Remastering

I talked with a metal fan the other day who only collects original pressings of CDs. He hates remasters and says it destroys the sound of the albums.

I can agree to some extent. I know of some remasters that I don't like, but it's certainly not always the case.

A couple of examples.
Ulitmatum's Puppet of Destruction. The original mastering was terrible. The studio that mastered it robbed the album of it's bottom end. It sounded very tinny. The new remastered version is 100x better and sounds like what we expected the first time around.

Raven - Nothing Exceeds Like Excess.
The original Combat Records CD pressing had horrific mastering that was not only low in volume but also had poor EQ. The original vinyl pressing sounded 1000x better IMO. The Century Media Records re-issue is a million times better than that original pressing. The volume is louder (though not overly loud) and the EQ problems were fixed.

On the other hand:
Ultimatum's Mechanics of Perilous Times. The original pressing on Massacre Records is superior to the Retroactive remaster. The remastering is so harsh it definitely does "destroy the sound".

I've heard plenty of 'bad' remasters, so I understand the point, but I don't agree 100% across the board.

Your thoughts? Examples both good and bad?

If I'm familiar with the albums as they are and already own the original, I'll stick to them. If I don't own the albums yet, I'll get a remaster. Either way, as long as I own the album, I should be happy.

It depends on who is doing the remastering... Some people don't know how to do it right. The Judas Priest, Slayer and Tourniquet remasters sound great imo. Same with the recent Pantera reissues.

I don't like the Megadeth remasters. They could've been done a lot better.

About 95% of all remasters these days kill the music by over-compressing (digital limiting) the music to try and make the CD sound as "LOUD" as possible. Unfortunately this ruins the original ambience of the recording and kills the dynamic range. This "Brickwalled" practice started in the late 90s (around 1996 to 1997) and has unfortunately continued until this day.

The Judas Priest remasters are horribly compressed, as are the Iron Maidens and most other major label CD reissues. The Slayer ones are terrible too, I got rid of the Reign In Blood remaster because it just sounded harsh and damn near unlistenable compared to the original vinyl.

Very few labels get mastering correct, primarily they are audiophile labels like Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions, etc. They take the time to get the remastering correct WITHOUT using dynamic killing compression schemes.

I have almost completely given up on CDs, I've moved back to vinyl (much less compression on LPs), blu-rays and Hi-Rez downloads for my music purchases.

The record labels wanted their CDs to be LOUDER than the other labels, so then they all started over-compressing to compensate. They got what they wanted, the CDs are loud, but the music was the victim.

- It's very difficult to find the "sweet spot" where CDs were at their best. If you go back to 80s pressed CDs then you are running into cheap mastering practices used by the labels at the time (not finding the original master tapes, just running off the LP production masters), digital software was still in it's infancy and the actual A/D converters were subpar compared to what came along just a few years later. In my experience I would say the best era for CD issues was between 1991 to 1996. One major exception to this rule are the Japanese CDs, they were smart enough to mostly stay away from brickwalling the entire time.

Quote :

The Judas Priest remasters are horribly compressed

Maybe so... but they sound great to me. The bass is full but kept at a level that isn't overwhelming. And there's just the right amount of treble to balance it out.

Jimmy Page did a good job with the Led Zeppelin remasters. I don't like the U2 ones. (even though "The Edge" was personally involved)

If anyone wants to know how remasters should be done, listen to the recent Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull remasters.

It all depends, if the original had fuzzy guitar,muffled drums, vocals too low in the mix, other stuff like that. Thats fine for remastering.
However, I'm not a huge fan of simply making the album sound modern, it kills the vibe. If you plan on doing something like that, then your better off just re-recording the album like Exodus, or Testament.

i agree with S.D.

The FnA remasters of Dirty Looks are terrible. They are super harsh.

I prefer the original of Armored Saint - Symbol of Salvation to the remaster. I could definitely tell that Metal Blade over-compressed that album because the dynamics were lost. Boo!

