Remastered music vs older recordings

[Robert D]

I've been finding some remastered songs sound considerably worse than older recordings. One problem is how they push so many frequencies louder, and they call it brickwalling. I've noticed many times the bass seems to have droped out, less volume, and the higher frequencies are boosted. On another forum someone made the following post that uses an analogy that describes this phenomenon well.

Natvecal.JUST A LOW- FI GUY WHO LOVES A GREAT MASTERING​

Example,

I do artwork. I scan it in (to computer) to Digitize it (as a file) so I can Remaster it in Photoshop ok? First thing I notice is the colors aren't as bright or vivid as my original artwork (the Analogue version let's call it) so I fix this
by enhancing the color(s) one by one as the brightened colors make un-brighten colors look dull. So I gotta do them all now.
So, enhancing away I go on my Digital version of my artwork and bingo! My colors are starting to really pop out more (EQ and or Loudness) My first thought? WOW, it's starting to look better than the original! Let's apply some more,wow this is great! it's so eye catching now . I print out a copy and it's better than the original But, over time when the novelty wears off I'm noticing some issues now ( The Sound Fatigue Stage). Too much enhancing (Compression) has wrecked my beautiful color blends ( Dynamic Range ) If the color is solid it's great but every where it blends with other colors they're more separated from each other so I lose that seamless blend when I Remastered Too much for my artwork's own good and benefit. Because I Still have the original to reference and now see to flaws in my Remastering effort.
To gain something is to lose something somewhere least expected. I Remaster my artwork with a light touch at best now and it looks better over time than worst.That's what I want ,right? Hope this makes some sense as an analogy as I see (and hear) definite parallels between this and music remastered too much or just right."

Last edited: Aug 5, 2017

 

[Robert D]

Sometimes I wonder if the new remastered songs and some new recordings are made with the run of the mill sound equipment in mind. Perhaps they are mastered so that they sound better on small inexpensive systems that are nowhere near hi-fi? You can listen to older recordings and it may sound better, especially in the bass region. Many average speakers can't even play the lower frequencies well, it's as their volume in the remastered track is decreased to play better on these speakers.
Tidal has a lot of different versions of albums that we can listen to and do the old A/B comparison.

 

[BigGuy]

I am of the opinion that just because you know HOW to remaster does not mean that you can/will do it WELL!

 

[Robert D]

I am of the opinion that just because you know HOW to remaster does not mean that you can/will do it WELL!

People online have studied this closely and have said that you can't even trust that if a person has done wonderful remastering on some albums that all of their work is good. Apparently it's an album by album thing.
I've got some movies remastered in 4k where they ruined some scenes by turning up volume too much on some effects. Return of the Jedi when Jabba's skiff blows up has too much volume on the explosion and causes distortion. It seems like the opinion is louder is better.

 

[Mirolab]

You can't always blame the Engineer! He's being paid to provide a service, and if the artist or record company demands LOUDER, then that is what he/she is being PAID to do. It's called "The Loudness Wars" and most things remastered after y2000 are usually worse sounding than their 80's or '90's releases. Sadly, on Tidal, you can only hear the most recent remasters. Very often I go back to my original 80s-90s CDs, and find them to be more dynamic. Greater dynamics sound better on great audio systems, but louder/compressed music sounds better in the car, and on small crappy systems, which is what most consumers listen with.
As a part-time audio engineer, I have been asked to push mixes far louder than what I thought sounded good. For one band, the louder I mixed, the more they liked it, even though I did not like it. Finally, we just decided that I was not the right mixer for their music. They went with another mix engineer, and the final product sounds dreadful to me.

 

[Robert D]

You can't always blame the Engineer! He's being paid to provide a service, and if the artist or record company demands LOUDER, then that is what he/she is being PAID to do. It's called "The Loudness Wars" and most things remastered after y2000 are usually worse sounding than their 80's or '90's releases. Sadly, on Tidal, you can only hear the most recent remasters. Very often I go back to my original 80s-90s CDs, and find them to be more dynamic. Greater dynamics sound better on great audio systems, but louder/compressed music sounds better in the car, and on small crappy systems, which is what most consumers listen with.
As a part-time audio engineer, I have been asked to push mixes far louder than what I thought sounded good. For one band, the louder I mixed, the more they liked it, even though I did not like it. Finally, we just decided that I was not the right mixer for their music. They went with another mix engineer, and the final product sounds dreadful to me.

Tidal has multiple remasters of some albums and almost always the older ones sound better. So as the audio engineer you are being pushed for louder. Do many listen to your advice about depth and quality vs loudness?
I wish that some movies didn't got nuts on their soundtracks. I never noticed that even just 5 years ago. Seems recent for movies.

