Re-mastering...Is it really as bad as we think?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by brainwashed, Oct 19, 2005.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. brainwashed

    brainwashed Forum Hall Of Fame Thread Starter

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Hi Gang!
    Thank you all for your input concerning this topic. One issue continues to bother me, however. Why is it that people complain about CD mastering that is "a bit maximized"? I'm not talking about something that is so maximized it audibly clips....but this "a bit" thought bugs me. Is this really problematic when listening to CD's? I have a very nice home system, and the one in the studio I record in is top-of-line. They also have some older tube-only equipment. I simply can not hear any adverse affects this may cause. I can hear when noise reduction is used, especially NoNoise and Cedar NR; I can hear distortion and compression on CD's that are not on their original LP configurations; I can hear when EQ choices are not the original settings....but for the life of me "a bit maximized" eludes me. Any help or clarification from you engineering geniuses out there? Thanks, Ron
     
  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    :) Look, it's like this.

    A mix is either finished or not finished. If it's finished and marked "master" then it should be FINISHED. Adding any kind of limiting in mastering or remastering is ALTERING THE MIX levels.

    If that's what you want you're in luck; get all the modern remasters you can afford!
     
  3. brainwashed

    brainwashed Forum Hall Of Fame Thread Starter

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Hi Steve, thanks for your input. However, your response still doesn't answer my question. Obviously you, and the other esteemed engineers on the forum have access to these masters and KNOW whether any limiting affects were used in a master or in the remastering process. I guess my problem is when forum members make such pronouncements without having ANY knowledge of the settings on the actual masters. Isn't it possible that the original LP's were cut a few db lower in volume from the masters... purposely? Again, I'm talking primarily about CD's from the golden age of rock 50's to 70's, not modern recordings. And, once again would a "bit of maximizing" and YES I realize this alters the intended mix....be audible? And if so, how does it adversely affect one's listening pleasure? Does turning the volume down slightly eliminate any problems?

    Sorry if I repeatedly ask the same questions, but I want my thoughts to be concise.....Im not in favor of altering the intended master. For example... if someone other than an engineer or producer says Mike Nesmith's BMG CD's are "a bit maximized"? Are they correct? I don't think any members here have heard his masters. Or, do these members just say so because they sound louder than those old RCA Dynaflex frisbees :agree: Any input would be most appreciated. Ron

    PS Sorry Steve I realize you were responding to Zal in your response....MEA CULPA :angel:
     
  4. Zal

    Zal Recording engineer

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    Steve, I was never a vinyl cutter, but, I understand that a finished master may be what the artist wants, but might not translate out well onto vinyl, for the confines of physics, as you brought to light. So, in the case where the program must be altered to lay well in the grooves, the cutting engineer must use his skills to faithfully convey the musicality desired by the artist/production team in the best way possible for vinyl...OR, for any medium for that matter. AND any translation, so to speak, will be a deviation from the actual master.

    A good mastering engineer will help the master shine the way the artist would wish it to, and that's a personal call, especially with back catalog, where the artist may not be in the loop, or has impaired hearing, or is no longer even with us at all...anymore.

    And I don't think I'm saying anything you didn't already imply, but you can correct me, of course, if that's not a quite correct assumption.
     
  5. Zal

    Zal Recording engineer

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    To add a smidge...the fact that vinyl might not be able to "hold" or capture confidently/correctly all the program material that is on the master tape, that might translate out onto CD or DVD-A, or whatever new format that may be out there, as a bit different sounding to the vinyl....more dynamics could/would be possible, more low end, more high end.... Sooooo, the LP might sound a little weak as compared to the more robust range on something digital (not pondering here the controversy over digital sounding as good as analog).
     
  6. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    And holy smackers, that one is LOUD. Probably the loudest CD in my entire collection. Well, hey you know those guys are all deaf anyway. Before he died, John Entwhistle was going around with an ear trumpet, according to a friend I knew who met him once. :laugh:
     
  7. Duophonic

    Duophonic Beatles

    Location:
    BEATLES LOVE SONGS
    Ok, before I became a Hoffman forum reader, I was so ignorant, I used to think remaster = better. I even "upgraded" some rap albums (nost notable Death Row Records) releases thinking that the "Remaster" is better than the original. Now I think remaster is something to be avoided. Particularly rap and pop remasters. Now of course if it's SACD or MFSL remasters then for the most part they are great sounding, but the common remastered releases just aren't any good. Sure, a lot of catalogs can benefit from a remaster, but I believe that a lot of people, even I for that matter, would complain about it and eventually revert back to the original LP as is the case with any botched remaster.
     
