Can an EQ "FIX" badly remastered CD's ??

steveinaz

An EQ may help in making poor CD's a little more listenable, but it won't replace lost dynamic range--nor will it clean up hashy treble that is created when recordings are brick-walled.

gdb

I have seen the DBX expander units before (rarely) which can expand the compressed dynamic range. There is no getting back anything on digitally compressed audio files, done to save space on the media.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-DBX-1BX-III-Dynamic-Range-Expander-Rackmount-Pro-Audio-Gear-AWESOME-/320982311922?nma=true&si=Hg2HJ2JO9oaljM8dUfdNeIw%2BfH4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

steveinaz

You can't expand what isn't there to begin with. Dyamic range expanders are pretty hookey, I had the dBx model in the 80's--sold shortly after trying it.

gdb

Okay chief.....

steveinaz

I've spent the last year chasing down the "best" cd versions of some of my favorite music. I've had some success, but with newer recordings, your options are limited unless the artist ends up having them remastered properly.

headrott

I have spent a fair amount of time tracking down the German and Japanese "Target" CD's of many of my favorite titles. Most recently I bought a number of Talking Heads titles as well as Best of ELP, Don Henley's "Building The Perfect Beast", and Roxy Music's "Avalon". These masterings, while I would not say are "perfect" in all cases do seem to be mastered better than many "remasters" (with the exception of MFSL and Audio fidelity, etc. titles).

I recently purchased all the Peter Gabriel era Genesis CD's that were the original "mastered by nimbus", etc. copies. Since "no-noise" was used on the "Definitive remasters" the original mastered CD's have way more dynamics, clarity and sound more "natural" than the screwed up "remasters".

Many times the originals are the way to go for masterings. If the originals and remasters are screwed up, using an EQ to try and fix them isn't going to help too much, IMO. So far we are only talking from a EQ point of view, and not about how songs are cut off, bonus tracks thrown into the middle of an album, and re-editing the amount of time between tracks on a remastered CD. Many times (IMO) to the detriment of the experience of listing to a complete album.

tonyb

You could always chase these cd's down on vinyl and then copy them on a 'puter in a high rez format. Or even look for them on SACD or HD tracks online. Either way, your experiencing what many have over the years, that cd quality basically sucks these days. Sooner or later your going to have to jump into the digital age, no sense fighting it as it seems most music to be had of any quality will come from computer downloads more so than not.

sucks2beme

Tubes to the rescue. So far, that's the best answer other than finding a better mastered recording.

naturallight

The EQ may do nothing, and just make it worse then before. I have a Friend, that has the same problems with certain CD's..infact he has the same Kiss CD i do, and says it dose the same thing on his system.

He is going to take that CD, take the worst song on it, run it thru Sony Sound Forge. Pull back on the overall song volume, pull back on the high end of Stanleys vocals.....burn a new CD of the one song, then try and play it on his system. IF....it becomes listenable....then yes, you can make these nasty CD's at least passable.

He's going to do this (when he gets "around" to it) Which knowing him, could be an easy 2 weeks...LOL

But he has the stuff sitting there...no sense in spending money on an EQ, if it's not going to work anyway.

steveinaz

If treble is etchy, I'd start at around 2kHz, and dropping some db's on up thru 10-12kHz range.

naturallight

I don't know what frequencies he can play with on that Sony program, Plus he's doing this listening thru his PC speakers...LOL So it's really just a shot in the dark. If it dose work.....dose the fact that he lowered the master volume of the CD have anything to do with it? Again, don't know. It's all just a test..maynot work at all, or sound really bad when he's done. But what the heck...give it a shot...LOL



If it doesn't work at all. Then you just give up on these CD's....pull the old TT out of the closet, spend a bunch of money on a new cartridge, record cleaning stuff, and as many bottles of LAST that you can afford. Then just enjoy the original vinyl...LOL

steveinaz

Once the signal has been clipped excessively (loudness wars) lower master level just lowers output, it doesn't "un-clip" the clipped passages. Once gone, it's gone for good until it is remastered properly. However, backing off on some frequencies may help with listenability---or adding some bass to a lifeless recording may help as well.

never hurts to experiment, right?

naturallight

To be honest, i never liked digital much at all. The record companies pretty much forced you into going that way. The first digital remasters of old analog were not that bad. The nice thing about it all is the convenience...just grab a cd, throw it into the cdplayer..you don't have to clean anything, you can sit there with your remote..flip thru songs....yeah ok it's convenient.....Now the tables have turned. The record companies cater to the masses, they want to download junk to there MP3 player or Ipod.