 

[Robert D]

You can't always blame the Engineer! He's being paid to provide a service, and if the artist or record company demands LOUDER, then that is what he/she is being PAID to do. It's called "The Loudness Wars" and most things remastered after y2000 are usually worse sounding than their 80's or '90's releases. Sadly, on Tidal, you can only hear the most recent remasters. Very often I go back to my original 80s-90s CDs, and find them to be more dynamic. Greater dynamics sound better on great audio systems, but louder/compressed music sounds better in the car, and on small crappy systems, which is what most consumers listen with.
As a part-time audio engineer, I have been asked to push mixes far louder than what I thought sounded good. For one band, the louder I mixed, the more they liked it, even though I did not like it. Finally, we just decided that I was not the right mixer for their music. They went with another mix engineer, and the final product sounds dreadful to me.

Why do some remastered tracks seem to have no bass and all treble?

 

[BigGuy]

You can't always blame the Engineer! He's being paid to provide a service, and if the artist or record company demands LOUDER, then that is what he/she is being PAID to do. It's called "The Loudness Wars" and most things remastered after y2000 are usually worse sounding than their 80's or '90's releases. Sadly, on Tidal, you can only hear the most recent remasters. Very often I go back to my original 80s-90s CDs, and find them to be more dynamic. Greater dynamics sound better on great audio systems, but louder/compressed music sounds better in the car, and on small crappy systems, which is what most consumers listen with.
As a part-time audio engineer, I have been asked to push mixes far louder than what I thought sounded good. For one band, the louder I mixed, the more they liked it, even though I did not like it. Finally, we just decided that I was not the right mixer for their music. They went with another mix engineer, and the final product sounds dreadful to me.

I agree it IS a (presumably) money-making process and to a great extent music is mastered for portable audio...and I don't mean boomboxes!
Maybe the advent of audiophile earbuds will foster better recordings?!

 

[Nuri58]

If you notice albums mastered or remastered after 1995 (where equipment was close to perfect) have changed in the sense that they actually introduced various gear in the studios that added distortion, clipping and other "enhancing" effects. That's why remastering albums often ends up poorer (imo) than original mastering pre 1995 ones. It's all directed by the producer, not the engineer, so blame the producer. Well all is a matter of taste.

 

[Leporello]

My own experience with (mostly classical, some jazz) remasters is it's a crap shot. Some remasters sound wonderful, some have me preferring the original worn out LP. With audiophile labels, though, they usually stick with the principle that if you have a great recording, don't muck with it. Most of my great remasters are from Elusive Disk for CD, SACD and vinyl, HD Tracks for downloads. I don't use any streaming services.

 

[Mirolab]

Why do some remastered tracks seem to have no bass and all treble?

There's a really good technical reason for that! Bass dynamics need dB's of headroom to make an impact. For example, the only way for the kick drum to have 2 dB of headroom over the mids & highs is for the mid & highs to be 2dB below digital full scale. Remember, NOTHING can be louder than digital Full Scale. But when you are asked to make a mix louder, something has to give, so the first thing to go is all the dynamic peaks of the kicks and snare hits.
Play a rock, new wave, or jazz fusion CD from the 80's, and you'll feel the snare hits smack you in the face (on a good system). Now play anything recorded in the last 20 years, and you will not get that dynamic. If you even just LOOK at the audio waveforms of old vs. new masters, you can see how the drum transients have been squashed.
What's really shocking is buying SACDs that have been squashed dynamically. This is so offensive! If I pay $30 for a Hi-Res version of an album, why am I hearing distortion? I should be able to return it as a defective product!

 

[Robert D]

There's a really good technical reason for that! Bass dynamics need dB's of headroom to make an impact. For example, the only way for the kick drum to have 2 dB of headroom over the mids & highs is for the mid & highs to be 2dB below digital full scale. Remember, NOTHING can be louder than digital Full Scale. But when you are asked to make a mix louder, something has to give, so the first thing to go is all the dynamic peaks of the kicks and snare hits.
Play a rock, new wave, or jazz fusion CD from the 80's, and you'll feel the snare hits smack you in the face (on a good system). Now play anything recorded in the last 20 years, and you will not get that dynamic. If you even just LOOK at the audio waveforms of old vs. new masters, you can see how the drum transients have been squashed.
What's really shocking is buying SACDs that have been squashed dynamically. This is so offensive! If I pay $30 for a Hi-Res version of an album, why am I hearing distortion? I should be able to return it as a defective product!

Thanks for the explanation. I'm finding it on a good number of tracks streaming. Luckily Tidal usually has several different recordings of the same album and I'm able to find some that are ok. Some new MQA tracks sound really good, but most seem to be relatively new and originally recorded in the last 5 years. The old stuff that they went back and made into MQA often lacks the bass and dynamics like you say.

 

[Storm_Lord]

Any time you remaster an old song it's playing with fire. Some people will like it the new version, some will dislike it. I always said leave the originals alone!

 

[JonFo]

As mentioned, it depends, but one re-master artist who never misses is Steven Wilson. A Prog Rock musician focused on delivering a high-quality recording in which all the complexities and subtleties of his music are faithfully rendered; his mixes are sublime.
He was very early on in multichannel mixing because he saw the advantages of distributing the orchestration around the listener.

