DUBCNN EXCLUSIVE: The Lara Lavi Interview! (Dr. Dre/Snoop/Death Row)

[JohnnyL]

so the re-lit bonus tracks were mastered? wow

Nope. They were NOT mastered... or mixed. It's absolutely mortifying, and completely unacceptable.   


John Payne was in charge of track selection and post-production for Re Lit, same with the free Vault downloadable tracks from deathrowmusic.com. He failed on both counts. When it came time for him to submit the bonus music to WIDEawake he stalled, then waited until the absolute last minute. At that point they reviewed what he submitted and to their horror the audio quality was terrible and the track selection was mediocre. But it was too late and the music had to go to press. When asked who [the fuck!] prepared these records, John Jayne informed WIDEawake he mixed them and mastered them ..............(speechless).

That hack isn't a mixing engineer, he isn't a mastering engineer, he's an incompetent over-the-hill recording engineer who has no business in senior management at WIDEawake and people should probably write letters telling them so.     

It's so sick and sad it's almost funny. Funny in that insanely hysterical, can't-fucking-believe-that-happened kind of way. 

 Interesting info.  I tend to think this must be true, given Lara Lavi's cryptic statement about John Payne only doing the mixing and mastering for Chronic: Re-Lit.  Her answer sounded overly diplomatic and at the time I read it, it didn't seem to make a lot of sense.  After all, that was one of the reasons they supposedly hired John Payne to begin with.
 After reading this, however, it makes a little more sense.  I remember before they had released any material, Lara Lavi talking in an interview about how they really wanted to focus on remastering everything better than it had previously been.  Personally, I don't have much of an ear for good or bad mixing.  But I've seen several people's posts saying that the mixing of the bonus tracks on Chronic: Re-Lit was not well executed.  If that's truly the case, they're obviously not going to keep him on (at least in that capacity) when one of their focuses was supposed to be professional remastering.

[ironmike]

if thats the case, then get rid of john payne.
i would much prefer bernie grundman & Brian Big Bass Gardner handle the mastering and mixing, since they were doing it for deathrow back in the day, and obviously were very good at what they do.

[acgrundy]

wow, some of you are talking about the bonus material like it is cassette tape rips of a radio recording.  Shit sounded fine to me.  I only listened to the bonus material on my computer, but I turn it up loud and it sounds fine.

[Al Bundy]

That's deep...

Although, I've heard the same story from a couple sources now. Really unfortunate. It's just little things like that which get me worried about the future of this company.

Yes, it's very disconcerting. WIDEawake is fully aware of the problem with John and the quality control which is why you're seeing Lara mention the new policy about using Bernie Grundman's facilities in post-production on all future releases. It isn't Lara's fault though, she was appalled when she heard the bonus material and since then she's been stymied by WIDEawake's Chairman in any attempt to "restructure" the current management.

She's the CEO and founder of that company. They have their hands in a lot not just Death Row, which is why they appointed John to oversee Death Row directly as Vice President. It's a real problem, he's fucking incompetent.

She said Brian Big Bass Gardner would be mixing and mastering all future releases

Which is a step in the right direction to be sure, but it's only a part of the equation. Brian is a mastering engineer, albeit the best Rap/Hip-Hop mastering engineer, but a mastering engineer none the less.  These records also need to be professionally mixed down by industry leading mixing engineers like Tommy D.

Brian Gardner is so talented and experienced that hopefully if he notices problems with the audio upon receiving it he'll say something to Lara who can in turn implement a new "company policy" with respect to mixing.


God help us if John is insisting on mixing this Snoop record. If he fucks up "Doggystyle" the same way he fucked up "Poor Young Dave" I'll fly to Toronto and beat him to death myself. I'll also loose all faith in this company's ability to manage a record.
   
 

LMAO

[Dre-Day]

all the bonus material on chronic relit sounded absolutely terrible, like it'd been recorded off an ancient dat tape in low quality.

that 'smoke on' track from the clean edition was pretty much unlistenable.

you're a sound expert, but Poor young dave is definitely a lot better quality than this:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/j7msF87zMgg" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/j7msF87zMgg</a>

[LONDON!!]

http://dubcnn.com/
http://www.dubcnn.com/interviews/laralavi



Dubcnn had the honor and privilege of getting an exclusive interview with Lara Lavi, the new owner of Death Row Records. As many of you know, WIDEawake/Death Row just released Dr. Dre’s The Chronic – Re-Lit, packaged with 7 unreleased Death Row songs and a DVD titled From The Vault earlier this week. So, in true Dubcnn fashion, it’s only right that we catch up with Lara Lavi to discuss her feelings about the aforementioned release, how much involvement Dr. Dre may have had, her thoughts on Daz and the Neu-Ro situation, as well as what the plans are for the future releases of former Death Row artists like Lady of Rage, Crooked I, Danny Boy and even MC Hammer.