  8. brainwashed

    brainwashed Forum Hall Of Fame Thread Starter

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Still waiting for a thoughtful response concerning "maximized" mastering. Some forum members throw this phrase around quite a bit and I'm not sure if it's proper or not. If I read Steve's posts correctly, the only way one can tell if the masters have been altered (maximized, compressed, limited, etc) is to actually listen to the masters themselves. If a fellow member says a certain CD sounds "a bit maximized" is it in fact true? Or is this based on the CD sounding louder than the vinyl source, or an earlier mastering effort? Or is it just said because so many modern CD's are maximized? Is it a personal opinion not based on facts? Wondering....Ron
     
  9. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    One way to tell is to see the music displayed as a WAV file on your PC. I tinker with making CDR's a lot... custom editions, two-fer couplings, mixed discs, analog transfers, etc. I use the Soundforge program. If a CD has been maximized or compressed you can see it at a glance. (Forgive me if I stumble on the jargon here, but...) older CD's would have a lot of headroom with a peak output of -2.0 or -3.0 dB. These discs probably had an output level comparable to an LP. CD's became louder than LP's when mastering engineers started boosting the peak output to -0.0 dB, but this still didn't alter the dynamic range and they usually only hit the -0.0 dB ceiling once or twice in a song. Then they started compressing a little bit so that there were frequent peaks at -0.00 dB, but it still looked like a normal WAV file. So far so good.

    At some point, some cloth-eared dipstick decided to push the envelope and applied massive compression. Now the pointy peaks have all been shaved-off and the WAV file reads like a continuous series of plateaus, and you can hear the difference.

    Most remasters today have "some" compression, so that the peaks on the WAV file will read like a continuous even bar when you pan back and view the entire track on the screen. Some discs are massively compressed so the dynamic peaks are all flattened out.

    The worst mastered album in my collection is not a reissue however, it's The Go-Betweens Ocean's Apart, released last spring. The album is twice as loud as any other album I've listened to this year. This is particularly painful because they are also one of my very favorite bands and I am convinced that the album is excellent underneath the ear-squinting aggressiveness and distortion of the botched mastering.
     
  10. bangsezmax

    bangsezmax Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC, USA
    Just for the record, this isn't exactly a new phenomenon, just an annoyingly more pervasive one. I needle-dropped an original 45 of ther Raspberries "I Wanna Be With You" and the wave file came out looking like this:
     

    Attached Files:

  11. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    I'm glad to hear this opinion from Mr. Hoffman. To my ears, many 'remasters' would be more accurately described as 'remixes,' even if they don't go back to the multi-track tapes and change levels, stereo-panning, effects, fades, etc.

    Bob Clearmountain's 'remasters' of the Roxy Music catalogue are a good example. This is a group who never had a permanent bass player and he radically elevated the bass in the sonic spectrum across their catalogue. At the very least, there were serious EQ adjustments on many of those albums (especially the earlier ones) and that's "remixing," isn't it?

    The semantics have become muddled. 99% of the music-buying public doesn't have even a vague idea of what "mixing" is so the industy has settled on the term "remaster" for any kind of sonic "upgrade" on catalogue material. In today's parlance a "remix" is a radical reinvention of a dance track done by a deejay for club play.
     
  12. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    A lot of songs were mega-compressed 30-40 years ago, a lot of songs are mega-compressed today. But taking a once dynamic recording and remastering it so it's mega-compressed, no-noised, overly bright, LOUD & starting to distort, with a clipped waveform, is not very desirable, especially if you are someone who actually enjoys listening to music.
     
  13. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    Although even there, the WAV file doesn't look like a freshly cut lawn of crabgrass. There are peaks with points.
     
  14. Zal

    Zal Recording engineer

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    Not to knock it (as we are each our own person to percieve as we do individually), but this is a subjective call.

    On the Dave Edmund's albums that I remastered (actually, the first time for CD), I found the tapes to be thin, nasal, etc. and I didn't know if that's the way they translated out onto the original vinyl releases....and I probably did give them a listen for reference purposes, which was our way at Atlantic Studios. After listening to the vinyl, I still felt that there was more to bring out from the master tapes and accordingly did so. I am glad to say that at least one forum member here has been happy with my "interpretation", if you will. But I made my mastering calls as a musician with technical skills for mastering, and not as purely a technician alone.

