One Little Victory (5:08)
Ceiling Unlimited (5:28)
Ghost Rider (5:41)
Peaceable Kingdom (5:23)
The Stars Look Down (4:28)
How It Is (4:05)
Vapor Trail (4:57)
Secret Touch (6:34)
Earthshine (5:38)
Sweet Miracle (3:40)
Nocturne (4:49)
Freeze (Part IV of "Fear") (6:21)
Out Of The Cradle (5:03)
GEDDY LEE
bass guitar, vocals
ALEX LIFESON
electric and acoustic guitars, mandola
NEIL PEART
drums and cymbals
Music by Lee and Lifeson, Lyrics by Peart
Produced by Rush and Paul Northfield
Recorded by Paul Northfield, Geddy Lee, and Alex Lifeson, at Reaction Studios, Toronto, January - November, 2001, assisted by Chris Stringer
Mixed by David Botrill
Assistant engineer: Mike Monson
Mastered by Andy VanDette
Management by Ray Danniels, SRO Management, Toronto
Executive Production by Anthem Entertainment: Liam Birt and Pegi Cecconi
Equipment care and feeding by Lorne (Gump) Wheaton
Art Direction, paintings, and portraits by Hugh Syme
Reissue design by Lisa Gines
Thanks to everyone at Reaction Studios: Ormond, Claire, Chris, and Jeff, and everyone at SRO: Ray Danniels, Pegi Cecconi, Sheila Posner, Andy Curran, Meg Symsyk, Cynthia Barry, Shelley Nott, Steve Hoffman, Bob Farmer, Randy and Frances Rolfe.
As always, we owe our families a huge debt of love, gratitude, appreciation, and attention. We also owe them an apology.
For technical help and contributions, our thanks to Jim Burgess and Ed Wilson at Saved By Technology, Andrew MacNaughtan, Barry and b. zee brokerage, Paul Reed Smith, Fender bass guitars, Coll Audio, Tyme Rogers at Tech 21, Mackie Digital Systems, Steve and Mark at Hughes and Kettner amplification, Dean Markley, Sean Browne at Yamaha, Drum Workshop, Avedis Zildjian, Promark, Remo, Roland electronic percussion, and - Ω™
Still brought to you by the letter "3"
© 2013 Atlantic Records © 2013 Anthem Entertainment
Notes
- Atlantic/Anthem, September 30, 2013
- Released September 30, 2013; the following week, Vapor Trails Remixed landed on the Billboard Top 200 chart at #35, at #3 on Billboard's Hard Rock Albums chart, and #9 on both Billboard's Top Rock Albums and Tastemaker Albums charts.
- Atlantic Records issued a limited edition Vapor Trails Remixed Lithograph which was free with the purchase of the CD at local record stores while supplies lasted. The litho is album cover sized, and is also embossed and has a high gloss coating over the text and fireball, and a dull coating over the rest of the background. A very nice gift provided you happened to stumble upon it at your local neighborhood record store.
- Click here for the history of the Vapor Trails mix.
- Click here for the 'Vapor Trails Remixed' Transcript Archive.
In Their Own Words
"The band had recently been overseeing a remixed version of our Vapor Trails album, from 2002, as we had never been happy with how it turned out. I found that trying to listen to those songs again was too upsetting, taking me back to a mindset and emotional state that hadn't been good to live through then, or to relive now. I had to 'recuse' myself from those judgments, and the Guys at Work understood, of course." - Neil Peart's News, Weather and Sports, July 30, 2013
"Vapor Trails was an album made under difficult and emotional circumstances - sort of like Rush learning how to be Rush again - and as a result, mistakes were made that we have longed to correct. David Bottrill's remixes have finally brought some justice and clarity to this deserving body of our work...Every song has been given a new life, from the fire of 'One Little Victory,' 'Secret Touch,' and 'Ceiling Unlimited' to the melodic musicality of 'Sweet Miracle' and 'How It Is'...these songs have been redeemed. Thank you David!" - Geddy Lee, Rush.com, August 1, 2013
"When I approach any mix, I will reference any rough or previous mix lightly, to find balance or tones that the client might like. But in this case, I was aware that the band weren't happy with the final mixes they had, so I just approached it fresh with little referencing to the originals. My philosophy was that they didn't like what they had, so I would just work with the material they gave me and do what I thought would work best for each song. The first mix took the longest to complete, but that was only a couple of days. Once we were into the groove, the band usually only had little tweaks or suggestions and went mostly with what I presented them with. There was very little direction prior to starting. I did a test mix for them as did some other engineers and producers. They liked most of them, but I think that they had wanted to try to work with me for some time, so perhaps that swayed their opinion towards my mix as opposed to others. Andy Curran, who works with the band, is also a friend of mine and I think he was pulling for me to do the remix as well - and this may have had an influence. Nothing new was added. The band weren't present for the mixes as they were mostly on tour, so there would have been no opportunity to do any further recording...