if I think that 192kbps files are good enough to put on my phone and listen to on the road, I can easily do that with FLAC, but with higher bitrate MP3s, there will be an additional loss in quality when transcoding to a lower bitrate.

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Listened to this for the first time this weekend and thought it was great.  Have no real negative reaction to the senator reading Reivers.  It's not my preferred version but I thought it was fine and it was kind of neat to hear a version with audience reactions in it.  Don't much care for the Tribute to Lucas and Spielberg arrangement, but I guess I'm happy it's on tape somewhere!

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