The Art of Remastering
Posted by: Sloop John B on 05 May 2007
Master Sloop Junior is doing a project on The Beatles and while perusing my cd catalogue for pictures and information he obviously came across the "remastered form the original tapes" or some such and asked
"what do they do when they re-master?"
and while attempting a reply I realised although I call some cd's good remasters and some ones bad and call for others to get the remaster treatment, I don't really know what is actually done by a remasterer.
I come you you for enlightenment.
SJB
"what do they do when they re-master?"
and while attempting a reply I realised although I call some cd's good remasters and some ones bad and call for others to get the remaster treatment, I don't really know what is actually done by a remasterer.
I come you you for enlightenment.
SJB
Posted on: 05 May 2007 by u5227470736789439
Dear SJB,
Remastering has been going on since the advent of electrical recording in about 1926.
It is an attempt to repair problems in the original master source. With 78s just occasionally the groove cutter would produce such a wide swing that the last groove is cut through. If a make up session was not a practiacality, then an effort would be made to recut a replacment master to avoid this wide swing. Naturally this required considerable skill, to track the faulty disc...
Analogue tapes all contain a certain amount of tape noise, and the remastering trick is reduce this without compromising the sound of the musical signal more than than is avoidable. 78s were often strikcken with mechanical surface noise even in the master disc...
Also there are pitch issues, which are corrected, and edits improved as becomes necessary when replay is so much improved over time. Infact it is just like restoring an old painting. Much to do, and the results must not go so far as to be a transformation, but be enough to disguise as far as possible the original and age related faults, so as to produce something as close as possible to the best technologies today would allow for while retaining the music intact.
Sometimes even seventy or eighty year old recordings require little more than a straight transfer [beyond correcting to flat the original and somewhat variable EQs used for old recordings], but even modern tapes [digital and analogue] sometimes require considerable work.
Re-EQ is also a large part of it, and sadly in some genres extra compression is also applied, which is a blunder in every case in my view.
The digitalisation of the signal allows for very precise control of the remastering process using very powerful computer programs to filter noise out, Re-EQ, and correct pitch, though many very fine remasters were achieved [with great skill] in the wholely analogue domain. Naturally this left a problem with a further layer of tape noise, which might eliminate any adavantage in the work. This is why some first issues are better sounding than subsequent re-issues. The Digital domain is not perfect either...
Kindest regards from Fredrik
Remastering has been going on since the advent of electrical recording in about 1926.
It is an attempt to repair problems in the original master source. With 78s just occasionally the groove cutter would produce such a wide swing that the last groove is cut through. If a make up session was not a practiacality, then an effort would be made to recut a replacment master to avoid this wide swing. Naturally this required considerable skill, to track the faulty disc...
Analogue tapes all contain a certain amount of tape noise, and the remastering trick is reduce this without compromising the sound of the musical signal more than than is avoidable. 78s were often strikcken with mechanical surface noise even in the master disc...
Also there are pitch issues, which are corrected, and edits improved as becomes necessary when replay is so much improved over time. Infact it is just like restoring an old painting. Much to do, and the results must not go so far as to be a transformation, but be enough to disguise as far as possible the original and age related faults, so as to produce something as close as possible to the best technologies today would allow for while retaining the music intact.
Sometimes even seventy or eighty year old recordings require little more than a straight transfer [beyond correcting to flat the original and somewhat variable EQs used for old recordings], but even modern tapes [digital and analogue] sometimes require considerable work.
Re-EQ is also a large part of it, and sadly in some genres extra compression is also applied, which is a blunder in every case in my view.
The digitalisation of the signal allows for very precise control of the remastering process using very powerful computer programs to filter noise out, Re-EQ, and correct pitch, though many very fine remasters were achieved [with great skill] in the wholely analogue domain. Naturally this left a problem with a further layer of tape noise, which might eliminate any adavantage in the work. This is why some first issues are better sounding than subsequent re-issues. The Digital domain is not perfect either...
Kindest regards from Fredrik
Posted on: 05 May 2007 by u5227470736789439
Post Script:
It seems to me that the remastering of "classical" recordings has generally improved a very great deal so that most CDs really are much more successful as a medium to convey the music beautifully than the older LP releases. In fact in the 50s many very fine recordings were seriously compromised by the LP cutting techniques of the day. Many were less fine than 78 issues from a decade earlier [a fact freely admitted by restoring engineers at EMI like Keith Hardwick and AC Griffith], and so their re-release in CD format after careful remastering is often a revelation when one listens and is surprised by the wonderful quality of the sonics and their greater insight into the music making compared to the thick, unfocussed replay of many old LPs even on very good equipment.
Strangely "non-classical" are not nearly so obviously an improvement, and I find this perplexing, considering what the position with older "classical" recordings shows is possible.
EMI have been much less successful remastering the Beetles for example than their efforts from the same time [and studios] with artists like Klemperer in Beethoven and Mozart. Very strange. Even the finances of it would suggest that more effort would be dedicated to the "non-classical" remastering process.
George Martin was a brilliant producer of "classical" recordings before moving onto the Beetles, and these now fifty year old efforts come up "fresh, like made last week," as recordings. One specially lovely performance captured by Mr Martin's team is out on Testamant: Szymon Goldberg [leader of the BPO till 1935 when he left his homeland] playing the Concertos in G, D, and A of Mozart with the Philharmonia under Walter Susskind, done in about 1954! In these concertos I can think of no more lovely readings, warm but not romantic, precise, but not clinical! And full of the music's natural sunlight!!!
ATB from Fredrik
It seems to me that the remastering of "classical" recordings has generally improved a very great deal so that most CDs really are much more successful as a medium to convey the music beautifully than the older LP releases. In fact in the 50s many very fine recordings were seriously compromised by the LP cutting techniques of the day. Many were less fine than 78 issues from a decade earlier [a fact freely admitted by restoring engineers at EMI like Keith Hardwick and AC Griffith], and so their re-release in CD format after careful remastering is often a revelation when one listens and is surprised by the wonderful quality of the sonics and their greater insight into the music making compared to the thick, unfocussed replay of many old LPs even on very good equipment.
Strangely "non-classical" are not nearly so obviously an improvement, and I find this perplexing, considering what the position with older "classical" recordings shows is possible.
EMI have been much less successful remastering the Beetles for example than their efforts from the same time [and studios] with artists like Klemperer in Beethoven and Mozart. Very strange. Even the finances of it would suggest that more effort would be dedicated to the "non-classical" remastering process.
George Martin was a brilliant producer of "classical" recordings before moving onto the Beetles, and these now fifty year old efforts come up "fresh, like made last week," as recordings. One specially lovely performance captured by Mr Martin's team is out on Testamant: Szymon Goldberg [leader of the BPO till 1935 when he left his homeland] playing the Concertos in G, D, and A of Mozart with the Philharmonia under Walter Susskind, done in about 1954! In these concertos I can think of no more lovely readings, warm but not romantic, precise, but not clinical! And full of the music's natural sunlight!!!
ATB from Fredrik
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by Sloop John B
Thanks for the replies,always informative as usual, Fredrik.
Would the following simplified analogy be correct.
If I got a recording and used a graphic equalizer to say increase bass, reduce treble or increase the overall volume and then recorded the result. This would be a remastered version?
Thanks
John
Would the following simplified analogy be correct.
If I got a recording and used a graphic equalizer to say increase bass, reduce treble or increase the overall volume and then recorded the result. This would be a remastered version?
Thanks
John
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by u5227470736789439
Dear SJB,
I think that would be a remastering, as your new version will be a material change from the source - a new edition - and really the remaster is nothing but a new edition of an existing recording.
I have made corrections for pitch, poor edits and even Re-EQ on recordings where the faults in the commercial issue were sufficient for me to find them irritating. I only used a PC with Sonic Foundry for pitch, EQ, and join edits, and Nero for burning the new editions.
Really there is something very satisfying about correcting a side join on 78s so that it is impossible to tell where the join is, though one join can take an hour to perfect! I find some issues, such as Pearl are often exemplary transfers in terms of pitch and lucid musical communication [instrumental sonority and articualtion], but are frequently flawed with a moment's hesitation in the rhythm at the side-breaks. This is only a few milleseconds in most cases, and absolutely nothing is lost of the performance by retaining the basic pulse through the break in preference to curtailing the end of the previous side's last note or chord. The ideal would of course be to run two tracks and "overlap" them keeping the pulse, but this is beyond the capacity of the software I have.
