Jordan O'BrienIron Maiden has exclusively released its back catalogue in high resolution on Onkyo Music.
The back catalogue includes all 15 studio albums, two ‘Best Of’ compilations and two live albums, which were personally selected by Iron Maiden’s founding member Steve Harris.
The albums include Iron Maiden, Killers, The Number Of The Beast, Piece Of Mind, Powerslave, Somewhere In Time, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, No Prayer For The Dying, Fear Of The Dark, The X Factor, Virtual XI, Brave New World, Dance Of Death, A Matter Of Life And Death, The Final Frontier, Somewhere Back In Time, From Fear To Eternity, Live After Death and Rock In Rio.
Steve comments: “The high res mastering procedure allows the listener to experience the music as close as possible to the way the artist intended it to be heard. So of course I was very keen for the Maiden albums to be mastered in this way.”
The records have been available digitally before, when this medium first became a platform for music distribution but that was mastered with CDs in mind.
– Steve Harris
“For example, as most people know, I was never really happy with the sound on the first Maiden album but listening to it now, the guitars are louder, the drums more substantial and the overall tone is so very much improved in my opinion. Tony Newton and Ade Emsley who worked closely with me on the project did a terrific job recapturing everything from the original masters and together we’ve remastered them all digitally and I’m really happy with the results,” he continues.
Tony Newton adds: “The process started with locating all of the original album mix tapes (or whichever format they were mixed to). Then the choice of analogue to digital converter was chosen for the most accurate capture to make it as close as possible to the sound of the mix as it was intended by the band.
“When a lot of these tapes were last captured it was in the 1980’s, early days of digital and only 44.1kHz/16bit files were possible. On top of this the new A/D convertors are far superior now, and of course it is possible to produce files of far higher resolution.”
The result of this is that the songs now sound more defined with added depth and warmth.
– Tony Newton
“I was very excited to be asked to be part of this project, I honestly feel that there is a massive improvement in the quality of these classic albums.”
Onkyo Music and E-Onkyo is available in the UK, Germany, US and Japan, and is available in beta form at onkyomusic.com.