The Who – A Quick One Box

2008 Japanese double SHM-CD in collector's box with numerous replica mini-lp packaging.
Comes with obi-strip. Strictly limited edition, numbered.

[Box front]
"for collector's only"

[Box back]
"An ultimate retrospective of The Who's unique second album!
...contains 2 SHM-CD + original paper-sleeves of 7 LPs, 8 EPs & 12 Singles."

Tracks 1-1 to 1-10 originally released as Substitute.
Tracks 2-1 to 2-10 originally released as A Quick One.

Track 1-23 marked as 'Previously unreleased'.
Track 2-08 marked as 'Simulated Stereo'.

Production notes

In 1966 The Who's 2nd Album, A Quick One, marked a change in The Who's recording approach, and although re-recording songs that had previously been cut with Shel Talmy and discovering stereo as everyone was at the time, the addition of the Mini Opera demonstrated the path the band would eventually be taking.

Kit's early days in production used a lot of compression and plenty of mid-range EQ so re-mastering from these original mixes one is tempted to find some top and bottom (if it exists!) and to diminish the hard mid frequencies. However, in this collection, I have tried to be true to the period, so very little EQ has been used.

One or two things, like the "Ready, Steady, Who" tracks have been softened a little in the mids to help them fit and the opposite, of course, has been applied to the mixes that Andy Maherson and I did in the '90s~'00s which we have had to use where original stereo mixes do not exist.

The Stereo mixes from that period mainly come from the German Polydor archives; however the original stereo German Quick One LP tapes sound a little better than the tapes for the LP "The Who" where the stereo 'I'm A Boy' and 'In The City' came from.
I have spent some time finding the best-sounding tapes (and there are a lot of tapes) for this compilation but one or two things like a decent sounding Circles, Substitute (US Single version), and I'm A Boy (Alternate version) have been hard to find.

However plenty of original mixes were found. These tapes, like the mono and stereo LP mixes, were played on a slight modified Ampex ATR and the only EQ used was analogue with a Manley Massive ive or the Prism/Maselec MEA-2. I also used a Maselec 3 x band compressor on some of the newer mixes to age them a little.

The conversion to digital at 96k / 24bit is then through DCS converters and the last stage is through the TC 6000 where a little more volume is gained with the 5 band compressor / limiter before being recorded into my Sadie 5 system where the editing and any digital processing like de-click and retouch is done.

The Sadie processing does a very nice 96 to 44.1 conversion and finally the 24 bit audio is dithered down to 16 using Daniel Weiss's POW-r plug in.

Error-free DDP files are then burnt within the Sadie computer to a DVD-r to send off for replication.

Jon Astley 2008