[Regarding the "new" guitar solo heard in "Ceiling Unlimited"] It sounded good to me. As I said, I just worked with the material they gave me. I didn't really check the originals to see what they used or didn't use. I liked that solo and put it in. I don't think many people have complained about that one so far. When a record is made, often times there are things that are recorded that are left out of the final mix. I had no attachment to the older mixes or what was left in or out. I just put in all the mixes what I thought worked the best. I don't think I left much out from the tracks they gave me. There was no really grand plan for the mixes. I just tried to make the songs all shine as much as I could. There was some talk in the fan press that the tracks were distorted in the recording process or that there have been new recordings done. Neither is true. The source recordings are top quality and we didn't add anything new from those early recordings." - David Botrill, Popdose.com, October 7, 2013
"Vapor Trails. I remember hearing it before it came out, and thinking 'Wow, I guess this is why I will never work with Rush.' The snare and vocal were so overshadowed by low end....I see why they had a hard time remastering the original mixes. So much of their energy is in the bottom octave 20-40Hz. You can roll it off, but so much of the mixes' punch came from that. It was just mixed that way. The David Bottrill remixes are very well balanced and musical." - Andy VanDette, Masterdisk remastering engineer, TheMasterdiskRecord.com, October 1, 2013
Vapor Trails Remaster/Remix History
May 14, 2002: Vapor Trails is released.
"'Geddy went away to do the mastering. I went away on a golfing trip as soon as we finished (last February),' Lifeson says. 'It had been 14 months (making the record), and in the past, we spent four to six months making a record ... I just had to go. I felt badly, because everything was dumped on Geddy, to do the mastering and make all those decisions.' Even as he was hitting the links, Lifeson was on the phone four or five times a day with Lee, who was forced to deal with unexpected glitches that didn't emerge until late in the recording process. 'We found problems that we didn't hear in mixing that were apparent in mastering. To get the kind of levels (we wanted), we had digital distortion. We remixed a couple of songs half-way through the mastering, through the remix, back to mastering,' says Lifeson. 'The poor guy (Lee) was doing this on his own. It really shook him up...He said: 'I don't know what to think. I think it's awful.'" - Jam Showbiz, Lifeson on the making of Rush's 'Vapor Trails', May 7, 2002
"I now have a 2001 Audi A6 4.2...It has their upgraded Bose system. It's a great system. I'm in that car listening all the time, listening to mixes. I base all of my decisions on what I hear in that car." - Alex Lifeson, RoadGearMag.com, May 2002
August 2002: The first rumblings of the mastering problems and being a victim of the "loudness wars".
"This is easily my favorite collection of Rush songs in years, maybe decades. It's incredible work and I earnestly hope it reflects a new and sustainable direction for this great band. However there was one fact that the reviewers had all left out: this CD sounds like dogshit. Perhaps you think I'm being a little strong. I think not. This is without prefix or suffix the worst sounding Rush CD ever made. In fact it is so bad that I cannot listen to more than a few songs before I just have to turn it off. What's the cause of this sonic catastrophe? There's no secret here: loudness. Vapor Trails is just the latest CD to fall victim to the current craze of LOUDER IS BETTER production. Rush is not alone. Most of the current crop of rock CDs have been punished by the LOUDER IS BETTER process..." - Rip Rowan, "Over The Limit", ProRec.com, August 31, 2002
July 2004: Atlantic announces it will reissue the first five Atlantic era Rush studio albums (Presto through Vapor Trails ).
August 31, 2004: Without explanation Vapor Trails is not included among the Atlantic reissues.
March 2005: Atlantic adds a preorder link for the Vapor Trails remaster on its website, and an anonymous source close to the band confirms to Power Windows that "its release is imminent".
