Great Music But Poor Production
929927
This was my first time hearing music from this band, on this DVD. I enjoy the music as it is good and very gothic. This concert promoted there 2005 "Pleasure And Pain" album, first album to have Sonya Scarlet as sole vocalist. I enjoyed the 2 videos and interview of Sonya. The concert itself was good in sound for just 2.0 surround, but picture was poor as it was too smoky, dark, MTV styled camera shots, and bad editing. Don't get me wrong, the concert is watchable and entertaining. This isn't no major label (Blackened Records) like Nuclear Blast or Napalm Records, so I understand, that's why I give it 4 stars.
3091848
The song and performance are wonderful, I've listened to it countless times and it moves me every time.

However, there is an annoying production issue - at least to me.  There is a beautiful piano piece at the beginning that lasts about one minute.  During that time particularly, I noticed an annoying "whispering" sound on the right channel. If your mp3 player or software has an equalizer you can play with the sliders around the 6 MHz to 14 MHz range and make it go away (and confirm that  you aren't "hearing things").  I realize that this is a live recording and don't expect a studio perfect production, I am by no means an audiophile but I still found it annoying - it may not be an issue for anyone else.
4080293
I am a fan of 20th Century classical music so I was very eager to listen to this recording after reading all the positive reviews.  It is true that the performace and recording are very well done, creating what should be a very enjoyable listening experience.

The problem, however, is the editing or production of the actual disk.  The trasitions between each recording are very poorly executed, often ending before the last note of once piece has faded to silence, and jumping abruptly into the next section.  This jars the listener out of the musical experience, and is particularly unpleasant if wearing headphones.
4935113
I'm digging this LP. The production quality of the vinyl is a bit rough. I actually ordered from Amazon, but my copy had defects in the surface material on the playing surface, and one of the holes in one of the LP discs was not drilled through. I sent my copy back (thank you Amazon) and ordered another copy from another vendor. I love the music though, that's why it gets 5 stars.
3562225
As a long-time Dream Theater fan, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this CD. I'm disappointed. What seems like great music is dulled by poor  production quality. It's difficult to pick out some of the instruments'  parts. Sometimes I'll hear hints of a keyboard line which sounds like it  might really add to music, if only it had been brought out more. The jam  sessions don't sound as tight as I expect from Dream Theater, I think  largely due to the mudiness of the recording. I feel like I'm listening to  the CD with a blanket over my head. If things were recorded more cleanly  and intruments brought out more during the mix, this CD may have earned  another star or two. Too bad. The story is interesting and the lyrics  decent. This CD really could have been something.
1890096
Much of this collection sounds phoned in. It's slick and perfunctory, not the gritty, impassioned stuff we want from these two masters. Beyond that,  this album bears all the annoying production hallmarks that are driving  listeners to Napster, MP3 and the like: track 1 is a throw-away designed  for radio release. I usually start this CD at track 4, skipping 2 and 3  entirely (they're boring). None of the tunes exceeds 6 minutes, and most  are faded out around the pop-format 4 minutes in length, right about the  time that B.B. or Clapton (or both) start getting into the kind of groove  you want to hear MORE of! Coming on the heels of a recently released Albert  KIng and Stevie Ray Vaughn collaboration, which had long, inspired,  wonderfully satisfying 12-minute jams, this album just teases. I skip the  last track too. It's a great classic song but an unwelcome oddity here.
3739930
The sound mixing and quality are some what a disappointment. Otherwise, great song choices which showcase their harmony and powerful voices.
5928
I bought this album after hearing it on National Public Radio, and was disappointed.  The parts of the cuts they played were the exceptional parts of the album.  As mentioned in the liner notes the album had been in progress for a very long time, but had to be recorded in a hurry - and you can tell that it was.  This man has great promise, especially when one considers how young he is - but just as impulsiveness swindles many a young person of their self and wealth, the feeling that an album must be cut at any cost still boils down to impulsiveness.  And the album suffers.  A fan of World Music of all kinds which includes a fondness for Fusion Music, it hurts me to say that this album does a great disservice to a very talented man.  The musicianship is fair, the spirit exceptional, and the mixing very poor, almost crass.  Three stars because two are unfair, and four would reward poor engineering and mixing.  The man has great talent and vision.  Perhaps his next album will show better judgment in understanding the process of recording.  The compositions are good, the recording is poor.  And it is a shame that the artist must suffer because the impulse to record forced a poor rendering  good music and great talent.
3425037
I really dig adam rogers' recorded legacy thus far. and the playing, tunes and the arrangements on this album are all top notch. however, that being said, the bass is mixed so low on this recording that a lot of the time i find myself struggling to hear exactly what patitucci's playing and getting distracted in the overall listening because i can't hear him. this sounds more like a duet with clarence penn and suggestions of a bass player in the background. which is a shame because the tunes are so rythmically hip that if the bass was audible i probabbly wouldn't be able to put this album down...oddly enough though if there were no bass at all it wouldn't be missed that much because of rogers' virtuosity. i guess it's the uncommitted presence that's annoying me here... and i've listened to it on 7 different sets of speakers from high to low quality including studio monitors and headphones with similar results. bah!
4505679
Overall I liked this soundtrack as it contains the musical highlights of the film. However, the production aspects of the CDROM are lacking. First, it appears the individual tracks were made from one best-of type of arrangement. This arrangement doesn't follow the story-line from the movie, so it seems almost arbitrary in nature, even though the composer/arranger might have written it that way originally. Secondly, the dynamic range of the music is so great that it isn't possible to listen to it at one volume level in most venues. Parts of the music are inaudible unless the volume is turned way up and then the sections of fortissimo are bound to disturb the neighbors three doors down, unless one is listening alone in a sound proof room. In fact the climactic moments cause distortion on my ipod nano headphones, even when at a volume level of only 75%. While it may be technologically feasible to produce a range of this level, I question the benefit it has to humans. Maybe if I let my dog use my ipod or play this soundtrack underwater for a whale, they'll be able to fully appreciate the full spectrum of the experience. Finally, the album is too short. For a full length feature film you would think they could have put together more for us but maybe there was a lot of looping in the movie that would have made much of the content on the CD redundant.