We the aging "stereo" people that still believe in good sound and good stereo systems..get the crappy end of the stick.



Now do i REALLY want to go back to the old days of cleaning the vinyl, doing all the good old things you used to do..Wait, I lost my Zerostat..have to buy another...LOL

Do i really want to do that..not really....can i put up with these crap remasters of old music..NO...so..it is what it is.

steveinaz

I don't think the vast majority of digital is bad, it just requires careful speaker choices. It's like running a standard def signal on an HDTV---looks like crap huh? How can that be, its an HDTV? Well, that HDTV is now showing every single flaw in the SD content. The same goes for digital. As source material gets more accurate, your equipment needs to be more accurate so as to exploit it's capabilities in a positive way---however, poorly mastered stuff is gonna show like a wart.

Redbook CD can sound outstanding, the problem is we are at the mercy of the recording studio.

naturallight

No..there is good CD's and there are bad CD's..most of the BAD is old music..which forces you to go back to the original analog recordings. YES Redbook CAN sound outstanding, and some of the old CD's are really good. Now the record companies don't care..MP3 quality is fine with them.

naturallight

Let me put things this way... When digital first came out..they had to make it as close as they could to what vinyl sounded like. People back then still had some type of stereo system per say....there was no Ipod, MP3. Most bands still recorded in Analog studio's...so the "remix" to digital..at that time..they gave a crap.

As time marches on..some bands are now recorded in Digital...but still alot are in the old studios....



The record companies don't think the "OLD" bands, which are now defunked, are worth anything, so there old tapes are not remixed to the new digital format. They don't see $$$ signs, so not interested.



So time marches on again...now were in the MP3 , Ipod age..now the people would rather download MP3's, they listen with there earbuds, or some other crap. There is no longer the "home' stereo system per say as it was. They play junk in there cars, listen with ears buds or on there computers...there happy.



Now the good bands that are still around, and Know how to eq stuff....yeah, the redbook cd's sound good. What a Lady GaGa cd would sound like...LOL I would not know or could care less about.



What the record companies have found out..is because most of the music played today is junk....gee the old bands that could really play and sound good..there is a market for them...except for the sad fact that they don't give a crap about spending time to EQ them right. They follow the same fomula for MP3 junk and hope to sell the single song, that the old band may have been know for, as a 99 cent download to the MP3 player.



This is the junk your left with....which has given rise to the resurgence of old vinyl...TT's. You can buy more NEW Vinyl then you could 10 years ago.

This is pretty much were we are at.

CoolJazz

naturallight wrote: »

Let me put things this way... When digital first came out..they had to make it as close as they could to what vinyl sounded like. People back then still had some type of stereo system per say....there was no Ipod, MP3. Most bands still recorded in Analog studio's...so the "remix" to digital..at that time..they gave a crap.

As time marches on..some bands are now recorded in Digital...but still alot are in the old studios....



The record companies don't think the "OLD" bands, which are now defunked, are worth anything, so there old tapes are not remixed to the new digital format. They don't see $$$ signs, so not interested.

Actually, I think you're several generations behind at best.

Studio's converted to digital suites long, long ago. Artists started complaining before long that the quality wasn't what they liked and studio's actually had to remove some digital and go back to analog because that's what the artists wanted! Analog actually became a calling card for studio's and artists that cared about how they sounded when recorded.

Over time, as higher rez digital has become possible and converters were made that sounded much better, some have been seduced back into going digital. But most of the best of the best effects remain in the analog realm.

CJ

naturallight

Well my statement was pretty generalized and not year specific. I have recorded in Analog studio's, I would NOT record in a digital studio if i had to pay money for the recording...LOL

A good analog studio..has at least 1 if not 2 ..24 track analog tape machines.



What the old 60-70's bands recorded at..would be 24 tracks at max...probably 16 or less. What the record companies did to these old tapes..to "remaster" them to there, I need a buck MP3 profile...well..you end up with ear splitting nasty crap.

If the bands recorded in an analog studio or not.....is not the point..it's how it was remastered to meet the needs of the record company..and if the band, or artist allowed it. Which for old 1970 bands, half of them are dead, or so far out of the loop..any money is good money.

CoolJazz

This might be a good place to throw in some comments about using one of the DBX units to try and restore some dynamic range to overly squashed modern music.

They do certainly do what they are supposed to do. Expansion! But it should be made clear that what you get as output is not going to ever be the same as what the music sounded like before the aggressive processing was applied! If you like the effect, great! This is no attempt to talk you out of it....just a little clarification on what you can and can't accomplish.

