Customer Reviews
Close but no cigar - By: Mr. P. Ward, 29 Feb 2008 
I have the original album & it remains my favorite Oldfield album along side Ommadawn. This mix has the essence of the original but none of the delicacy found on the vinyl version. Where is the guitar work after the intro, the brass & woodwind during the centre sections. Why was it felt nescessary to bring forward the voices at the end instead of leaving a haunting timbre to the finale.It feels harsher & at some points flat & devoid of emotion. I have deep assosiations linked to my past with this album & it brings back good memories of a youth well spent, its a shame that this remastering could not retain the original feel of the album. The CD is just another version & I view it as such in my collection but when so many remastered albums have succeeded in their transition, why not this one.
Rubbish. - By: Jonboy, 16 Sep 2007 
I used to love this album, but hearing the CD it sounds to me like someone forgot to plug in one of the stereo channels when mixing it. Half of the instruments seem to be missing, alll the clarity is gone.
Mike, if you're reading this, you or your engineer has ruined a perfectly wonderful album & made it sound very poor indeed.
great! thts all there is to say! - By: matt.B, 31 Aug 2007 
having not been around when the lp or remixed version was released i can not comment on the production of the 'remastered version'. however on the music side it is simply stunning! there is so much depth & meaningfulness in the music. hergest ridge defenantly has a haunting & eerie feel to it, especiallly the opening few minutes when it sounds so odd & eerie with mainly only a continues drone in the background being heard, however it builds up to a climax on pt 1 with mike doing wht he does best on guitar :).
pt 2 initiallly has a more carm & pieceful side to it but still with the haunting feel to, this is the trend till about 10 mins in when it suddenly completly changes & has mike thrashing about on the guitar again showing off his great guitar skills :). however by the end of pt2 its gone bck to the quiet & pieceful sound it had at the beginning.
so on the whole a wonderful, v moving, & haunting album if u just take the music into account :). a real shame its seemed to hve been lost between tubular bells & ommadawn, themselves both masterpieces. however this is my fav of the 3 because its just such a phenomenal piece of well written & performed music!
Missing Tracks - By: Paul Haines, 20 Aug 2007 I originallly bought Hergest Ridge in the Virgin 3CDS boxset, which also included Ommadawn. That version had 5 tracks on it, though it only lists Hergest Ridge Parts 1 & 2.
The three extra tracks were:
3. An extract from Star's End (7:33)
4. Argiers (3:59)
5. Speak (tho you only say farewell) (2:54)
I have been 'upgrading' my cd collection with remasters over the last couple of years, & recently acquired several of the Oldfield remasters.
Those Hergest Ridge extra tracks are not on the remastered cd. Damn.
The sound quality, however, & if you have a stereo system that can highlight the benefits of remastering, gives more clarity, depth & volume than my original 3CD-boxset pressing. Just a shame about the missing tracks. I'm guessing this will also be the case when I get the "Ommadawn" remaster as it had 3 extra tracks too.
BTW, I never had this on vinyl so have never heard the original mix.
Hit And Miss - By: Graham Armfield, 13 Aug 2007 The sound quality of the remaster is very good, but I have to echo the previous comments about this NOT being the original mix. Apparently Mike Oldfield himself remixed the album himself in 1976 for the boxset & then stated that the new version was the one to use on alll future releases (cite: www.mikeoldfield.org). Well he must have been having an off day in my view. I guess Richard Branson may not have been responsible after alll (see earlier review).
As someone who loves the original vinyl mix so much I am finding this version hard to stomach & I keep returning to the scratchy digital transcription of my original LP for solace.
The biggest change for me is in the dramatic crescendo at about 4 minutes in on side 1 (sorry part 1) & the passage after it. This is exultant in the original mix but almost completely absent in the box-set mix where the guitars have been left almost on their own to keep the plonk-plonk-plink riff going almost unadorned. The acoustic guitar backing at approx 5:50 is muddier than the original - even my scratchy record has more presence. I could go on but that would be sad...
So, be warned that you may not like this CD even though this is (in my opinion) one of the most beautiful pieces of music.