He has made a big name for himself remixing classic Prog albums (Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, etc.) and some other genres (of music he happens to like) into multichannel and now immersive (Atmos) and they are all (at least the ones I own) major improvements over the originals (which are often included for reference on the BluRays).

He refuses to master for 'the masses' and retains as much dynamic range as he can recover from the multitrack masters. His final outputs are what's known as 'flat transfers' of his mix. There is no 'mastering engineer' fiddling with a compressor, just the exact copy of his final mix-down.
No wonder he has over a decade of backlog of work on the mixing front. His 'day job' is running his own band.

So if you see a remaster of an album you like, and it says 'remix by Steven Wilson', go ahead and buy it, guaranteed to be a major improvement. A good example is his Tears for Fears album remixes.

 

[Jeff Zaret]

As mentioned, it depends, but one re-master artist who never misses is Steven Wilson. A Prog Rock musician focused on delivering a high-quality recording in which all the complexities and subtleties of his music are faithfully rendered; his mixes are sublime.
He was very early on in multichannel mixing because he saw the advantages of distributing the orchestration around the listener.

He has made a big name for himself remixing classic Prog albums (Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, etc.) and some other genres (of music he happens to like) into multichannel and now immersive (Atmos) and they are all (at least the ones I own) major improvements over the originals (which are often included for reference on the BluRays).

He refuses to master for 'the masses' and retains as much dynamic range as he can recover from the multitrack masters. His final outputs are what's known as 'flat transfers' of his mix. There is no 'mastering engineer' fiddling with a compressor, just the exact copy of his final mix-down.
No wonder he has over a decade of backlog of work on the mixing front. His 'day job' is running his own band.

So if you see a remaster of an album you like, and it says 'remix by Steven Wilson', go ahead and buy it, guaranteed to be a major improvement. A good example is his Tears for Fears album remixes.

I have the Chicago II remix by Steven Wilson and it is very good!

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I have one of those Jethro Tull remaster's that sounds FANTASTIC! In fact it sounds so good, that my neighbor who is into vinyl just shook his head and said it wasn't accurate to the original. The remaster is crisp and clear and all the instruments jump out individually. The original sounds very dull by comparison.

When an album is remastered, we would hope it is for altruistic reasons, but obviously someone is trying to make money with a re-release. The question is whether they can find an engineer to actually loves the album and feels like they can improve it starting with the original tracks. Are they also re-mixing the individual tracks so they can boost supporting instrument tracks that were somewhat muted that would sound better if they were boosted a bit and highlighted? If the person has a plan and can see places that were deficient that he can fix that would make the tracks sound better and not just different.

I've met some mastering engineers and every one of them was very passionate about making things sound "right". They all seemed to have their head in the right place. Put them in the same room and I think they would agree on many things that may be common truths, but then they each have a different idea about what "right" is.

All this started years ago with compression used by radio stations. For radio stations having as uniformly a loud signal as possible was critical. People listening in cars and non-audiophile surroundings with higher noise floors would listen to stations that allowed them to hear as much of the music as possible in these environments. Some artists thought their music sounded better when it was broadcast on the radio. It sounded more full or "thicker". So mastering engineers started to add more compression to the music similar to the radio stations.

I do wonder how things are mastered today and for what end environment.

I'm working with a group of Gen Z developers right now. What is uniformly true is that they seem to enjoy music, but they listen mostly through their computers and smart phones. They don't have space for a stereo system. So they are listening through IEM's or ear buds.

But their music goes with them. My wife has a BT speaker that she drives with her phone, and then our main stereo will also stream the same content and then she drops her phone into her car and the same playlist continues playing. I'm debating cancelling XM radio since she never uses XM anymore.

 

[thattomhall]

>> I have one of those Jethro Tull remaster's that sounds FANTASTIC!

@RCHeliGuy ... and that specifically is....? Inquiring audiophile minds want to know!

 

[RCHeliGuy]

>> I have one of those Jethro Tull remaster's that sounds FANTASTIC!

@RCHeliGuy ... and that specifically is....? Inquiring audiophile minds want to know!

What I have is "The Very Best of Jethro Tull" with all the songs remastered in 2001.

This shows the same CD album cover that I have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Best_Of_(Jethro_Tull_album)

 

[thattomhall]

What I have is "The Very Best of Jethro Tull" with all the songs remastered in 2001.

This shows the same CD album cover that I have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Best_Of_(Jethro_Tull_album)

Okay thanks much!

 

[JonFo]

>> I have one of those Jethro Tull remaster's that sounds FANTASTIC!

@RCHeliGuy ... and that specifically is....? Inquiring audiophile minds want to know!

Here is a good list of all the remix/remasters, most by SW: https://burningshed.com/store/headphonedust/remixes/jethro-tull-sw-remixes

I have Songs From the Wood, Aqualung, and Thick as a Brick. All sound awesome in 5.1.