The bravest thing is pitch correction. This is an issue with some 78s where the pitch gradually drops through the side. Essentially unless the EMI gravity motor was used, which is completely immune to the effect because of massive over-engineering, there is a constant friction at the cutting tip which causes a greater torque at the outer edge than nearer the middle of the master wax. Simply a product ot the tip friction and the radius to the tip at any time to produce an instantaneous value for the counter torque against the motor. If the motor itself has insufficinet torque rating to make the issue irreleveant [like the EMI gravity motor] then the speed of the disc increases as the tip makes its way towards the centre. This can only satisfctorily be corrected at the stage of the actual primary transfer from the original source pressing. The problem of pitch drop is apparent when the playback is truly at a constant angular velocity.
But tape has a different issue, because tape recorders of older style have speed adjusters, and testing the actual speed was not also done well enough to guarantee that a live recording would be recorded at a constant pitch using two machines in relay. It is easily corrected as the actual wrong speed can be corrected without continuous adjustement and requires only a tuning fork or other pitch checker to create a good transfer from the original tape. But this does not always happen.
With the issue of EQ, then no uuniversal standards existed before the 1950s with each company using its own approximate style of EQ. In every recording this was set according to the taste and experience of the engineers concerned n at each session, and unfortunately a remake session might be subtlely different. That is where the restoring engineer's art really comes into play as the result should sound like one big continuous take!
It is fascinating, and I would love to have done it as a living! The greatest skill is in preserving speed and pitch across a 78 side which gradually reduces in pitch, and that requires a true musical ear as much as anything else for the constant adjustment of speed and pitch to get a good even result. I could have done that!!
ATB from Fredrik
I think that would be a remastering, as your new version will be a material change from the source - a new edition - and really the remaster is nothing but a new edition of an existing recording.
I have made corrections for pitch, poor edits and even Re-EQ on recordings where the faults in the commercial issue were sufficient for me to find them irritating. I only used a PC with Sonic Foundry for pitch, EQ, and join edits, and Nero for burning the new editions.
Really there is something very satisfying about correcting a side join on 78s so that it is impossible to tell where the join is, though one join can take an hour to perfect! I find some issues, such as Pearl are often exemplary transfers in terms of pitch and lucid musical communication [instrumental sonority and articualtion], but are frequently flawed with a moment's hesitation in the rhythm at the side-breaks. This is only a few milleseconds in most cases, and absolutely nothing is lost of the performance by retaining the basic pulse through the break in preference to curtailing the end of the previous side's last note or chord. The ideal would of course be to run two tracks and "overlap" them keeping the pulse, but this is beyond the capacity of the software I have.
The bravest thing is pitch correction. This is an issue with some 78s where the pitch gradually drops through the side. Essentially unless the EMI gravity motor was used, which is completely immune to the effect because of massive over-engineering, there is a constant friction at the cutting tip which causes a greater torque at the outer edge than nearer the middle of the master wax. Simply a product ot the tip friction and the radius to the tip at any time to produce an instantaneous value for the counter torque against the motor. If the motor itself has insufficinet torque rating to make the issue irreleveant [like the EMI gravity motor] then the speed of the disc increases as the tip makes its way towards the centre. This can only satisfctorily be corrected at the stage of the actual primary transfer from the original source pressing. The problem of pitch drop is apparent when the playback is truly at a constant angular velocity.
But tape has a different issue, because tape recorders of older style have speed adjusters, and testing the actual speed was not also done well enough to guarantee that a live recording would be recorded at a constant pitch using two machines in relay. It is easily corrected as the actual wrong speed can be corrected without continuous adjustement and requires only a tuning fork or other pitch checker to create a good transfer from the original tape. But this does not always happen.
With the issue of EQ, then no uuniversal standards existed before the 1950s with each company using its own approximate style of EQ. In every recording this was set according to the taste and experience of the engineers concerned n at each session, and unfortunately a remake session might be subtlely different. That is where the restoring engineer's art really comes into play as the result should sound like one big continuous take!
It is fascinating, and I would love to have done it as a living! The greatest skill is in preserving speed and pitch across a 78 side which gradually reduces in pitch, and that requires a true musical ear as much as anything else for the constant adjustment of speed and pitch to get a good even result. I could have done that!!