    Now as far as Roxy Music is concerned, I don't know much about their catalog and sound. But if their tapes were bass shy, is it because you are used to them like this that you MAY find offense with Clearmountain's take on how bass should be portrayed in their later day CD release? Or/and is it just the fact that he changed the sound to the extent he did that bothers you (an audio purist view)? I'm not really tauting mastering engineers' poetic license, but we don't know all we should before coming to judge post release remastering. That may be another story, but the artist (whether he can hear adequately or not), the producer (same caveat emptor), the company...or his free reign...many possibilities exist as to why a new release will sound the way it does.
     
  15. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    True. Check out this website for some excellent examples of "freshly cut lawn of crabgrass" type waveforms from too loud CDs: The Death Of Dynamic Range

    Look at a waveform of "Livin' The Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin. :help: I'm glad I hate this song to begin with:
     

    Attached Files:

    Front 242 Addict likes this.
  16. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    However, that song was creatively compressed for appeal. The difference is that they only use compression on modern CDs for making them LOUDER. Many times you can even hear crackling distortion because some players can't handle the levels.

    See, with vinyl, they had physical limits on how far you could go before you couldn't play the record or even cut it. And, since you used the Raspberries' tune, if you listen to the CD version (I like Ron Furmanek's presentation), you'll hear that the analog compression sounded smoother, and the overall sound is still clear.

    Here are two CD rip of "GO All The Way" from that CD. The first one is as it came off the CD, and the second one is after I boosted it like the do for you now on modern remasters. I still left .03db at the margin on the boosted version, much more generous than what they do on most CDs today, which is to let them clip:
     

    Attached Files:

  17. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    Actually, I wasn’t particularly offended by the Roxy Music mastering. I was commenting more on the semantic difference between the terms ‘remix’ and ‘remaster.’ I’ve enjoyed Clearmountain’s remaster of their first album far more than I ever enjoyed the thin-sounding vinyl (which suffered a bit from groove-cramming, I think). But others here might vehemently object to his approach; I know that the signals were heavily-compressed. I made a copy of the first album for my daughter and added-in vinyl dubs of the group’s concurrent non-LP singles, Virginia Plain and Pyjamarama. I had to compress the signal on those tracks by something like an average of -3.5 dB (beyond a peak of -0.0 dB) to achieve a normalized output on the disc.

    I’m not in the music profession and I’m not an audiophile. I am a big music fan and I suspect that I agree with your position; digital mastering/remastering requires a good ear and good judgment. As an example, I think the remastering program for The Byrds catalogue was excellent. They did take some liberties - extending the fade-out on Turn! Turn! Turn! (thanks guys) - and the CD’s have more sonic detail and range than I can eek out of my vinyl LP’s. I don’t think remastering has to be slavish to historic precedent, but unfortunately there are more than a few cavalier and cloth-eared practitioners out there and the suits making the decisions don’t seem to be critically aware of the product they’re issuing.
     
  18. bangsezmax

    bangsezmax Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC, USA
    Oh, I much prefer the compression of yesteryear to the compression of today. I was just making the point that it's an old trick that's been taken to some really nasty extremes by modern technology.
     
  19. Pioneer

    Pioneer New Member

    Location:
    Gaithersburg, MD
    Ha, interesting. I may be talking about of my hindquarters, but my distant recollection from my 45-buying days is that rock/pop 45s tended to be louder than their LP versions. Don't know if this was generally done by increasing peak (hotness) or average levels (compression), if it was in fact generally done at all.
     
  20. Pioneer

    Pioneer New Member

    Location:
    Gaithersburg, MD

    I don't know about Bob Clearmountain's Roxy Music remasters, but Bob *Ludwig's* Roxy Music remasters (in HDCD) are hecka loud. But somehow they sound good too. :)
     
  21. PIBB

    PIBB Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    ReMaster

    I enjoyed the Marshall Crenshaw Rhino remaster......sounded :goodie: excellent......
     
  22. Zal

    Zal Recording engineer

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    ...or a feel or flavor for it.

    There should be a law.
     
  23. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    yes, 45s were often made louder/more compressed than the LP versions. But, many 45s were also slightly remixed to sound that way as well. Add to that, some 45s were in mono, so the sound was even more poewerful.
     
  24. Drifter

    Drifter AAD survivor

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC, CA
    Gotcha. :righton:
    I'd say the vast majority of 45s were mono, at least up until the early to mid 70s, no?
     
  25. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Right!
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine