Trouble finding non-remastered CD's

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by enfield, Jan 19, 2017.

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  1. Carl Swanson

    Carl Swanson Senior Member

    When I used normalization, I had to do it manually as "amplify" on AA3.0 because if you just normalize by tracks, you will mess up the relationship that the tracks had to each other. Maybe not as important on a comp, but on a stand-alone album, the gain of one track relative to another was a mastering decision for the album. I've abandoned all of it; I'll just use replay gain where I feel it's appropriate; no change to the files.
     
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  2. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    I agree with you on that Jethro Tull Original Masters CD, a great sounding CD. Never realised it is a MFSL production, if not by name.

    With the trebly sounding CD you mention, I doubt it has anything to do with early converters as some of the 82/83 CDs are the best sounding around, I'd suspect eq or it may have pre-emphasis. It is not unknown that some of the early CDs with pre-emphasis did not have the subcode flag in the correct place, or not at all. Try applying the pre-emphasis curve to the files and hear if that fixes it.
     
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  3. Farmer Mike

    Farmer Mike Forum Resident

    So does mine, the last few days it has been singing a hate song.
     
  4. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Yes, some of the best. But not all. From what I know (could be wrong) mastering engineers back in the mid-eighties very rarely used eq when mastering CD's. Most of the compact disks back then weren't messed around with like the today's CD's. They were straight transfers. Big problem though - too many digital copies. I was reading an interview back in Mix Magazine back in 1989. This engineer remembered being told by the experts, "Don't worry, It's not like analog. Does not matter if you make a copy of a copy of a copy of copy - it's digital and a perfect copy." And they believed it...For a while anyway. Now imagine you are working with a copy of a vinyl production master tape (someone correct me if there is another more proper term for it) You aren't just two generations down from the master but you've got all the EQ changes and compression (good, musical compression. Not the smash-the-music-to-0dbfs compression) that are put on that tape because of the compromises necessary to cut to vinyl. Now you make your analog to digital conversion. And then you make a digital copy to put the track numbers in. Followed by another copy for some other reason. Your final digital CD master (not talking about the glass CD master) is 5 generations down. And then they were the tapes that were encoded with Dolby A but were played back and transfered without it... No doubt this all contributed to some CD's sounding bad. If you've heard the Styx album on vinly , "Cornerstone" it sounds bright.

    The boys at M.F.S.L. and guys like Steve Hoffman worked audio magic on their CD's from the 80's. They worked from original masters and keep their digital generation count low. The rest of the industry wasn't so....mmm, wise...With foresight.

    Help me out here with this pre-emphasis. Using a fully parametric equalizer (NEC Wave Pad Editor) what EQ curve (parametric or graphic) would I need to apply?
     
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  5. enfield

    enfield Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Essex UK
    There are some early CD masterings from the 1980's that sound overly bright.This is because some engineers were ramping up the higher frequencies.They had always done this during vinyl mastering to counter act analogue tape degradation (which naturally caused a rolling-off of high frequencies).Once the engineers got to grips with CD mastering then most 80's material on average sound far better than the majority of those from the 90's/00's and current output.Yes,masterings from the 80's can tend to sound slightly hollow and two dimensional as was the preference at the time.But the quality of studios.recording techniques and lack of loudness or compression still make them far more pleasent to listen to that the brickwalled nonsense that has flooded the market ever since.
     
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  6. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    Yes, many early CDs were a flat transfer from a vinyl dub, even cassette dubs, which would have been mastered to suit vinyl playback, but there is a myth getting around that the transfer included the RIAA curve, which is not so as that is applied to the later lacquer cut. I agree though that very few would have been a transfer from earlier generation masters. A case in point is that many prefer the earlier black triangle Beatles Abbey Road CD over its later 87 release, thinking it is different mastering when it is really the same. It's just that the black triangle version had likely came from a higher quality tape.

    As for the de-emphasis question, I'm not sure whether it can be done through the software you have, though there are many members who are experts on this, as well as many threads on this subject in this forum.
     
  7. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
  8. enfield

    enfield Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Essex UK
    Most stand alone CD players should automatically de-emphasize a pre-emphasized CD..Not sure about ripping protocols though.
     
  9. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    True, but some early emphasised CDs did not have the flag which tells the player to apply the curve. Probably not many of these out there but I recall a few members coming across CDs like that.
     
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  10. grandegi

    grandegi Blind test maniac

    Location:
    Rome, Italy
    Unfortunately it doesn't always work, but mostly it does
     
  11. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    We've covered why it might not work, and how to remedy that, above.
     
  12. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Why would multiple digital copies make a difference?
     
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  13. Khamakhazee

    Khamakhazee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I wonder if there will be a ressurection in older mastering CD's due to the loss of dynamic range. Maybe I can get some decent money for mine.
     
  14. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    [​IMG]
    There were plenty of original CDs in this store when I visited last summer.
     
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  15. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    On the whole, I don't thing many people are buying old CDs for the same reasons as us. Speaking to my local record shop owner, he said he sold ~1500 used records over Christmas vs 53 CDs. He also said that, amongst the few people coming in for CDs, I was the only one highlighting them for their mastering. Other buyers were interested in collectable packaging, Japanese CDs, and Targets.
     
    Dynamic Ranger likes this.
  16. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    Wow, a store owner that knows about Japanese CDs and targets. I've only seen one CD that was marked up as something special - Hejira golden great described as a gold CD. It was priced exactly like every other CD in the store though. I tell a lie. My local store has the Hunting High and Low golden great, again described as a gold disc. I hope they aren't charging you much more for these CDs.
     
  17. pablo

    pablo Forum Resident

    Location:
    NE, USA
    Just a heads up, but if plans for the "new" economy come true, there will be more money in the hands of millenials, et al. With more cash circulating in the economy, interesting used CD's may become much scarcer and expensive. Just saying...
     
    Dynamic Ranger likes this.
  18. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    Sure. Right off the top of my head:

    • Any 1980s RCA CD mastered by a guy named Dick Baxter. They sound brittle and tinny. These include many of the Henry Mancini titles; and the Latin series that RCA launched, which included albums by Tito Puente, Perez Prado, Noro Morales, Shorty Rogers, and others.
    • Columbia's initial series of classic jazz CDs, e.g., Mingus, Miles, Brubeck, Monk, etc., the ones that shrank the cover art to a size even smaller than a CD case by placing a needless border around the artwork. The 1990s remasters sound much better.
    • The MCA One Way CD that combined Mission Impossible and More Mission Impossible by Lalo Schifrin. In fact, many early MCA CDs in general sound horrible. Some of their film score albums have been subsequently reissued in expanded form by boutique labels, and the remasters offer a significant upgrade, even aside from offering bonus tracks.
    As an example of the opposite, most people would agree that original Sinatra Capitol CDs mastered by Larry Walsh are much, much better than the later remasters by Bob Norberg.

    So you can't automatically assume that earlier is better any more than you can assume later is better. You need to compare.

    I will be happy to provide more examples later when I go through my digital files.
     
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  19. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    The 1980s John Denver Farewell Andromeda CD is excellent sounding.
     
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  20. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    This jazz series is well known for not being the best. Of course, they often weren't the original CDs. The original mix of Sketches in Spain can be found on the original Japanese manufactured CDs.
     
  21. Dr. Funk

    Dr. Funk Vintage Dust

    Location:
    Fort Worth TX
    I haven't seen a shortage of original cd's in my neck of the woods. I frequent about 8 different shops and they all have a mixture of originals and remastered varieties. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, (remastered and non) seem to circulate quickly, but there are some copies I get tired of seeing because they haven't moved for several years. There is a Dan Folgerberg greatest hits that has been in one particular record store for at least 8 years. I have thought about buying it on several occasions, but I actually grown fond of seeing it there.
     
  22. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    Buy the original Fogelberg Greatest Hits CD. Great disc.
     
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  23. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    For a typical music consumer in the US who did not know about the Japan releases, let alone being willing to pay those prices, that series was for practical purposes part of the "original" CD catalog.
     
  24. Dr. Funk

    Dr. Funk Vintage Dust

    Location:
    Fort Worth TX
    I already own it. Great sounding disc and I listen to it often.
     
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  25. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    Gordon Lightfoot's Reprise CD catalog has for the most part having never been remastered later on and is worth buying.
     
    billnunan likes this.
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