Original Recordings Remastered

The big issue here is that when CD's were first released, there was a huge rush by the record companies to release CD versions of most of the old albums as quickly as possible. Mastering a 2-channel mix for CD is much different than for analog destinations, and they didn't really know what they were doing, and they didn't usually take the time to get it "right". Consequently, a large percentage of the CDs released prior to the late 1990's sounded like crap. They had low signal levels, sounded listless, muffled, etc. I would often purchase a CD, and wonder why it didn't seem to sound as good as I remembered it when I owned it on vinyl.

I'm not sure why. Perhaps with the resurgance of the "coolness" of vinyl, more customers compared their new CD purchases with their old vinyl copies of the albums. In the late 1990's, the record companies finally decided to start fixing the problem, and all of these re-masters started to appear.

Generally they are far better than the first CD release. Occasionally, though, they can sound worse (depending on who you talk to). Perhaps DSOTM is one of these. For the most, if it's been re-mastered recently, then it's probably better.

BTW, my first CD copy of LedZepIV was AWFUL!!!! The new one is miles better.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

I thought the original CD releases of Hendrix were pretty good, esp Axis, the vinyl version of which [had original pressing] I thought was dreadfully tinny, as if the tea boy had mastered it. In fact, a fair bit of 60's-70's vinyl was just appalling. It's easy to look back with rosy specs, but quite often CD reissues are far superior. Then again, it's very much a case by case thing, because of the CD 'sausage machine' effect. Traffic's 'Mr Fantasy' is I think far superior on CD.

I agree with Mike, in that nowadays 'heritage' reissues generally have a lot more care taken over them. If a high definition format eventally emerges triumphant, then I think that the stereo [as opposed to 5:1 mixes] will be worth looking at.

throb

Thanks for the comments. I forgot about the rush to get CD's to market in the late 1980's. Amazon lists the CD release date, which should help me.

throbnorth, sorry but I didn't understand your comment on high definition stereo vs. 5:1. Did you mean that on dual-layer SACD's, for example, that the stereo version might be superior to "original recordings remastered discs" from the last few years?

Thank you.

Just for Mr Gerrard

the original pressing of Tubular bells was good. The remaster (HDCD) was awful. the tubular bells were the worst bit of it!

The ones I have heard of late I'd agree were ok. I do personally tend to prefer the character of the originals. Hence, I actually own no remasters!

Andrew

there are 10 types of people in this world... those who can read binary, and those who can't...

Ludwig,

I Haven't heard the Stevie Wonder CD's but my brother has both of them and reckons that they are amazing.

The main problem I have with remasters is that the act of 'remastering' seems to be an open invitation to screw around with the music, cranking up the treble, playing around with the mix, noise removal and more often than not going to town with compression - all sorts of things. In my experience, the results are give an initial impression of clarity but are not good to listen to in the longer term, therefore really rather bad to the point where I will not buy remasters. In fact I look out for original issues and vinyl.

Examples of bad remasters include Fleetwood Mac Rumours, most of Elvis Costellos stuff (rem-mixes), George Harrison's ATMP (compression and noise reduction), the latest Dark Side of the Moon (compression), Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life (bad EQ) and the David Bowie's back catalogue (every effect known to man).

BYW If want to hear what Talking Book should sound like get the original US vinyl (easy to spot the album has braille on the front), its in a different league. The original Innervisions CD is very good, obviously a straight copy of the original masters and sounds very similar to the original LP. The Zep remasters are pretty good if a bit heavy on the trebl (Jimmy Page remastered them....)- vinyl is the way to go. The 1992 remasters (the current CDs in other words) of floyd are good CDs.