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In Reply to: RE: Re-Issues are a total hit or miss due to idiotic remastering, poor master tapes... posted by Smelly_Socks on May 17, 2016 at 08:12:51
"The worst disaster are some guys who 'remaster' the tape by putting through exactly what is on the tape"Do you mean mastering so that the record sounds as much like the master tape as possible? To achieve this the mastering engineer has to compensate for the losses of the processes involved. A competent engineer can do this to a fairly high degree of accuracy.
That's what "mastering" used to mean then that all changed and mastering engineers became part of the creative process and as important to the final sound as the mix engineer.
Mastering became "sweetening" and the goal was to make the record sound "better" than the master tape.
We therefore end up with records (made from the same master tape) sounding different depending on who "mastered" it and we have no idea what the master tape sounds like.
Having said all that, below is a video of Bernie Grundman Mastering "When the Levee Breaks" and at 14:23 he informs us that the signal from the tape deck is feeding the cutting amp direct.
So, in other words, there is no mastering taking place at all, just a direct transfer from the master tape to the lacquer.
I think you just called Bernie Grundman (one of the most respected mastering engineers of all time) a frik'in idiot.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 05/17/16 05/17/16 05/17/16 05/17/16Follow Ups:
This is the most obvious example of a person mastering the record which turned out to make those LPs worth a LOT more than other ones. Finding a nice used Led Zep LP with RL on the dead wax? A shout out Whoo Hoo..
It is all about the sound.
I have a few so called 'like on the master tape', which sound like crap. Thin.. awful sound. The guy who remastered THAT was a moron.
Many LPs were originally mastered to deliberately roll off bass and treble, then dynamically compressed due to the limitations of early home equipment. A mid 50's era jazz or classical LP pressed to be true to the tape would have unplayable on 90% of the equipment used by consumers. Most pop hits were mastered to sound good on an AM radio.
We have original pressings that we have listened to multiple times, and we have internalized their "sound" warts and all. Then we purchase a new high end reissue that was mastered to be "true to the master tape" and what we hear does not correspond to what we think it should sound like. In fact many reissues sound like completely different records. Classic Records was severely criticized when there first RCA LSC reissues did not sound like original pressings. The remastering engineer took out the EQ curve and restored e dynamic range that was present on the master tape. Listeners were not happy because the reality was not what their memories ld them to expect.
Now listeners have come to expect that careful reissues will sound different than first pressings, but it took about 15 years for buyers to recalibration their expectations.
Best, Ross
I am guessing that you are referring to some effort on the part of the original engineers to soften the extreme low bass and extreme treble so as to suit the playback equipment of the 50s, because surely you don't mean that the remastering engineer took out the RIAA equalization curve. If I do understand you correctly, is there concrete evidence that recording engineers of the 50s were thinking in such a way about home audio? I've never read such a thing. To the contrary, the covers of many vintage LPs describe in detail the recording chain, from microphones to cutting lathe, that was used to capture the performance; in the best cases, this was really state of the art for those days, and much of that gear is to this day still highly regarded and capable of a wide bandwidth. I don't perceive any deliberate attempt to compromise. I am not necessarily at odds with your hypothesis; I am just wondering about what information supports it.
Excellent points, Ross. Thanks.
For example. I still own a mint copy of Santana first LP. The MoFI reissue does not sound near as good.
The original of that first Santana LP is better in almost every way. I think this is due to the master tape MoFi used. either it was NOT the actual master, or it was done on 'cheap' tape, and had degraded over time.
On the other hand, the second Santana LP from MoFI WAS better than the original.
One problem here is we are talking past each other. Discussing different aspects using the same words, thus not really understanding each other.
I started to rehash what I wrote, but it just gets tired. Suffice to say IMO we are discussing different things.
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