Customer Reviews

Abraxas

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Columbia/Legacy has restored some of the best music in its catalogue, and this album gets a royal treatment. The three bonus tracks are from a live performance and give you a taste of the band's stage persona, but the sound quality is tweeked to perfection, if you have the old one, this is well worth the price. This album is essential to anyone concerned with an eclectic mix of rock. Blues influences are predominant, but the mix of jazz-fusion and Afro-latin rhythms make every track listenable and exciting. If your going to buy one Santana album, this is the one to start with, then go to his first and third albums. The rest will work out in time. A wonderful remastering to one of the greatest albums of all-time.

This album, along with the first and third Santana albums, is Carlos at his best. I consider this original line up of Santana's band to be the best. Songs like "Incident at Neshabur" and "Se A Cabo" burn with a firey Latin intensity. There is GREAT singing and Hammond organ playing from Gregg Rolie on just about every song. Another highlight is "Hope You're Feeling Better", a more "straight-ahead" rocker-less "Latin-sounding" than most Santana songs. Also, the live bonus tracks are a real treat. The remastered sound quality is PRISTINE on the studio tracks- a real treat to hear that great Santana percussion so crystal-clear. While you listen to this album, marvel over how each song has such a "live" feel to it, not the sterility of many studio albums. It almost sounds as if the band is plugged in and playing live at your house! I can't recommend this highly enough-as well as Santana I and III. Do yourself a favor and get them ALL!

Wow what an album! Recorded in 1970, it proves that great musicianship is timeless and always delightful to hear. Carlos Santana is one of the greatest guitarists of the 20th century and he shows his technique here especially in "Black Magic Woman". Gregg Rollie (sp) blends his vocal talent perfectly to the style of music that Santana was playing. This is a great CD to any Rock-N-Roll fan especially on the end of the CD when you hear "Black Magic Woman" recorded live. A must have!

I'm not sure why reviews of the gold, DTS and other versions are all on this page when clearly this page refers to the re-issued "re-mastered" 1998 version with bonus tracks but in any case, I'll review this version in case anyone's interested.

The cd itself has got great liner notes explaining a brief early history of Santana which is a nice touch. The bonus tracks, all previously unreleased, actually enhance the listening experience which seldom results as many other attempts at adding bonus tracks to otherwise classic albums tend to take away somewhat from the overall quality of the album. Also, given the fact that these last 3 tracks were recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, the sound quality is very good.

However, it's with the main course of this meal and not the dessert that I have my beef with. I don't know how much of this is due to a severely deteriorated master source but the sound quality of the album proper (i.e. the first 9 tracks) is quite poor. The volume levels are low overall and the bass seems to overpower everything else.

To its credit, nowhere on the cd does it claim that this album has been remastered only that it has been mastered by Vic Anesini which gives us hope that the powers that be can still seek out a better master source from the vaults or do a proper remastering job with today's state of the art equipment to truly do justice to this brilliant classic rock album.

And now to the quality of the songs: Carlos Santana who once played with Miles Davis is very obviously heavily influenced by him, Tito Puente and Gabor Szabo (Gypsy Queen) and this is very evident on this album. Peter Green from the original Fleetwood Mac and the composer of "Black Magic Woman" was also involved in the making of this cover version of his song which is arguably even better than the original which may not be the case for the other cover "Oye Como Va" wherein Tito Puente's version with lots more percussion probably is better and yet both tracks are every upcoming guitarist's dream jam songs.

Speaking as a guitarist myself I can tell you that there are few joys that surpass that of jamming to "Oye Como Va" with a band and "Black Magic Woman" is one of the first songs that I learnt to play note-for-note when I first started playing years ago. Although most people remember the album for these 2 tracks, the rest of the tracks are also very good and "Samba Pa Ti" is just a brilliant piece of mood music and great tone and phrasing on the part of Carlos on guitar.

There is little doubt in my mind that Santana will make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame soon if they are not already in there and that this album will be the main reason why. My recommendation is to wait for the May release of this album on mini lp sleeve replica and hopefully with better sound quality by our friends in Japan who tend to do a better job of sound production generally and so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, having already pre-ordered my copy.

If you don't mind too much about sound quality, then go ahead and get this album if you are a fan of great classic rock and/or you are an aspiring rock guitarist as this is essential listening if you belong to either category.

Recommended.

If you're not anal about sound quality then please skip this review.

That said, this DTS disc sounds terrible. Why?

1- If you're even vaguely familiar with this album or the songs, you will hardly recognize them here. The multi-channel mix is way out of phase from the original stereo mix; in other words, they sound totally different from each other.

2- This disc doesn't have the fidelity of the SONY re-mastered Abraxas. The tape hiss is very noticeable, and the overall sound is very dull. Just compare this disc with the newer re-mastered version and you will hear the difference immediatley.

Save your money and "maybe" someday SONY will release a multi-channel SACD from the same source as the rather excellent re-mastered cd.