ATB from Fredrik
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by nap-ster
Interesting article here
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by Sloop John B
Great article nap-ster thanks for that, and thanks once again Fredrik.
SJB
SJB
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by fred simon
quote:Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
EMI have been much less successful remastering the Beetles
The recent mash-up/remix/remaster LOVE sounds wonderful ... greatly improved sound.
All best,
Fred
P.S. Why "Beetles"?
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by u5227470736789439
Dear Fred,
How nice it would be if the origianal albums and free standing singles might be given the kind of treatment that the 9 CD Elgar Edition got in 1993/4, when more was spent on each disc than had been spent on any single classical CD remastering from 78s of anything before with suitably wonderful results. One of my party pieces used to be to put the November 1930 recording of the First Symphony on, as apart from it being mono, it was indistinguishable from the recording made last week at the very start of the finale, and only marginally dry acoustically elsewhere!
As a child I had an LP transfer of this reocrding and eventually the 78 set out of the school library. Truly the result completely show that these old recordings were marvelous.
Surely the Beetles recorded legacy is at least as important as Elgar's!
ATB from Fredrik
PS: Beetles/Betles? Which is correct?
How nice it would be if the origianal albums and free standing singles might be given the kind of treatment that the 9 CD Elgar Edition got in 1993/4, when more was spent on each disc than had been spent on any single classical CD remastering from 78s of anything before with suitably wonderful results. One of my party pieces used to be to put the November 1930 recording of the First Symphony on, as apart from it being mono, it was indistinguishable from the recording made last week at the very start of the finale, and only marginally dry acoustically elsewhere!
As a child I had an LP transfer of this reocrding and eventually the 78 set out of the school library. Truly the result completely show that these old recordings were marvelous.
Surely the Beetles recorded legacy is at least as important as Elgar's!
ATB from Fredrik
PS: Beetles/Betles? Which is correct?
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by acad tsunami
quote:Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
PS: Beetles/Betles? Which is correct?
Neither!
Posted on: 06 May 2007 by u5227470736789439
Oh Bug**r! I am not even pis**d! Fredrik
Beetles/Beatles! That was supposed to be the question!
Beetles/Beatles! That was supposed to be the question!
Posted on: 07 May 2007 by fred simon
quote:Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
Beetles/Beatles! That was supposed to be the question!
Seriously?
I thought you were having a joke at The Beatles' expense.
In any case, their name is a double pun: a reference to Buddy Holly and The Crickets, with the accentuated "beat."
All best,
Fred
Posted on: 07 May 2007 by Sloop John B
I prefer John's version
It came in a vision — a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'"
SJB
It came in a vision — a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'"
SJB
Posted on: 07 May 2007 by u5227470736789439
Dear Fred,
I don't usually find I like irony, or acid sarcastic wit, and like to use it even less! So unless I am very cross, I simply try to write exactly what I mean. "Try," being the opperative word! [Pathetic, sorry, topo-disaster style Smiley]!
I take all music seriously, especially music I like, or know less well than my favourite pieces!
Kind4est regards from Fredrik
I don't usually find I like irony, or acid sarcastic wit, and like to use it even less! So unless I am very cross, I simply try to write exactly what I mean. "Try," being the opperative word! [Pathetic, sorry, topo-disaster style Smiley]!
I take all music seriously, especially music I like, or know less well than my favourite pieces!
Kind4est regards from Fredrik
Posted on: 08 May 2007 by JohanR
quote:The recent mash-up/remix/remaster LOVE sounds wonderful ... greatly improved sound.
The early American albums (they are slightly different from the European ones) where released on CD the other year. I heard a comparasion on the radio between the usual EMI 1980's issuses and the new ones where thw new ones where a clear improvement.
quote:In fact in the 50s many very fine recordings were seriously compromised by the LP cutting techniques of the day. Many were less fine than 78 issues from a decade earlier [a fact freely admitted by restoring engineers at EMI like Keith Hardwick and AC Griffith],
On the Swedish radio they sometimes plays the last generation of 78's, from the mid 1950's. They usually sound incredibly good! Particulary compared to early vinyl.
On mastering. I would argue that a new recording, when transfered to CD, doesn't need any "mastering" at all. An old recording might need some doctoring, though.
JohanR