It's a good buy though, given its faults, for any fan of the series.
1898222
The but is this recording desperately needs to be remastered and released. The sound is faint and lacks resolution. Subsequent recordings of the material on this album re-released on their original albums is so much better.

For Eric Clapton fans, this is a fabulous collection of music spanning his work from the Yardbirds deep into the 1980's with some really worth hearing outtakes and unreleased cuts.

BOTTOM LINE: If you're not too concerned about sound quality, here's one fantastic dose of Eric Clapton's material. The CD box inserts and the booklet are loaded with great background information, but being one of the first big Box Set compilations, its use of the digital medium is far from acceptable standards of today.

TRUE RATING: Material: 5 stars *****  Audio Quality: 2 stars **
4289627
Great album, great music, as always.
Lot more clean vocals than before, but still very well written and catchy songs.
Caliban gets and A+ and production gets a C-

Where this album fails is the mastering. The vocals, especially the clean, tend to get drowned out by the music. The volume ratios from vocals, lows, mids, and highs seem off a lot of the times and pretty inconsistently. Seems like because they added more clean vocals and wanted to keep heavy for the old fans that wouldn't like it so much they raised the volume on the music higher than normal, drowning out the vocals, making the songs seem somewhat flat and feeling like they blended everything into one sound.

I still think this album is great, but the mixing of the album really kills it. Paralyzed, which you can hear on Youtube, is a prime example of this.
In my mind this song would be one of my top favorite songs, but the poor mixing of vocals cut it down well below that. The regular vocals feel like when your at a show and they didn't raise the mic volume high enough. The clean vocals come in and it sounds like their backing vocals and background music to something else. What else? I don't know because there's nothing else for them to be backing. I really, really love the song Paralyzed, but when I listen to it I can't help but imagine how much better it could sound.

This album reminds of Metallica's "Death Magnetic" where they tried way to hard in post to make it "heavy AF" and it ended up sounding like crap.
Definitely not on that level, but gives me the same feeling the same.
2880128
As always Stevie's music is fantastic...the reason i only gave a 3 star was because the recording was done poorly and doesn't sound as good as it should.
344461
The music is awesome!  The recording, however, is as good as it can be.  The producers had to work with tapes not kept in the best of condition.  The pitch wavers in spots.  You won't get a perfect recording, but you do get the music AND you DO get an extra take and a booklet loaded with information on Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter.  Listen to some samples and decide for yourself.  It IS a good product, just not a great one.
3819307
At least some of the music is dubbed from vinyl. Shoddy production from a "major" label. It could have been so much better.
3935801
The music is five stars of course, these guys never had a bad gig, truly amazing musicians. But I am taking out two stars: one based on the terrible remaster. I own all other BBC releases, and this  has the worst sound, it is very difficult to play it and not be distracted by the awful sound. Looks like they just made a plain transfer from the deteriorated tape to the CD. I am taking out other star for having the radio announcer on most of the tracks. It is understandable to have it when the announcer was talking on top of the music, but they even included long introductions from the anouncer that could have been cut since they did not interfere with the beggining of a song. Based on that, pick up the two live cream CDs and then get this to complete your collection.
689513
The performances are excellent, but the sound quality of this recording is disappointing.