Story

Back, when I was a little boy, I had this wonderful mix on tape. It was back in 1987-88 and I got it through a friend’s friend – or something. At that time, I didn’t know the name of the mix, I only knew that this was, one of – if not – the greatest Depeche Mode mix ever made.

The mix includes some early work of Depeche Mode and Yazoo with a bit of Bronski Beat. The mix contain tracks from various LPs, singles and official remixes. I know many of the tracks by heart, but are still amazed by the clever mixing of each track used.

The name of the mix is ‘Servant and Mastermix’, relased in 1987 on ‘ON-USound’.

About now

A few months ago, I’ve got me a fully working turntable and fetched me a bunch of old vinyl records from my cellar and played them all day long. Among the records, was the Servant and Mastermix.

I quickly sampled the mix onto my computer, cleaned it up a bit and then played it repeatedly.

After listening to it, and then some CDs, I discovered that the old vinyl sound was a bit dull and lacking of crisp sound details, possible due to a bit too much cleaning. The original record version is not good either – it has way too many cracks, hiss and pops, that makes it impossible to play it real loud.

I have several copies of the Servant and Mastermix, in various qualities and pressings, and by todays standard, the sound quality is somewhat horrible – even though the vinyl record has a more dynamic sound than the digital CD.

Something has to be done

Now, the ‘Servant and Re-Mastermix’ project … is born.