We also talk about the upcoming Snoop Doggy Dogg – The Death Row Lost Sessions release, which is scheduled to drop in October, what WIDEawake/Death Row is actually able to release of Dr. Dre material, and the break down of what the company’s new ownership entails. You definitely don’t want to miss out on this exclusive interview!

http://www.dubcnn.com/interviews/laralavi/

good interview, lara lavi sounds like she's on a level, that was very informative, hopefully a lot of unreleased shit gets release, for real and artists get paid accordinly

[JohnnyL]

all the bonus material on chronic relit sounded absolutely terrible, like it'd been recorded off an ancient dat tape in low quality.

that 'smoke on' track from the clean edition was pretty much unlistenable.

you're a sound expert, but Poor young dave is definitely a lot better quality than this:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/j7msF87zMgg" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/j7msF87zMgg</a>

Yeah. To be honest, I thought the bonus tracks sounded fine.  But as I said before, I don't really have an ear for good remastering or mixing.  Obviously there are people on this forum that are much more into sound quality than a lot of us.  And I trust that they do know what they're talking about.  But to me, average joe listener, I thought it sounded pretty good.  I guess the important thing is the people at Wideawake are taking steps to correct the problem.  Hopefully, for the people who notice things like this, the Snoop Doggy Dogg album will be an improvement.

[Dre-Day]

all the bonus material on chronic relit sounded absolutely terrible, like it'd been recorded off an ancient dat tape in low quality.

that 'smoke on' track from the clean edition was pretty much unlistenable.

you're a sound expert, but Poor young dave is definitely a lot better quality than this:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/j7msF87zMgg" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/j7msF87zMgg</a>

Yeah. To be honest, I thought the bonus tracks sounded fine.  But as I said before, I don't really have an ear for good remastering or mixing.  Obviously there are people on this forum that are much more into sound quality than a lot of us.  And I trust that they do know what they're talking about.  But to me, average joe listener, I thought it sounded pretty good.  I guess the important thing is the people at Wideawake are taking steps to correct the problem.  Hopefully, for the people who notice things like this, the Snoop Doggy Dogg album will be an improvement.

yeah i wonder whether Wideawake is going to do anything about the mistake on the DVD ( the same version of Dre Day is on there, twice).
not that it's a huge problem for me.

[sweetdudejim]

Regardless of whether they actually can release it, have WideAwake said if they are in possession of any Helter Skelter or Chronic II tracks?

And as far as we know, what are the Dr. Dre outtakes we know of from Death Row?

[Mista Rosa]

on the booklet of re-lit snoop doggy dogg is several times mispelled as "snoop doggy dog" damn that's fucked up !! they should fix that cause it's unprofesional. that's the first thing i saw when i opened the cd damn can't they read the booklet before printed it?

[Efrain]

Regardless of whether they actually can release it, have WideAwake said if they are in possession of any Helter Skelter or Chronic II tracks?

And as far as we know, what are the Dr. Dre outtakes we know of from Death Row?

According to the asset pdf's they are only in possession of three Dre songs from the Helter Skelter album--presumably the only ones that were actually recorded. 1) Natural Born Kilaz, 2) Can't See Me, 3) Endonesia. There is also a dat listed simply as "dre/sam/cube" so my guess is as good as yours there.

As far as Chronic II it appears they don't a have a single song from it.  

[Blasphemy]

Well I heard some of the Promos were sold in auctions when it came to The Chronic 2, but My Life, California Love (og) and a couple of others should still be in the vaults.

[sweetdudejim]

Regardless of whether they actually can release it, have WideAwake said if they are in possession of any Helter Skelter or Chronic II tracks?

And as far as we know, what are the Dr. Dre outtakes we know of from Death Row?

According to the asset pdf's they are only in possession of three Dre songs from the Helter Skelter album--presumably the only ones that were actually recorded. 1) Natural Born Kilaz, 2) Can't See Me, 3) Endonesia. There is also a dat listed simply as "dre/sam/cube" so my guess is as good as yours there.

As far as Chronic II it appears they don't a have a single song from it.  

May I ask if you could post the the asset pdf's, as i've never seen it before. And now thinking about it, I doubt there is any Chronic II stuff in the vaults due to it being recorded at Dre's house. So yeah, anyways if I could check out those pdf's that would be awesome. And also, what era is the song "OG to BG" by Dre and Tha Dogg Pound from?

[LONDON!!]

i hope they release the 2pac one nation album in its original format, production and whatever, how pac wanted it to be released