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Bad news from Mosaic


J.A.W.

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What keeps Mosaic (and the idiotic twits at Capitol/EMI) from burning a few more copies of these sets?

I'm somewhat annoyed I missed the Dinah one.

Mosaic will not sell copies.

Dogma doesn't answer the question.

A copy of the CD is, when done right, a bit-for-bit copy. It's exact. It cannot be distinguished from a first generation CD. So I'll ask again: what's holding them back here?

Which part of "Mosaic will not sell copies" don't you understand?

See also post #44.

The Dinah Washington is still available, though there's "limited inventory available" as it says in the announcement (see post #1).

I'm not that stupid... I tried, of course. It's not available on the website. They must have had very few, and they were snapped up very quickly. :(

Why don't you call them and find out?

Edited by J.A.W.
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Does no longer available mean they are now sold out on the original 5,000 or that EMI decided to pull the plug and wouldn't make up to the 5,000?

As I understand Mosaic's message, it means that the masters and components were destroyed and it's too costly to remaster everything again and make new ones for the remaining run of those sets.

I can't for the life of me, figure out how this stuff could be "destroyed". Misplaced in a move, perhaps burned in a fire, but destroyed? It almost sounds like a deliberate act.

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How many of these sets were already on back-order? I'm just curious--medjuck did a count the other day and discovered that 1/3 of the existing in-print sets were on backorder. Seems like, one way or another, a lot of Mosaic's supposedly available sets are not available. I'm not blaming them--they can't be enjoying this at all on their end...but again, it's worrisome. There are a couple of sets I want to get as presents for friends, and judging from this news, the wise thing would be to buy them sooner rather than later.

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The "masters" that were destroyed were the glass masters used to press the CDs. It was NOT the master tapes used to make that CD master. As I understand it, the "components" are the printed CD artwork i.e. the booklets and backers.

Kevin

Oh, I know, but not even those should ever be destroyed.

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Lou Donaldson seems to have gone as well. Damn - I wanted that one.

Well, that' solves that quandary for me. :(

That said, sets being deleted without any warning at all, damn! :

I don't think that's Mosaic's fault, they didn't destroy the masters etc.

Oh, I know that. Totally NOT Mosaic's fault; never thought it was.

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The "masters" that were destroyed were the glass masters used to press the CDs. It was NOT the master tapes used to make that CD master. As I understand it, the "components" are the printed CD artwork i.e. the booklets and backers.

Kevin

Oh, I know, but not even those should ever be destroyed.

Manufacturing plants. . . they almost always need space. Have you ever worked in one that didn't? I haven't. I've worked in a few.

If they know that they are no longer going to be pressing any of these items for contractual reasons, I can easily see that they would toss them to make room. If they received no other instructions. . . poof. It's not their problem. It looks as if it is EMI's pressing plants that changed. They obviously didn't arrange for their masters to be transported away. . .or these masters and components. If it's "tens of thousands" of items pressed here they occupied a lot of space, and the plant needed to clear it. At that end of the chain few are thinking up the chain is my guess. To us these things are art, entertainment, but at that point it's just a job and the next job. It might have been a big job to remove all these items and mistakes were made, communication mistakes etc.

Edited by jazzbo
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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Interesting timing (not being conspiritorial or any such thing).

Yeah, and why these particular sets? If one was accidently "destroyed" you'd think it would stop there, once the "mistake" was realized. And then you ask, why did it stop where it did, why didn't the whole catalogue go? There is something we're not being told, not that Mosaic has any obligation to tell us the whole story , but seeing as it has deprived me of a set I really wanted, I'm kind of curious.

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Given what's going on with EMI these days, I'd imagine anything's possible.

Tell you what--I'm sure appreciating some of the Mosaics I bought in the past and haven't listened to much lately, like the Donaldson... getting ready to pull that one off the shelf after I finish this post. Even when you realize, on an abstract/logical level, that the notion of the Fantasy catalogue being available forever or Mosaic continuing to chunk out anthologies without care till the end of time is absurd, it's still a shock when the inventory starts heading south like this. It does feel like the Last Days/Endtimes for CDs and box-sets as we've known them. Speaking of the Beatles, it was either here or elsewhere that somebody made a rather apt comment a week or two ago--that they helped usher in the CD age with the original reissue of their catalogue in '87, and that the reissues today will probably constitute the last great gasp of that age.

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Speaking of the Beatles, it was either here or elsewhere that somebody made a rather apt comment a week or two ago--that they helped usher in the CD age with the original reissue of their catalogue in '87, and that the reissues today will probably constitute the last great gasp of that age.

Well, the Rolling Stones' 1960s albums originally appeared on CD in 1984, so it can also be said that they helped usher in the CD age :)

Edited by J.A.W.
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Mosaic will not sell copies.

Dogma doesn't answer the question.

A copy of the CD is, when done right, a bit-for-bit copy. It's exact. It cannot be distinguished from a first generation CD. So I'll ask again: what's holding them back here?

Which part of "Mosaic will not sell copies" don't you understand?

The part that makes no sense. It's like saying "Mosaic will not sell CDs made on Mondays or Thursdays". It's absurd. The first generation CDs are just as much copies as the second generation CDs. So my question is WHY does Mosaic "not sell copies"? (I swear, my last post on this question. Don't want this thread degenerating into some silly flamewar. But I'm honestly curious.)

Anyway: just ordered the Bix/Tram/Teagarden set from my wishlist to help Mosaic out a little. :)

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I am almost positive that the CD masters have to be stored in a clean environment - what's known in clean room circles as a "dry box". These dry box storage units are expensive to buy and keep "dry" (you have to plumb them with dry air, usually Nitrogen). When I worked in a clean room at Raytheon, we were constantly trying to figure out what we could clear out of the dry boxes so that we could put new stuff into 'em. I imagine the same thing happened here.

As to why they chucked the artwork... ? Got me.

I'm sure no one involved in the decision was too worried. After all, everyone knows that Jazz doesn't sell. Why keep the masters around? :rolleyes:

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Knowing little to nothing about CD manufacturing, it seems that it's done by pressing copies with a master-- what was destroyed here. Sounds like they don't have any other source options, which is why Mosaic just coming up with files of the music wouldn't quite do, unless they were literally burning them themselves in the office.

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Speaking of the Beatles, it was either here or elsewhere that somebody made a rather apt comment a week or two ago--that they helped usher in the CD age with the original reissue of their catalogue in '87, and that the reissues today will probably constitute the last great gasp of that age.

Well, the Rolling Stones' 1960s albums originally appeared on CD in 1984, so it can also be said that they helped usher in the CD age :)

Wow, was it that early? For some reason I thought the first Stones CDs hit in '86. (They were so abysmal that I held off buying anything but the LONDON SINGLES box for years & years.) Your point would still be taken in either event, though... except for the Beatles Factor.*

*i.e., "don't you know, the Beatles did everything first!" ^_^

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Speaking of the Beatles, it was either here or elsewhere that somebody made a rather apt comment a week or two ago--that they helped usher in the CD age with the original reissue of their catalogue in '87, and that the reissues today will probably constitute the last great gasp of that age.

Well, the Rolling Stones' 1960s albums originally appeared on CD in 1984, so it can also be said that they helped usher in the CD age :)

Wow, was it that early? For some reason I thought the first Stones CDs hit in '86. (They were so abysmal that I held off buying anything but the LONDON SINGLES box for years & years.) Your point would still be taken in either event, though... except for the Beatles Factor.*

*i.e., "don't you know, the Beatles did everything first!" ^_^

I was referring to the Rolling Stones CDs that were released in West Germany by PolyGram in their 820XXX series. They sounded good; the American ABKCO CDs didn't, at least not to my ears.

Edited by J.A.W.
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