I don't have anywhere the ear that S.D. has though so I am sure I like many remasters that he hates.

I will say that I am starting to stray back to vinyl for a host of reasons with the fuller sound being one of them.

Quote :

If anyone wants to know how remasters should be done, listen to the recent Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull remasters

Don't know about JT but the Floyd ones are excellent. Much crisper sound.

What do you think about the Sacred Warrior ones?

Troublezone wrote:

Quote :

The Judas Priest remasters are horribly compressed

Maybe so... but they sound great to me. The bass is full but kept at a level that isn't overwhelming. And there's just the right amount of treble to balance it out.

I've heard a lot of complaints about the Priest remasters, but they sound good to me. Perhaps not as warm as vinyl, but cranked through my car system, they sound killer.

Remasters are always a crapshoot. Some are painful to listen to, like the Warrior Soul reissues, or the Intense reissue of Bloodgood's Detonation (cliffy did that one, and his stuff is usually great, so I'll blame it on the source material he had to work with. For what it's worth, his remaster of Bloodgood's debut is great.)

One that I changed my mind on was The remaster of Deliverance's what a Joke. At first I hated it, mostly based on the title track, where the guitars are drowning out the vocals a little bit, but the other day I sat down and really compared the reissue to the original, and now I prefer the remaster. The drums sound WAY better, as does everything else to a lesser degree. I still think the guitars are a tad too loud and the vocals are too far back, but it is superior.

I will say, the tide seems to be turning somewhat in regards to brickwalling. Labels and artists are starting to pay attention to consumer complaints.

tohostudios wrote:

If anyone wants to know how remasters should be done, listen to the recent Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull remasters.

The Pink Floyd remasters from last year are excellent and aren't overly compressed, these should be the norm in quality and not the exception.

The recent Jethro Tull release of Aqualung is actually a remix, not a remaster. The only way to improve it to the level Ian Anderson wanted was to have Steven Wilson remix from the original multi-tracks so he could EQ and balance each track individually (remastering just gives you access to the stereo mixdown). Wilson's remix is a major improvement, but also completely in the spirit of the original album so it still sounds like the record I grew up with...but it's like really hearing it for the first time. The best remix I've heard. The upcoming reissue of Thick As A Brick is also a Wilson remix.

Infinite wrote:

I will say, the tide seems to be turning somewhat in regards to brickwalling. Labels and artists are starting to pay attention to consumer complaints.

That is true, it's just not happening quickly enough.

S.D. wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

If anyone wants to know how remasters should be done, listen to the recent Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull remasters.

The Pink Floyd remasters from last year are excellent and aren't overly compressed, these should be the norm in quality and not the exception.

The recent Jethro Tull release of Aqualung is actually a remix, not a remaster. The only way to improve it to the level Ian Anderson wanted was to have Steven Wilson remix from the original multi-tracks so he could EQ and balance each track individually (remastering just gives you access to the stereo mixdown). Wilson's remix is a major improvement, but also completely in the spirit of the original album so it still sounds like the record I grew up with...but it's like really hearing it for the first time. The best remix I've heard. The upcoming reissue of Thick As A Brick is also a Wilson remix.

Thanks for clarifying that. I'm not enough of an audiophile to differentiate the technical differences between a remaster and a remix. I just know both of those band's latest re-releases sound a hell of a lot better on my stereo.

I was shocked by how much BETTER the remix/remaster of Flotsam & Jetsam's Doomsday for the Deceiver was. It sounds like a new album, almost as if the band went back and re-recorded it.

I am not a fan of the Megadeth remix/remaster/re-recordings.

ultmetal wrote:

I was shocked by how much BETTER the remix/remaster of Flotsam & Jetsam's Doomsday for the Deceiver was. It sounds like a new album, almost as if the band went back and re-recorded it.

