Got a question about "remastered" recordings
jcaut
Posts: 1,849
Pardon me, if this is a silly question, but it's something I've wondered about and don't really know the answer to:
When a musical work- album, CD, whatever - is remastered, the remaster is usually touted to be of higher sound quality. In fact, I guess that's the whole reason for it. Some, I wonder if they really are better, but some are noticably so. I have several Van Halen CD's and its a little startling how much better some of the latest HDCD remasters sound vs. the originals. For instance, VH I & II sound pretty mediocre to me both on vinyl (II) and on the "original" (I) CD's I have, but the CD remasters of both sound quite good.
I'm wondering what it is they do to them to make them sound better. Obviously you're limited by what was originally captured on the tape. Do they go back to the original tracks and re-mix it? With better equipment? Possibly with some EQ-ing or something?
The thread about "dynamic compression" a while back got me to thinking about this. Some music I would otherwise enjoy listening to sounds so tinny and thin that it's annoying to listen to. Better playback equipment just seems to make it worse..
Just curious, if anyone can shed some light on it for me. Thanks!
When a musical work- album, CD, whatever - is remastered, the remaster is usually touted to be of higher sound quality. In fact, I guess that's the whole reason for it. Some, I wonder if they really are better, but some are noticably so. I have several Van Halen CD's and its a little startling how much better some of the latest HDCD remasters sound vs. the originals. For instance, VH I & II sound pretty mediocre to me both on vinyl (II) and on the "original" (I) CD's I have, but the CD remasters of both sound quite good.
I'm wondering what it is they do to them to make them sound better. Obviously you're limited by what was originally captured on the tape. Do they go back to the original tracks and re-mix it? With better equipment? Possibly with some EQ-ing or something?
The thread about "dynamic compression" a while back got me to thinking about this. Some music I would otherwise enjoy listening to sounds so tinny and thin that it's annoying to listen to. Better playback equipment just seems to make it worse..
Just curious, if anyone can shed some light on it for me. Thanks!
Post edited by jcaut on
Comments
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jcaut wrote:I'm wondering what it is they do to them to make them sound better. Obviously you're limited by what was originally captured on the tape. Do they go back to the original tracks and re-mix it? With better equipment? Possibly with some EQ-ing or something?
IMO, the best of the remasters go back to the original, final mix studio board tape (master) and use digital recording techniques to simply remove any hint of tape hiss. Production, i.e. individual track dynamics and mix, are not altered. An example of this in my collection would be UDCD 577, Albert King "Born Under a Bad Sign".
But, the terminology is universally applied to new production mixes of original master recording tapes (pre-production tracks). At that point, you have a "new" album in my book. Some material benefits from another production engineer's hands on the sliders, some sounds pretty damn bad. -
The ultimate Van Halen remaster....
