Propaganda – Outside World

Ye Gods, was there ever anyone as beautiful as Suzanne Freitag...

Actual times on this cd are as follows:
1 6:35
2 2:48
3 9:34
4 7:38
5 4:18
6 5:31
7 6:54
8 10:57
9 9:56
10 3:22
11 10:19

does this UK version have the same mastering/post-production errors on it as the German release from 2002?

Serious mastering errors here, and we know better quality master tapes exist because they have been released on other ZTT re-releases since.
There is massive over-compression, and volume issues due to the compression, bouncing up and down like a yo-yo.
There is weird time stretching-sounding errors throughout tracks 3 & 4, where the kick drum splays out and sounds double up for a millisecond.
There is audible distortion from 1k through to 8k, clipping on the transfer on every track.
The breaking up of held notes is noticable, especially on the intro to Duel - meaning the transfer had issues or there was some dithering issue in post.
Regardless of the quality of the master tapes they have used, these errors across all tracks are post-production mastering errors, they are not from the analog tape. The analog tapes would have been of varying quality, but they wouldn't all have oversampling errors on every track, like I can hear on this CD. Analog tape issues are wow, flutter, drop outs. Not the kind of errors we're hearing on this CD.
Poor quality, can't believe this got through quality control.

This release has some kind of digital/mastering errors on track 8.

You gotta that this special CD released almost 20 years later after the production. It is well known that analogue tapes can't last long. The meterial of the tape dis over the years, especially if it's not being held in special conditions. That's the reason of the bad quality in some parts, and the pitch problems (the tape can't run smoothly because it got glued to the other layers).

I guess that if they won't release this CD, and digitize all of this truelly brilliant metirial, it would be all lost, and we're talking about a piece of history, and not just about the real-good avangard music! So the sound may not be perfect, but the music covers it all.
They just don't make records like this anymore!

I like the tracks on the CD, but I don't like the overall quality. There is very much dynamics compression. On a few tracks, I can hear some fluttering and sound-doubling (like tape copy-through). Most people won't hear that but sensitive listeners might.

This CD could have been a brilliant release. It has the most appropriate title and feels like ZTT in the mid eighties. The release of all these 12" mixes and rare tracks was long overdue. One serious ommision was the Polish version of P:machinery (although this appeared on the T-empo remix CD). This is definitely a collection to dip in and out of not one to play from end to end. The biggest dissapointment to me was Complete Machinery which is the entire B-side of the P: Machinery (Beta Mix) 12" consisting of the introduction from the cassette, an instrumental seven inch version, frozen faces 12" version (which already appears earlier on the disc - madness) and the reprise to the Polish version (to add insult to injury). Not only this but the compilation is poorly executed. Listen to the beginning of Duel and Frozen Faces both are clumsily clipped. I'm glad it exists but come the time it is due for rerelease these silly mistakes should be rectified. The Germans had sense enough to include P:Machinery (Connected) instead. The first 1000 copies of this UK disc came with a DVD featuring five videos and two commercials in a silver gatefold digipak sleeve.