remaster ... disaster

[Deleted]

Is the average remaster sounding better because of better processing techniques and mastering techniques and progression in knowledge and equipment ?
The remasters I have I compared to the original albums.

My conclusion:

remasters are NOT for audiophiles but intended for the masses and instead of remaster they should call it disaster.
The dynamics are compressed and peaks are limited.

upper traces remaster (Deep Purple, album: come taste the band, track: you keep on moving)
lower traces the same yet from the original album.



The remaster sounds distorted and very unnatural.
That's when you get when the demand of the masses is met.

If you like to hear well recorded material, by guys that know HOW to record and master, look for labels like: Sheffield Lab, Telarc, dmp, verve, Chesky e.t.c.

[elysion]

It's absolutely the same with image processing/editing. I'm working in the graphics industry and I've seen a lot of similar things (with images)

As long as you are working on the same original recording/image, you can only edit them better (with better tools/software). You NEED the original (unedited) recording to do this correctly. If you get already edited images/recording you can't correct much.

Probably the most important point: If the original recording/image was already crap, then you can't make "gold" out of that crap. It's something else if you make a new recording with the band from scratch or digitize/scan the source material again (i.e. scan a old slide with a new slide scanner).

I wouldn't say that all remasterings are crap though. I've bought a few old Yello tracks from the iTunes store and had the opportunity to compare them with CD rips from the original release. The remastered AAC's sound a lot better than the rips from the old CDs.

Of course, "remastered" is often only a label that should increase sales of old stuff. They want you to buy the same thing twice.

[XTRProf]

Actually, depends on who remastered the stuffs. The Beatles remasters sound much better than the older version. So if it's engineers like Bob Ludwig, Doug Sax, Steve Hoffman, Bernie Grundman, Stan Ricker, John Farlowe, etc, chances are they will be good quality sound.

[Deleted]

I heard the beatles (the remastered version, and sounds better then the original, which I had before that).
All in the crappy and unlistenable MP3 (320k CBR, HQ, dual pass, stereo) versions converted from the also but less inferior FLAC ripped by God knows what equipment.
Also listened to some remasterd CD's that exhibit the same awful behavior like in the remastered Deep Purple CD.
I have the original vinyl version of this album and new this song was dynamic.

actually a lot of new CD's that are made today have the same 'problem'.
Even a rip from Alex had this same problem (I noticed the distortion in the files and investigated after this unexpected event)
namely compressed and a limiter that is used in abundance.
These CD's (if compressed and limited properly) do not necesarily need to sound bad at all... but a lot do.

Fortunately there are plenty well recorded CD's left to enjoy.
The thread was actually meant as sort of a warning about remastered CD which one (at least I did) would expect to be better sounding then the original which is not the case with a lot of them.

[Deleted]

exhibit the same awful behavior like in the remasterd Deep Purple CD's.

YES! I have one of those, really nasty.

I also have the box set of Led Zep remastered, supposedly under the watchful eye of Jimmy Page and with his approval. Are you familiar with this particular one? If so, your thoughts......

[Chris53]

Most remasters since about 2000 have been done in this way. Some of them are much worse than this example where the peaks are so squashed that it looks like a straight line at the top. The sound ends up being "glassy" and there are other distortions too. The dynamic range of some of this music has been reduced to about 6db. It's often referred to as the "loudness wars".

As has been said it's remastering for the masses and most of them cannot tell the difference. To them it is louder and therefore better.

Some reissues have been done better and as XTRProf (sorry guys, haven't got the hang of everyone's real names on here) said the Beatles remasters have been done pretty well with only minimal sqaushing of the dynamic range on a few tracks.

Thank goodness that classical music remastering hasn't taken the same route and generally sounds very good indeed.

[toad]

The thing that I find daft is your average punter actually looks for remastered versions of CDs as if they are better while the superior original CDs are often cheaper.

My partner picked up Michael Jackson's Off the wall album for about £4.99 a couple of months ago and the remastered version was about £12.99 and would have to be pretty damn good to better the original CD for quality as it's now one of my reference CDs.

Ian

[Chris53]

Nov 1, 2010 16:00:56 GMT toad said:

The thing that I find daft is your average punter actually looks for remastered versions of CDs as if they are better while the superior original CDs are often cheaper.

My partner picked up Michael Jackson's Off the wall album for about £4.99 a couple of months ago and the remastered version was about £12.99 and would have to be pretty damn good to better the original CD for quality as it's now one of my reference CDs.

Ian

I work in a record shop so I've had access to some of the CDs that are particularly poorly remastered and Michael Jackson's are bad (if you''ll forgive the pun). In the case of both Thriller and Off the Wall the original CDs sound better and are usually cheaper as you found Mr Toad.

The Abba box set of all their albums is another case in point. The original releases are at a much lower level and don't reach anywhere near 0db but the box set levels are squashed up against 0db and have a reduced dynamic range and poor sound by comparison. Careful when you buy those remasters!

Chris