Tom Petty - Highway Companion [HDTracks] (2015)

Highway Companion, Tom Petty's third solo album, was recorded at Bungalow Palace and Shoreline Recorders in Los Angeles, CA. Jeff Lynne produced the album with Tom Petty and Mike Campbell. Both "Saving Grace" and "Big Weekend" were released to radio as singles. The record peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart and hit number one on the US Rock Albums chart in 2006.

Recorded between 2005-2006 at Bungalow Palace and Shoreline Recorders in Los Angeles, CA.

Producer’s Note: Tom Petty Hi-Res Remastering
The Hi-Res (24bit 96K) remastering of the Tom Petty catalog reveals a level of detail that was only previously heard by a select group of musicians, producers and engineers in the studio. It’s as close to the sound of original stereo master as you can get. We’re very happy with the way it came out, and believe it’s an important way to preserve the legacy of this great body of work.

If hearing the highest possible sound quality is important to you, then this is where you’ll get it.

The remastering was done in the fall of 2014 by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. I supervised it and Tom approved it. Great care was taken to find the original first-generation masters and transfer them with minimal eq and little or no dynamic range compression. In cases where the first-generation masters were unusable, we used the best sounding second-generation masters.*

To allow for full dynamic range, and to let the music “breathe” the Hi-Res versions have about 6-8db less digital level than a typical “loud” peak-limited CD or mp3. To enjoy these albums to their fullest extent, play them back though a good system and turn up the volume.

With this increased level of detail and sonic impact, we hope you'll enjoy rediscovering these great albums as much as we did!

—Ryan Ulyate, April 2014

*With regard to the included tape box notes: The note on the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers album tape box that says “use instead new remastered digital” most likely relates to 16 bit 44.1K remastering done for CD in the early 2000’s –from that 1/4" analog EQ copy. Obviously we were not going to use a digital source for our remastering, so we ignored that note. Please understand that these tape boxes have all sorts of notes and things done to them over the years. We don’t want to destroy that “archeological record” so the note was left intact on the box. Unfortunately, the original tape is unplayable. The EQ copy was from the original mastering in 1976, so every version of this album that has been released was generated from this tape. This is the sound of this record! This is also the case with “Southern Accents”, 3 sides of “Pack Up The Plantation” and “You’re Gonna Get It”, where EQ copies from the original mastering sessions were the best source. Everything else in the catalog was generated from the original first-generation masters.