John Darko
Double-dipping is the slightly unsavoury end of London Record’s super deluxe reissue (and remaster) of Orbital’s eponymous debut from 1991, often referred to as The Green Album. We detailed the specifics of the new formats when they were announced in January. Shipping would begin in mid-April: did Sir want a 4LP box with a 12″ x 12″ hardback book and a signed print; or would Sir prefer a 4CD set with the same 12″ x 12″ hardback book and print but with considerably more music?
Examining the music-to-money ratios of each offering, I opted for the 4CD set which spreads 42 tracks across four discs for €82; that’s considerably less than the 4LP box which goes for €129 and with 21 fewer tracks in tow. More for less did not compute.
The 2LP coloured vinyl set – that retains the original vinyl album’s tracklist – would provide a vinyl fix for €38. I ordered that from Amazon for release-day delivery but Townsend Music in the UK is fulfilling the 4CD box n’ book. A shipping notice email from Townsend tells me that the 4CD box won’t arrive until well into next week.
How to measure the dynamic range of the new remaster without a CD copy ready to rip to a hard-drive?
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5-c8PGse6g/?hl=en&img_index=1
Answer: “Whatever happens will happen again”.
Townsend Music’s release-day email blast invited anyone pre-ordering the CD box (or vinyl box) from them to purchase the album again, this time as an Expanded Digital (Lossless) Download containing a whopping 54 tracks. The incentive to buy? A five-quid discount on the official asking price of £35. Puh!
Seen alongside the splatter 2LP vinyl released exclusively for Record Store Day and a series of limited edition 12″ singles, the expanded download edition exploits completists to recall the multi-format singles of the late 80s and early 90s where super-fans were ‘forced’ to purchase multiple versions of a release – often 2 x CD + vinyl – across which various b-sides were spread. It would have been a classy gesture by London Records to have supplied these 54 digital files – or the 12 bonus cuts – as a ‘thank you’ to anyone who pre-ordered the 2024 Green in a physical format. A short-term money grab like this feels cheap, especially when the Expanded Digital Edition can already be found on streaming services.
Nevertheless, I bit.
The original master of Green pre-dates the loudness wars to sound dynamically strong with a slightly reticent low-end, at least by modern standards. We can hear it and we can measure it. The DR Offline MKII app tells us that the original master has a dynamic range album average of DR12. That’s the UK CD. The US CD’s alternative tracklist also returns an album average of DR12.
What’s dynamic range? Catch up here. Much to the chagrin of vinyl braggarts and digital hi-rezzers, the dynamic range of a recording impacts what we hear far more than the album’s delivery format.
Curve Pusher’s Dave Turner mastered the 2024 edition of The Green Album under the direct supervision of the band: Paul and Phil Hartnoll. Turner has form with Orbital releases. He mastered the majority of tracks found on their 2022 career retrospective 30 Something where a liberal use of dynamic range compression makes the album a tough listen, especially when heard through a nice pair of headphones or speakers: its DR5 is – incidentally – as heavily compressed as Peter Gabriel’s i/o. Turner also mastered Orbital’s Monsters Exist in 2018 for an album average of DR5 and 2023’s Optical Delusion for DR7. Not great.
However, for the 2024 edition of The Green Album, Turner bucked the dynamic compression trend to stay true to the original. The new master is as dynamically bouncy as the 1991 edition but with a punchier low end. Sat next to the original, Turner’s new master also exposes more of the album’s finer details. Under the software microscope, the album’s eleven tracks clock in with an album average of DR11 to sit so close to the original that I will play only the remaster going forward: it sounds better and comes without a compromised dynamic range.
Zooming out to take in all 54 tracks on the Expanded Digital Download, we again see DR Offline MKII return an album average of DR11. Well played, Dave Turner.
Further information: Orbital at Townsend Music
Here’s the full dynamic range analysis of The Green Album in 2024, as shown by MAAT’s DR Offline MKII. The last number in each row shows the dynamic range of that track. The download-only tracks are marked in bold.