That's how I felt hearing the new versions of Dark Side Of The Moon and Aqualung.

ultmetal wrote:

I was shocked by how much BETTER the remix/remaster of Flotsam & Jetsam's Doomsday for the Deceiver was. It sounds like a new album, almost as if the band went back and re-recorded it.

I am not a fan of the Megadeth remix/remaster/re-recordings.

I like the Megadeth remasters myself, though in all fairness that's probably because I heard them before I heard the original versions, i've heard the remastered versions of songs like Five Magics and Sweating Bullets so many times that the original versions sound weird and "alien" to me.

Vexer6 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

I was shocked by how much BETTER the remix/remaster of Flotsam & Jetsam's Doomsday for the Deceiver was. It sounds like a new album, almost as if the band went back and re-recorded it.

I am not a fan of the Megadeth remix/remaster/re-recordings.

I like the Megadeth remasters myself, though in all fairness that's probably because I heard them before I heard the original versions, i've heard the remastered versions of songs like Five Magics and Sweating Bullets so many times that the original versions sound weird and "alien" to me.

Probably the reason I don't like them. You get use to hearing it a certain way. "Into the Lungs of Hell" is a good example. Those horns are so prominent in the new mix that it sounds weird to me. They are almost inaudible on the originals.

ultmetal wrote:

Vexer6 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

I was shocked by how much BETTER the remix/remaster of Flotsam & Jetsam's Doomsday for the Deceiver was. It sounds like a new album, almost as if the band went back and re-recorded it.

I am not a fan of the Megadeth remix/remaster/re-recordings.

I like the Megadeth remasters myself, though in all fairness that's probably because I heard them before I heard the original versions, i've heard the remastered versions of songs like Five Magics and Sweating Bullets so many times that the original versions sound weird and "alien" to me.

Probably the reason I don't like them. You get use to hearing it a certain way. "Into the Lungs of Hell" is a good example. Those horns are so prominent in the new mix that it sounds weird to me. They are almost inaudible on the originals.

Interesting, I never really noticed that since I usually skip "Into The Lungs Of Hell"

A "remix" is not necessarily a bad thing, it just depends on "why" it's being done and "how" it's being done.

The aforementioned remix of Aqualung happened for two reasons. 1) The stereo masters of the album had been degraded from over-use in the past 40 years, so the damage could not be addressed unless you went back to the original multi-track masters and created an entirely new stereo master from it. 2) Ian Anderson had never really been happy with the sound of the original release, he felt the instrumental balance was off and didn't like how some of the instruments were EQd. So going back to the multi-tracks allowed Steven Wilson to EQ the instruments differently and to adjust the balance of them in the mix. Everything he did was subtle, but the overall effect was a great improvement.

That's an example of doing a remix for a very valid reason and pulling it off expertly.

The Megadeth remixes are a different beast. Instead of setting out to "enhance yet preserve" the feel of the original album, Mustaine wanted the changes to stand out and be noticeable. Changing effects that were used, adjusting instrument balance drastically, possibly even using alternate takes of some tracks (I've never owned these remixes, so honestly I don't know what all he changed). What you end up with is a an almost completely different album than the one originally issued...which is not what most fans want. So in Mustaine's case the remix ended up being a bad idea.

The HALFORD re-masters (Resurrection, Crucible) were truly much better IMO

i generally just want things to sound like they sounded when they were originally released, even if an improvement can theoretically be made. imperfections in mixing/mastering give an album personality of sorts in most cases. redoing something can create a new experience, but it is often lacking in mystique. sometimes they pull it off, though.

Usually when a "remastered" album comes out my reaction is something along the lines of "Dammit, (name of band) has ENOUGH of my money already!" So I'm never in a rush to replace my "old" copy of an album with a remaster.

That said, there are quite a few remasters in my collection, of the ones I own, I'd have to say the W.A.S.P. discs that were reissued by Snapper Music in the late 90s are probably the best.