There are probably four broad classes of dynamic reduction possible. 1-Gentle gain control aka...AGC (automatic gain control). 2-Compression. 3-Limiting and finally 4-clipping. The difference in those broad categories is essentially how fast the reaction is to dynamics of the music going through.

Next...any of these (up to clipping) has infinitely variable controls on how fast it reacts, and how fast the amount of gain reduction is released after the peak has passed and at what level it begins to react. PLUS...on top of that each of these effects can be divided into bands of effect. Some things are broadband all the way across, some are divided into two or three or four. And occasionally more yet are done. Multibanding effects lets bass gain reduction not cause the mids to pump and react in an obviously bad way. And to correct movement of the vocal around the microphone in the mids without causing the cymbol to come and go in level at the same time.

AND then....each of these types of dynamics reduction can be STACKED on top of each other. So a million different combinations are available. Not to mention that different recorded instruments may be treated differently, THEN the combined two track version may have it's own run back through and reapply at yet different rates of use.

The DBX units have to the best of my knowledge, either one, two or three bands of expansion depending on model. I'm not familiar with all of what they've made, but I'm pretty sure the user has little control but the amount of expansion. As a result, the ability to even come close to matching what's been done in the studio isn't there. An expension effect for sure, but different without doubt. Again, that's not to say it's not better than it was as delivered to you...just 'splainin....

The comment that clipping can't be corrected isn't completely correct. A few professional programs will allow the user to blow up on a computer screen and look at the peaks and manually redraw by hand the guessed at waveform. And a few do attempt to compute what's missing and recreate it mathematically, automatically.

None the less, I think the moral of the story is that once music has been trashed, it's trashed! Hope this is some clarification.

CJ

Fongolio

CoolJazz wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the user has little control but the amount of expansion. As a result, the ability to even come close to matching what's been done in the studio isn't there. CJ

Not quite true. I use the 3BX series II unit and the user has full control over exactly how much expansion to use via a slider control that scales from 1 (no expansion) to 1.5 (50% expansion). So if a signal starts at 50 db the dynamic range can be expanded to as much as 75 db, however, unless the original signal sounds hugely compressed I've never used it past about 1.2 (or 20% expansion). With dbx units subtly is what works best. There is also a "threshold" slider that controls the ratio of loud to soft. This dynamic range expander works in both directions; it can make the quiet passages quieter and simultaneously the louder passages louder. Or everything louder or everything quieter. The threshold slider controls that. I leave mine near the middle so that some frequencies play slightly louder and some slightly quieter thus "dynamic range" expansion in both directions.

headrott

naturallight wrote: »

What the old 60-70's bands recorded at..would be 24 tracks at max...probably 16 or less. What the record companies did to these old tapes..to "remaster" them to there, I need a buck MP3 profile...well..you end up with ear splitting nasty crap.

Depending on the time period in the 60's you are talking about the max that was available in the 60's (until very very late 1969) was an 8 track machine. The White album by the Beatles was recorded on an 8 track machine for example. Sargent Pepper's was recorded using multiple 4 track machines as that's all that were available to them at the time. 16 track machines were not available until the extremely late 1969 and commonly in the early 1970's. I believe The Grateful Dead's "Workingman's Dead was recorded on a 16 track machine (If I am not mistaken, but I could be) and was one of the first albums recorded with a 16 track machine. 24 track machines did not come out until (I believe but don't quote me on it) 1974ish.

wkjeffers

vinyl is the best way to find older material that hasn't been robbed of it's sound by cd mastering in the 80s and 90s. many re-issues of older material or many original lp's that weren't compressed for cd mastering to start with

gdb

wkjeffers wrote: »

vinyl is the best way to find older material that hasn't been robbed of it's sound by cd mastering in the 80s and 90s. many re-issues of older material or many original lp's that weren't compressed for cd mastering to start with

But then you'd have to employ one of those pop & click transient noise suppressors to try to make the material listenable and worth recording.

Polkie2009

I bought a DBX unit, perhaps back in the early 80's to be able to decode DBX records that were being released. They sounded great compared to regular LP's. The past 2 years I've been looking at the selling prices on fleabay for the DBX 3BX DS. Seems like people are buying these old units like crazy and they are usually selling for at least 250.00 . Can someone fill me in on what's so special about the DBX 3BX ES units?

pitdogg2

Polkie2009 wrote: »

I bought a DBX unit, perhaps back in the early 80's to be able to decode DBX records that were being released. They sounded great compared to regular LP's. The past 2 years I've been looking at the selling prices on fleabay for the DBX 3BX DS. Seems like people are buying these old units like crazy and they are usually selling for at least 250.00 . Can someone fill me in on what's so special about the DBX 3BX ES units?

well I don't know but for comparison I had bought a Kenwood GE-1100 EQ brand new back in the day for 75.00 they routinely sell for 120.00+ all day everyday. Is it that good of EQ not by a long shot but just like realistic super tweeters that sold for 12.00ea. now sell for 180.00+ for a pair no rhyme or reason....

Yours may very well be due to the fact that vinyl is making a big comeback.

vinyladdict

I have the same thing, a BSR/ADC equalizer and I swear by them and have not heard at least in my setup where it introduces any kind of noise. In the end it's all about what sounds best to "your" ears . Myself I like a little extra bass and want really clear top end which an equalizer can give you.

Tbone289 wrote: »

It might be worth trying. I have an old BSR/ADC EQ-3000 with 10 bands per channel & it has a spectrum analyzer with pink noise generator and a mic. I'm never going to use it so, if you want it to try, send me a PM. I'll let it go for beans.

It's just like this one: http://thecarversite.com/yetanotherforum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=6120

vinyladdict

Wow I'm going to have to make sure I don't throw my super tweeters out if they are getting that kind of money for them . They did make the high end sound really good even behind mediocre speakers.

pitdogg2 wrote: »

well I don't know but for comparison I had bought a Kenwood GE-1100 EQ brand new back in the day for 75.00 they routinely sell for 120.00+ all day everyday. Is it that good of EQ not by a long shot but just like realistic super tweeters that sold for 12.00ea. now sell for 180.00+ for a pair no rhyme or reason....

Yours may very well be due to the fact that vinyl is making a big comeback.

erniejade

One of my fav cd's I have on LP also is Chicago the 2nd LP not transit but the one just called Chicago. Amazing music horrible recording. Billy Squire, the lp with the stroke or emotions in motion both great music but recorded bad.

If the master is bad or was recorded bad not too much is going to help. I had an eq in the system to help boost some of the freq to make it listenable but, it did introduce some noise or hiss into the mix. My old preamp McIntosh c39 had bass and treb and a loudness control. I used it often with badly recorded lp or cd but, since I got the audio research sp16 and some 1960 tubes. This has done an amazing job of making music sound right to me. I don?t miss the tone controls but, once in a while I do sometimes wish I had something in the line to help with some of the lp?s like the ones I mentioned above.

The part about Flac files and some people saying to go digital, in one way I have to agree. I am using flac with Jriver. The correction it has built in I have found does not introduce noise into the line since its already digital format and its not adding another component into the line or mix. Its already built into the software. For 99% of the cd?s I have ripped to flac I do not use this but, with ones like Chicago or Squire, it helps make them more listenable a lot.

treitz3

CoolJazz wrote: »

...None the less, I think the moral of the story is that once music has been trashed, it's trashed! Hope this is some clarification.

I think that pretty much sums up this thread. With that said, the better the full frequency gear omitting adjustments IME? The better the end result. As a good friend of mine once said...

You can not polish a **** by the clean end.

If you have any doubt, try listening to Adele's 21 and make it sound as good as any one of......jebus.....take your pick.

Tom

naturallight

I did post a different thread saying you can fix these CD's to a certain point. I will restate the fix on here since it still keeps coming up.



The fix would be the Sony soundforge program. An outboard EQ will not do the same thing.

The Sony goes in and "remasters" the bad song. Now it can only work with the 2 channels that it see's. But the way these CD's are made, may not be far off that. It doesn't seem they bother to go in and mess with separate tracks. They seem to just crank the volume, to just under the digital clip, compress the mess, and maybe crank the treble. So they end up with junk they can sell as an MP3 file, but sounds like junk on a good stereo system. Most of the time the treble for vocals or guitar work can sound way over the top, and the treble is killing you.



The Sony program can not uncompress the music (not that i know of anyway)

What it seems to do is drop the volume, re EQ the whole song to match the corrected volume.

So what you end up with is a song at a lower volume but can be turned up and not sound like complete garbage. So what was pretty much unplayable before, is now usable on a good stereo.

It's not perfect. To do that you would have to go back to the original Vinyl record. But barring that. It's 100% better then the stock redbook mess.

This is an automated feature inside the program. You don't have to Re EQ this your self.

I'm not sure what the settings are to do this. I don't have the program, my Friend did it on his PC. But it does work. The only issue is you can only do 1 song at a time. But once you get used to using the program, you can probably do a whole CD in about 20 min.



If you can't find a better "remastered" CD of an album that you really like. This would be an answer to that problem.