There is an ongoing discussion at Steve Hoffman’s forum about the new Fantasy CD, A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is supposedly a new mix from the original 3-track tapes. Aside from the sound, we’ve been debating whether or not some of the songs were alternate versions. The forum thread has links to a sound sample with an important difference we discovered.

Thanks to Mike Dow, I downloaded his two sound clips of the classic “Linus and Lucy” track and lined them up in Vegas, a sound and video editor. I hard-panned each version left and right for comparison, and the take used on the new Fantasy CD is a different version than what was on the original album. The original version, which still exists on the 1986 and 1988 CDs, and the recent SACD hybrid version, has a much better solo; on the remix, he sounds more tentative. Mike compared all the versions (including the two Monster versions), and did his own shootout which pretty much confirmed what a lot of us were hearing. (Note: I do not as of yet have the new Fantasy remix, but I will get it mainly for the alternate takes, and the fact that the original Fantasy LP cover art is restored.)

Throwing another wrench into the works is the Monster Music 2-disc set. This was released last year, and it was also remixed from the original 3-track master. There are a few odd things about the Monster set. First of all, the CD is just a reissue of the original Fantasy album. The DVD-V contains a high-res remix of the album at 96kHz/24bit. It also contains three surround mixes that use some digital soundfields to create a sense of space. The surround mixes, as you’d expect, are gimmicky and sound very odd. And yet, the 96/24 remix also sounds odd–it sounds digitized, and a bit antiseptic. It just doesn’t sound right. Even though the old Fantasy CDs have more hiss and sound a bit soft in the high end (Steve tells us the 2-track tapes were used so much that they have noticeably deteriorated over the years), they still sound more musical and less clinical than this Monster remix. And from what others are saying about the Fantasy CD, it uses the same mix, which sounds very “solid state”, without the old analog tube warmth the album was originally recorded and mastered with.

Just treat this as a “caveat emptor” for now. I’d still recommend the original CD versions if you want to hear the album as you remember it. The fact that the new Fantasy version, with its revisionist tinkering (alternate takes of the songs), will probably relegate the original album to grandma’s attic, makes the old versions that much more worth holding onto.