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Remastered music on CD.

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Katie Bush
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Just my own observations, but in these strange times, I've been buying a fair amount of old popular music, re-released on CD.

I wonder if it's just me, but I'm finding the modern remastering to be pretty horrendous. I already have some of the tracks on older CDs, and they sound fine on there, but on the hew recordings (and we're talking familiar and trusted brand names) something just isn't right. I find myself having to adjust the amp's tone controls with almost every track change, very often too bassy, then on the next track, not bassy enough. Also, trebles are way too harsh on many tracks, vocals seem excessively 'essy' making them uncomfortable to listen to. In the mix, there are some tracks that sound okay, but on the whole, it's PITA trying to find a common level for any of the amp's controls.

Clearly, the music has been heavily reprocessed/remastered. Now, not wanting to blow hard on my own trumpet, years ago, I bought what I considered to be a pretty good music processing package (Steinberg Clean V5) with a few basic add-ons and a heap of VST plug-ins. I was reprocessing my own vinyl 12 years or more ago. I'm pretty certain I made a far better job of it than on these modern recordings, and as it turns out, I reprocessed several of the same tracks, and the difference is striking.

What I am wondering is, is it worth my while resurrecting the old P4/Windows XP computer, and reprocessing the 'new' CDs? Or is that likely to make a bad situation worse? . . One problem would be that I don't know what package was used to reprocess the new recordings, so 'bending' them back into shape would never be 100% achievable. I know that the Steinberg package generates copious amounts of metadata during processing, which allows for reverse engineering of the process. It follows that whatever software was used in the commercial process would likely do the same, but once the remastered recordings are 'burnt' to a physical medium, the metadata is stripped away. . It's a bit like trying to repair a vintage TV after someone else has already been in there and bodged it, or inserted an unofficial modification.

Why can't the big brand music companies just leave things alone?

 
Posted : 30/05/2020 7:39 pm
Nuvistor
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Posted by: @katie-bush

 

Why can't the big brand music companies just leave things alone?

Call me cynical but with remastering them wouldn’t the copyright be on the “new work” for another few decades.

I have not bought new  CD‘s for at least 5 years, have some from the charity shops. I get most via iTunes, not that I buy much.

I don’t have the best of hearing so nuances pass me by but I do listen to a lot of music. My favourite remastered pieces are Albert Sammons playing Delius Violin concerto recorded 1944 and Elgar Violin concerto recorded 1929 and remastered to CD by Marc Obert-Thorn.

Frank

 
Posted : 30/05/2020 9:06 pm
Katie Bush
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@nuvistor

hi Frank, yes, I do believe it's primarily to claim that it's a 'materially' altered work, and attract a further 50 years copyright, but I wish they wouldn't mangle the work in the process.

As it happens, most of the affected afflicted music is from 1959 to 1970.

 
Posted : 30/05/2020 9:11 pm
Cathovisor
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Not a CD, but if you've got a pair of headphones, have a little listen here:

The stereo is created by 'spectral editing' - way above my understanding! I used to work with the chap behind the channel; a very, very bright guy and one who doesn't overdo restoration - he's quite happy to leave a bit of noise in a recording.

 
Posted : 30/05/2020 9:46 pm
Katie Bush
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Now that's what I'm talking about! It doesn't need to be destroyed to make it good. I'm not sure if Steinberg can reproduce a stereo effect, but the sound quality is good. like your example, you can listen with the tone controls (Hi-Fi amp) set as 'flat' and still enjoy the sound. I'd also agree, a little subliminal noise is more than acceptable, and indeed, many of my early attempts had quite a lot of noise left in, but it still sounded better than if it had been 'over-processed'.

 
Posted : 30/05/2020 10:16 pm
Cathovisor
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That chap kindly offered to clean up some Berliner discs for me. For those who don't know, these are the very first disc recordings, produced to rival Edison's cylinders. Originally they were pressed on ebonite and were engraved in copperplate on the label space, were 7" in diamter and single-sided. The recording surface is probably best described as akin to a burnt McCain's Mini Pizza, circa 1984.

He achieved some great results, but here's the deal; he left a good deal of the noise present because he said that if you removed more of it - which he could - suddenly the recording lost any 'life' to it.

I only asked him to do one recording as a trial; he did all twenty-six!

My biggest gripe with the cleaning-up of recordings is when it introduces artefacts into the recording that are more distracting than what they are trying to reduce - that odd, chirping-and-going-down-a-plughole noise being one in particular. Embrace noise!

 
Posted : 31/05/2020 12:17 am
Katie Bush
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Some of my early attempts were pretty dire, and one recording comes to mind "Marching With The Mammoth Gavioli". The results were interesting to say the least. Given the harshness of of the treble ranges of the organ, my software read that as noise, and, When I auditioned the noise, that is to say, mute the playback but permit the noise to be heard, it sounded like a harsh scratchy noise to me too, so I allowed its removal. I have to say that it was actually quite pleasant to hear a Gavioli without the 'shash' of those tinny little pipes. It allowed more of the subtle tones to be heard, and very sweet it was was, so I burnt that to disc.