This is a review of the sound quality of the latest MoFi remastering of this album, NOT a review of the merit or stature of Abraxas (we already know it is classic).

Having had several iterations of this album over the years, most recently the last Sony remaster, this MoFi blows everything else away. Incredible clarity, great 3-dimensional imaging... it's hard to believe that after all these years, Sony hasn't been able to get so much musical information out of the mastertape for their previous releases of Abraxas and that MoFi just did. I should note that the earlier MoFi release of this paled in comparison. It was surpassed by the last remastering of Abraxas that Sony did, BUT it was state of the art at time of release, and that's been many, many years ago... FIVE STARS!!!

In my humble opinion, this is the finest album by Santana. The music is an absolutely fabulous fusion of latin/caribbean rythms and rock. And no one can get into the meaning of a note the way Carlos Santana can. I have owned this album on vinyl, CD, SACD, and now on DTS. The music is 5 star, and this is truly an essential album in any collection.

However, THE POWERS THAT BE in the music industry really blew it both when they converted the album to SACD and to DTS. To my ears, when THE POWERS produced the SACD, rather than go back to the original analog master tapes, they went back to a 24 bit/44.1k digital master used to make the CD. On my near audiophile system, I hear no discernable difference between the CD and the SACD. No matter how good the SACD format sounds, it cannot sound better than the source material. Garbage in, garbage out!

With the DTS version, THE POWERS THAT BE made a different mistake. On the positive side, some of what is on the DTS version is absolutely amazing. Notes and instruments and some vocals which were edited out of the original album show up, making a different experience and take on the music. However, it appears they forgot to mix in the bass. What is there sounds like blead over of the bass picked up on different microphones, or the engineer/producer or someone really didn't know the sound of the original album when they mixed this version. Santana's work is very dense, with tons of percussion and Santana's incredible guitar work. The bass anchored and gave the rest of the music a primal feel. Its absence on the DTS is really missed, and leaves the music feeling incomplete.

So, I give this version of Abraxas 3 stars for the mistakes.

how could the person(s) responsible for 5.1 surround mix screw up it up so bad? this was one of rocks greatist albums, now in 5.1 dts format it is a sad joke. i couldn't believe my ears! the tape hiss from the front right end of the mix is unexcusable. did the person remixing pretend it wasn't there? and what were they thinking adding the phase-shifter to Santana's guitar during the Black Magic Women outro? hey dont get me wrong, i'm one for dynamic surround effects, but this stuff is rediculious! the overall sound is thin and sometimes sounds like its coming from the next room. be warned this mix is awfull. the slick guitar feedback that segways into Oye Como Va was also tampered with. please Sony take another crack at this masterpiece.

This isn't a review of Abraxas, if you need to see one of those, there are plenty of those around. BTW, I think Abraxas on it's own is is four and one-half stars.

This is a review of the of Abraxas in DTS. Sound is something that has always intrigued me. In the early 1970's, stereo companies were experimenting with quadraphonic sound, with Columbia Records producing more than anyone else. While the quad records had some walkover of sounds from one speaker to the other, the quad tapes had their sounds wonderfully separated.

Abraxas, with the chimes, swirls of sounds, and organs resonating at full-force was one of the best of the quad records.

When I saw Abraxas on DTS with 5:1 sound, I jumped at the opportunity to own it. I have a 5:1 DTS Yamaha Stereo Receiver (5280) at home, but it is in my car (Acura TL with the ELS 5:1 DTS CD/DVD Player) that this CD really shines. Whereas the sounds were somewhat separate on the record, they are distinctly separate on the DTS system: so crisp and so clear that you can close your eyes and envision yourself sitting in the midst of Santana playing around you.

If you truly enjoy the sound of music taken to the "next level," get yourself a DTS system, and make Abraxas your first DTS CD. You will not be disappointed.

Okay, my turn to chime in. For me, this is multi-channel (SACD, DVD-AUDIO or DTS) disc number 72 for me. I purchased the re-packaged (long, slim jewel case) DTS CD and popped it into my player. I do not have the 2 channel SACD to use for comparison but I do have the regular remastered CD. This mix presents a wildly un-musical, psychedelic=like four channel guitar panning, throwing Carlos' guitar solos all over the place. In is a little unsettling. But the first thing you will notice on BLACK MAGIC WOMAN is that the .1 channel is almost non-existent. Gone is the wonderfully fat bass line, especially those G's (G1 on your piano keyboard). Also gone is the low thump of the bass drum. It's like listening to Santana perform and having the bassist playing about 20 feet behind them with his amp turned down really low. I had to crank my Velodyne WAAAAY up to match the SPLs of the 2 channel CD. Although the timbre of the instruments is really top notch on this release, Abraxas deserved a much better remastering than it received here. In my own opinion, this release and Wings' VENUS & MARS are DTS' worst 5.1 CDs on the market.