Remastering

Dabbles

Dabbles

Dabbles

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Right ladies, I have asked for some CDs for my birthday but was asked if I wanted the 'remastered' or original versions of some albums. Not knowing the answer I looked online and it appears 'remastering' reduces the quality of the sound as they basically 'turn the sound up'. Is this correct? They market these things as 'better' when in fact they are the opposite.

What say you OcUK?
 
It all depends on who did the original mastering and remastering.

Lately the trend is to use way too much dynamic compression, which can easily ruin a song, but as I said it depends on who is doing the mastering and how reserved they are with that compressor...
 
I think Mike covers it fairly well.

Any new "master" is effectively a remaster - you make a new CD master with different tracks to the old one, and it's a remaster (you've made a new master disc!), even if nothing has changed.

Remastering at the other end of the scale can mean taking the original materials and remixing and restoring them to do away with the damage that might have occurred to previous master tapes etc.
In films they can/do call moving the disc from single layer flipper to a dual layer single sided a remaster even if the quality doesn't change (it's a new master that just stops you having to flip it over), likewise they'll call a restoration with an entirely new scan from the original film and hundreds of thousands on restoration work as a remaster...

I think in audio it can involve things like running through the original tapes and remixing the various different audio elements at an extreme level if the original master has degraded, basically recreating the original master from the source materials.

It all depends on who/when it's been done - old digital masters created from analogue sources in the early days of CD etc are almost certainly not as good as those that can be created from the same quality analogue source today.
 
Can you give us some examples of albums you want and somebody might know the differences between the original and remaster......
 
Queens greatest hits albums have been re-released recently, all 3 being remastered by the same guy who did the beetles albums. The quality is reportedly very good which believe me is not the norm for remasters, although the dynamic range has taken a large hit on some of the tracks.... I've not heard them so i couldnt comment but reviews are all very positive despite this.
 
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Yes the latest Beatles remasters are great, amazing what they can conjure up from tapes that are over 40 years old
 
I've got Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine, remastered and original versions

The remastered version sounds so much clearer, and the sound is a lot fuller

I'm no audiophile, but it sounds great to me on my HD595's on XFI
 
bledd. said:
I've got Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine, remastered and original versions

The remastered version sounds so much clearer, and the sound is a lot fuller

I'm no audiophile, but it sounds great to me on my HD595's on XFI
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http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=&search_album=+Pretty+Hate+Machine

Ithe remaster they slashed the dynamic range. So it's consistantly louder. To me, thats just mental. People play with cameras taking multiple exposures to extend the dynamic range, but with music, they don't want it?

Where it gets strange is when you have the vinyl and CD, dynamic range of the CD is say, 6. Vinyl may be 15. So they have the master for a great quality album, but end up ruining it.

It's when you get clipping as well as brickwalled albums that really annoys me, it's not just permentaly loud, but the music itself is damaged beyond repair.

How long before some places start going through their back catalogues and re-re-remastering stuff with dynamic range
 
james.miller said:
Queens greatest hits albums have been re-released recently, all 3 being remastered by the same guy who did the beetles albums. The quality is reportedly very good which believe me is not the norm for remasters, although the dynamic range has taken a large hit on some of the tracks.... I've not heard them so i couldnt comment but reviews are all very positive despite this.
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I can only find the first two Greatest Hits albums. Bought those two and A Day At The Races today. Just having a quick listen through and I can tell that the music sounds cleaner and clearer.
 
High dynamic range does not automatically mean better though. Taking pretty hate machine as an example, half of the detail in the quieter bits you can barely make out at normal volumes. Whereas the remastered ones you can make out the whole lot.
 
With The Beatles remasters I thought they sounded a lot richer, more detail in sound and they, y'know, had some BASS for once.

There's also some pretty cool effects at play on some of the tracks. For example, on A day in the Life Lennon's vocal pans around from the far right to the centre before Paul's vocal comes in, then afterwards it pans from the centre to the right. Which is a pretty nice touch.
 
Woody__ said:
With The Beatles remasters I thought they sounded a lot richer, more detail in sound and they, y'know, had some BASS for once.

There's also some pretty cool effects at play on some of the tracks. For example, on A day in the Life Lennon's vocal pans around from the far right to the centre before Paul's vocal comes in, then afterwards it pans from the centre to the right. Which is a pretty nice touch.
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Inb4 mono vs stereo Beatles debate. :p Actually, the remastering on LOVE by George and Giles Martin is even better than the 2009 versions IMO, but it's a mashup album...

The remastering on Led Zeppelin's Mothership compilation is quite nice too, although it isn't really much different to the Page/Marino remasters in the 90's.

Remastering old stuff really depends on who's doing it, and whether there's enough 'data' to be played around with on the tapes. Some just seem to be a bit of gain added, packaged up and marketed as new and improved.
 
I like the mono versions too, don't get me wrong, but I guess I'm just used to the stereo versions...
 
Woody__ said:
With The Beatles remasters I thought they sounded a lot richer, more detail in sound and they, y'know, had some BASS for once.
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The reason it sounded better is because it was louder. It's a well known fact amongst audio engineers that louder sounds sound better.

Your volume knob is probably in the same place, so the CD that's been mastered louder will sound (to your ears) richer and more detailed. You can get (arguably) the same effect by just turning your speakers up! :)
 
The point of who's doing the remaster is also a biggie. For example, anything remastered by Brendan O'Brien would struggle not to be better than the original :D
 
timbob said:
The reason it sounded better is because it was louder. It's a well known fact amongst audio engineers that louder sounds sound better.

Your volume knob is probably in the same place, so the CD that's been mastered louder will sound (to your ears) richer and more detailed. You can get (arguably) the same effect by just turning your speakers up! :)
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if you'd read the review of the beatles remasters (or heard the albums) then you'd know that wasnt the case.
 
timbob said:
The reason it sounded better is because it was louder. It's a well known fact amongst audio engineers that louder sounds sound better.

Your volume knob is probably in the same place, so the CD that's been mastered louder will sound (to your ears) richer and more detailed. You can get (arguably) the same effect by just turning your speakers up! :)
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That's not necessarily true. Remastering doesn't actually mean making it louder. If a remaster was done correctly there wouldn't have to be any change in volume over the original at all.
 
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