I also did several 'pop' music recordings, and some of them did not turn out so good! Voice recordings are very difficult to clean (Blaster Bates, as an example) because you cannot remove all the noise without adversely affecting the intelligence that you want to keep, but from that, I learnt that you don't really need to wring out every last subliminal scratch, click or pop.

With music recordings I learnt that you only really need to ride the top of the audio to make a massive difference. Riding just below gets as close to perfection as it is possible to be. That means there is still a lot of noise embedded within the recording, but as long as it remains below the mean peak value of the audio, you don't really hear it, it is subliminal.

For particularly badly damaged tracks, there is a clever algorithm which can look ahead, and look behind, and find a 'closest possible match' which you can then insert in place of the damaged section, but I never really got to grips with that feature. In addition, the package also included "Wave Lab Lite" which is where the real magic happens. This is the applet that allows you to manually edit and manipulate stubborn noise, and it's also where the VST plug-ins come out to play. In essence, it's where you can also screw it all up if you don't know what you're doing! - I don't do too much in Wave Lab, and I often wonder just how powerful the full Wave Lab applet really is. The 'Lite' version is pretty well feature rich and contains elements that I still haven't fully explored. It doesn't have many plug-ins with it, but the basic suite are more than adequate for anything I'm likely to want. I bought some extra VST plug-ins many years ago, but never really used them, they provided a lot of weird and wonderful studio effects that I just didn't need - Maybe one of those could be a stereo (from mono) re-processor?

My main use for Wave Lab is to manually clip the peaks from seriously badly damaged vinyl, like the regular click,click,click,click of a deep scratch. It is possible to manually 'write' a wave section, and I have done that, not very successfully, but enough to remove heavy noise, and leave something less obtrusive in its place.

You know, I am really going to have to dig out one of those old PCs and see if I can get back into the groove!

 
Posted : 01/06/2020 8:19 pm
Nuvistor
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Posted by: @katie-bush

You know, I am really going to have to dig out one of those old PCs and see if I can get back into the groove!

No time like the present, you obviously have a flair for it. ? 

Frank

 
Posted : 02/06/2020 8:13 am
EmleyMoor
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Some modern re-releases are very poor - there's at least one release of Rusty Draper's recording of "The Battle of New Orleans" where the process appears to have put a wet cardboard box over the backing singers!

"Yes, a bit of wet string may get you a good TV signal here on four channels, but you'll have to dry it out to get Channel 5!"

 
Posted : 06/06/2020 10:23 pm
RichardFromMarple
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I've found some early CDs to be poorly mastered, I got a Dionne Warwick one my Dad didn't want anymore which always needed the volume turned up by 10% to hear it clearly.  When I ripped it to my laptop I had to raise the volume digitally so I didn't have keep adjusting the volume.  Even on full volume on my iPod it was tricky to hear with any background noise, even with noise cancelling headphones.

 
Posted : 06/06/2020 11:05 pm
sideband
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Posted by: @cathovisor 

The stereo is created by 'spectral editing' - way above my understanding! I used to work with the chap behind the channel; a very, very bright guy and one who doesn't overdo restoration - he's quite happy to leave a bit of noise in a recording.

There's quite a lot about 'spectral editing'. There are some excellent re-recordings of previously 'mono only' records and they sound....just like stereo. Eric Records in the States have an excellent catalogue of tracks that have been edited in this way. The beauty is that they try to maintain the original sound so none of them sound processed in any way. 

Eric Records http://www.ericrecords.com/index.html

There is a brief explanation of DES on their website. They also have samples of tracks on the CD's available.

 

I was impressed by this recording of The Animals 'House Of The Rising Sun' which was never released in stereo. This has been remixed into stereo using spectral editing or 'DES'......Digitally Extracted Stereo.

 

 

 
Posted : 07/06/2020 6:42 am
Katie Bush
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There is another process, CEDAR, that I have come across, and have one CD that I know of which was processed with CEDAR (Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration). The CD in question is "The Warring 40's" - Various artists of the time. It seems to be a somewhat more sympathetic process.

Thankfully, it hasn't mangled a stereo image out of mono recordings. Whereas that might work for some modern (1960s onward) audio tracks, I'd find it wholly unpalatable on recordings form a time where stereo was either, non-existent, or at least, not generally available in the public domain.

 
Posted : 07/06/2020 7:41 pm
Cathovisor
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CEDAR is the grandaddy of all the noise reduction and restoration equipment; I think I bought my first CD of restored dance band music back in the early 90s! Since then they have gone on to be class-leaders in noise reduction: I know some very high-profile TV shows use CEDAR equipment to reduce the background noises that go on in programmes (like air-conditioning).

Have a read about them here.

 
Posted : 08/06/2020 9:12 am
Katie Bush
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@cathovisor

Hi Mike,

That's good to know. I wasn't aware of that until now, and I guess, it makes CEDAR a cut above the rest - I thought that CD sounded exceptionally good!

 
Posted : 08/06/2020 12:30 pm
Cathovisor
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@katie-bush

You can tell how long it's been around by the fact the late Alan Dell was involved in some early CEDAR restorations of discs. It was nothing short of a revelation at the time.

 
Posted : 08/06/2020 12:36 pm
Katie Bush
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@cathovisor

Just browsing their website right now!

 
Posted : 08/06/2020 12:37 pm
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