01 – The Moebius (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.14 | -14.76 | 11 |
02 – Speed Freak (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.12 | -14.91 | 12 |
03 – Oolaa (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.17 | -13.67 | 11 |
04 – Desert Storm (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.69 | -14.30 | 11 |
05 – Fahrenheit 303 (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.18 | -15.50 | 12 |
06 – Steel Cube Idolatry (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.25 | -15.77 | 12 |
07 – High Rise (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.19 | -14.43 | 11 |
08 – Chime (Live – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.09 | -14.83 | 12 |
09 – Midnight (Live – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.14 | -13.74 | 11 |
10 – Belfast (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.02 | -14.44 | 12 |
11 – I Think It’s Disgusting (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -7.62 | -20.70 | 11 |
12 – Torpedo Town (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.28 | -15.61 | 14 |
13 – Macro Head (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.00 | -14.69 | 13 |
14 – Satan (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.02 | -13.46 | 11 |
15 – L.C.1 (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.18 | -14.10 | 12 |
16 – Belfast _ Wasted (Wasted Vocal Mix) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.02 | -11.87 | 9 |
17 – Crime (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.87 | -16.18 | 13 |
18 – Fahrenheit 3D3 (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.42 | -14.56 | 12 |
19 – Open Mind Jam | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.17 | -14.52 | 12 |
20 – The Other One | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.15 | -15.05 | 12 |
21 – Satan (Rhyme and Reason Vocal Mix – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.27 | -12.95 | 11 |
22 – Midnight (Sasha Remix – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.18 | -17.52 | 13 |
23 – Chime (12″ Version) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.04 | -15.74 | 13 |
24 – Deeper (12″ Version) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.14 | -14.84 | 11 |
25 – Omen (The Fool) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.68 | -14.36 | 10 |
26 – Omen (The Tower) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.44 | -15.89 | 11 |
27 – 2 Deep (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.20 | -15.75 | 13 |
28 – Open Mind (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.20 | -16.13 | 14 |
29 – Midnight (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.35 | -15.08 | 12 |
30 – Choice (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.13 | -13.19 | 11 |
31 – Analogue Test Feb ’90 (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.89 | -14.70 | 9 |
32 – Choice (Eye and I Mix – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.75 | -14.49 | 11 |
33 – Satan (Live at Synergy) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.54 | -10.68 | 8 |
34 – L.C.1 (Live at Synergy) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.75 | -9.79 | 7 |
35 – Chime (Live at Synergy) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.77 | -11.34 | 8 |
36 – Son of Chime (Live at Synergy) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.79 | -9.78 | 7 |
37 – Choice (Live Mystery Gig ’91) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.38 | -11.34 | 9 |
38 – Fahrenheit 303 (Live Mystery Gig ’91) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.10 | -13.52 | 11 |
39 – Crime (Live Mystery Gig ’91) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.32 | -11.31 | 9 |
40 – BIT (Live Mystery Gig ’91) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.44 | -8.28 | 7 |
41 – Oolaa (Live Mystery Gig ’91) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +1.24 | -9.75 | 8 |
42 – Speed Freak (Live Mystery Gig ’91) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +1.48 | -9.26 | 8 |
43 – Chime (JZJ Bacardi Remix Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.15 | -12.01 | 10 |
44 – Chime (JZJ Oh Ya Mix Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.20 | -12.36 | 10 |
45 – Chime (Ray Keith Mutation Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.11 | -13.01 | 9 |
46 – Chime (The Helium Mix Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | +0.19 | -13.28 | 11 |
47 – Omen (The Chariot) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.26 | -15.10 | 10 |
48 – Omen (Wheel of Fortune) (Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.61 | -14.34 | 11 |
49 – LC2 (Outer Limits Mix – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.08 | -12.20 | 9 |
50 – Oolaa (Joey Beltram Mutation – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.14 | -12.04 | 9 |
51 – Speed Freak (Moby Mutation – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.05 | -12.49 | 10 |
52 – Oolaa (Meat Beat Manifesto Mutation – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.11 | -12.83 | 9 |
53 – Chime (Joey Beltram Mutation – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.12 | -11.71 | 9 |
54 – Steel Cube Idolatry (Dave Angel & Dave Dorrell Mutation – Remastered) | .flac | 44.1k | 16 | -0.09 | -14.28 | 11 |
Number of EP/Album Files: 54
Official EP/Album DR: 11