May 16, 2005: Atlantic Records once again delays the release of the Vapor Trails Remaster . An anonymous source close to the band confirms to Power Windows that the album has been remastered, but that Atlantic decided to delay releasing the remaster as there are apparently plenty of the original still in stock. Those who preordered the remaster from the Atlantic website received the following email:
January 2006: The first admission from the Rush camp that there is a problem with the mastering:
"I didn't hear it until it was all said and done, at which point the record company was over the moon with it, saying it was fantastic, let's get it out there...To me it's guilty as charged. All you can say is decisions were made at the time, everybody was just really tired and we did what we felt was right, and then given a month or two's hindsight we found it was wrong." - Paul Northfield (Producer of Vapor Trails ), Chemistry (published January 2006)
April 2007: The first comment from a band member that they are displeased with the sound of Vapor Trails :
"For me it's really a sonic issue: it was mastered much too hot; it's too loud and it eats away at us and we want to address that - and maybe for no other reason than it would just make us sleep peacefully at night." - Alex Lifeson, Metal Edge Magazine, April 2007
December 2008: "One Little Victory" and "Earthshine" are remixed for Retrospective III ; Alex Lifeson first discusses the possibility of a complete Vapor Trails "remix" as opposed to a simple "remaster" (i.e. going back to the original master tapes):
"You know, Rich Chycki just remixed a couple of the songs for the retrospective that's coming out, and he did such a great job that we're so tempted to just remix that album, because we've never been pleased with the mix, and particularly the mastering on it. It's a dangerous precedent that you set by doing that, because you want to go back and re-do a bunch of things. We were never happy with that one. There are a lot of reasons for that. We're to blame for a lot of that. The way we recorded it was very impulsive. We didn't spend a lot of time on getting sounds, and we used a lot of the stuff that we did in the writing phase, rather than re-recording things. So, to maintain the pure energy of what those ideas were, we gave up a bit on the sonic end. But, Rich just has this way of mixing and hearing this band that translates so well into our heads. He did a great job. He remixed 'One Little Victory,' and 'Earthshine'. They sound so big and powerful and heavy and thick and round. Whereas, the original recordings are very compressed, and a little bright and scratchy. So, we listened to those and we thought 'well, look, what is the point in remixing it really? We would just be doing it for ourselves...and...so...well, ok why not - let's do it!' So, we're sort of toying with the idea, when we have some spare time, of just remixing that whole album, just for our own peace of mind...That record was a very emotional record for us, and it was very fragile. From the heavy stuff to the more melodic stuff, it was a very fragile representation of the band, in the way it was recorded. In mastering, unfortunately, it was a contest, and it was mastered too high, and it crackles, and it spits, and it just crushes everything. All the dynamics get lost, especially anything that had an acoustic guitar in it. Anyways, it's something that we're thinking about. We're kind of busy right now, we have our hands full. But it's certainly something that, once we have some spare time, we could get Rich working on. He and I are doing a lot of stuff together these days." - Alex Lifeson, Modern Guitars, December 2008
February 2011: A complete Vapor Trails remix reissue is announced, but no release date given :
"Rush are planning to totally remix their 2002 album Vapor Trails...guitarist Alex Lifeson revealed: 'We were never happy with the production. Perhaps we should have taken more time over the record. But now we've got the chance to improve things. There will be no re-recording, just a remix'." - ClassicRock.com, February 3, 2011
"A while back, I re-mixed One Little Victory and Earthshine from Rush's 2002 release Vapor Trails to be included on their 2009 release Retrospective 3 . The re-mixes were very well-received so the band has decided to let me move ahead and re-mix the remainder of the CD. To put rumors to rest, there was no re-recording or performance correction done on the first two tracks and that will continue for the remainder of the CD. The reason 'new' details may seem to have appeared in those songs is due to the fact that I listened to the multitracks and interpreted the mix structure without first analyzing the original [deliberately] - so tracks either muted or turned down in the original mixes may shine through differently (the acoustic guitars in Earthshine might be a good example of this). As well, the same technical tweaks will continue for the remaining songs and I still will not have a buss limiter on the mix set to stun. In any case, both the band and I are really excited to re-visit Vapor Trails and hope you'll all enjoy the re-mix." - Rhichard Chycki, richardchycki.com, February 4, 2011
February 2011: Alex discusses the remix at length with Gibson.com:
"Well, we've been toying with that idea for quite a few years now. And there was initially no interest from the record company in rereleasing it. It's a little bit of a dance that we would have needed to do without their support in terms of releasing it and getting the releases for it. The thing about that, I mean, you walk a very narrow line... That album's almost ten years old. It's a very, very important record for us. There's a lot of emotion on that. We were coming back after a very difficult period in the band's history and certainly in Neil's life. So for us, there's a great deal invested in that record and it's very, very special. And in a lot of ways, I wouldn't want to change anything, because it was recorded in such a way that we captured the very essence of what we were doing at that time. You know, you could say that that album is sixty percent demos, because really that's kind of what it was. Most of that record was what we wrote. We didn't rerecord it. It was the most basic essence of the idea. And that's what was really special. But sometimes when you do that, you're not really aware or conscious of production merits, sounds, spending time creating sounds and, you know, developing that end of it. So consequently, the record suffered a little bit from production or lack of production. And when it went to mastering, it was mastered very hot and all we hear is the little bits of distortion here and there, and these compromises that were made on production. It's always bothered us, so we thought [we would consider it after hearing] a couple of songs that Rich Chycki remixed. They were really a lot closer to the way we always would have liked to have heard that record, you know? And we talked about it and so we decided, 'Let's just - you know what, if it's just for the three of us - let's just remix the record so we're happy with it. At least we know that we've done it, that we've got that out of our system. We'll pay for it. It's no big deal. Let's just do it.' You could say that of any record. Go back and remix Caress of Steel or something, but I don't know. Something about Vapor Trails... We just don't feel like we serviced the record properly and we want to give it another breath. And I know it upsets a lot of fans. It goes both ways: I hear from a lot of fans who think it's just a great a idea and they can't wait to hear it, and others who say, 'Why are you touching this record? You should not touch this record.'" - Alex Lifeson, Gibson.com, February 18, 2011
May 2012: Ten years after the original release, it is again discussed with no release in sight:
"We've been talking about [the Vapor Trails remix] for years but every time we try to make a move on it something else comes up and because it's a back burner issue it gets left. We were very close a while back and Rich was going to start remixing it when we finished [Clockwork Angels] but other things were slotted in but we'll get to it one of these days." - Alex Lifeson, Metal Express Radio , May 21, 2012
"[Remixing Vapor Trails and including it in a deluxe edition of Clockwork Angels ] was an idea but it's now been shifted down. Rather than remix the entire album we might now take a bunch of different songs from albums and get different people to remix them for fun, rather than just do Vapor Trails. It's an idea in flux." - Geddy Lee, Prog #26, June 2012
"We've already remixed a few songs. The idea was to do it as a tagalong with [Clockwork Angels], maybe. That was one of the options that we talked about. But the schedule just keeps getting in the way of something like that. Because it's not really a priority. We'd like to do it, I think, for all the right reasons. We're not happy with the mastering. We felt that the production could've been a bit better, and we'd like to have another crack at it. But the longer we get away from it, the less appealing the idea is. Maybe it's best to leave it as it is. There's something that's very compelling about that record. It's the least-produced record that we've ever done. But in a way that's the right thing, for the moment. It was a very, very difficult time, and that record should sound and feel very different from anything else that we've done." - Alex Lifeson, RollingStone.com, June 18, 2012
"...it is a war. Vapor Trails [2002], for example, was mastered so hot, it really wrecked the album. I can't listen to that record. It's so flat and has so much distortion that we really want to remix that record. It was out of our hands when it was mastered, and the mastering engineer did a poor job. He's the first one to admit it. He really pushed it." - Alex Lifeson, Stereophile , September 2012
May 2013: The album is "mastered for iTunes", by Andy VanDette:
"These are the original mixes, but with a much different treatment. For what it is worth...A typical album takes me about 8 hours to master. I spent 4 days on VT, trying to find a way to emphasize the positive, and downplay the negative, with a 'car test' every morning on my way in to the studio. I knew this album in particular would receive tremendous scrutiny. Being a musician, growing up on the other side of Niagara Falls from the band, Rush had a huge influence on me. I hope I have done their catalog justice. Check it out. I hope you will agree that VT sounds much less 'overblown'. I tried to design it to be more open and dynamic. I hope you enjoy it." - Andy VanDette, Chief Mastering Engineer, Masterdisk NYC via email May 21, 2013
July 2013: Neil Peart indicates the band have been reviewing a new remix.
August 1, 2013: Rush finally announce the October 1 release of Vapor Trails Remixed.
September 30, 2013: Vapor Trails Remixed is released.
This is a collection of transcripts of magazine and newspaper articles and other media related to this release or coinciding with the time frame surrounding it. This is an ongoing work in progress; feel free to email any suggested additions.