MASTERS: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[Sal1950]

One of my audio buddies was a roadie for them- he has stories...

We'd love to hear em.

 

[Robert C]

I doubt any engineer worth his salt is using LP mastered tapes for their base

Well, they are.

 

[SIY]

We'd love to hear em.

Not repeatable in a family-friendly forum. And really, not repeatable- Al had a thick Yorkshire accent, almost impenetrable to American ears.

 

[krabapple]

The more experienced / famous mastering engineers like Robert Ludwig when working on the original pressings often did work to "improve" / "compensate for LP limitations" in addition to the mandatory production mastering changes. This is one of the main reason original pressings are sought after... they are initialed by the mastering engineers in the dead wax.

'compensating for LP's limitations' is what 'cutting mastering' is.

 

[levimax]

'compensating for LP's limitations' is what 'cutting mastering' is.

Sometimes the mastering engineers went beyond what was necessary for the record to be produced in order to compensate or improve shortcomings in the mix down master. Those are two seperate things. Not sure your point but there are plenty of examples of early CD's made from the LP cutting masters that are audibly different from later remasters and preferred by some. I recently picked up an early "Taget" CD of Fleetwood Mac Rumours .... I have a bunch of copies of this including a super duper Hi-res version and I prefer the Target and it is easy to ABX vs later digital versons. The most glaring difference, besides the jacked up trebel on later digital versions, is the "fade up" on Gold Dust Woman... obviously this was added by the mastering engineer to the LP as it is much different on the LP and Early Target than on later digital versions. To me the song is ruined by changing that fade up. My pointis is not that I always prefer original CD's made from LP masters but sometimes I do and automatically assuming the latest remaster made from original master tapes (worn out master tapes are another issue) is going to be "better" will cause you to miss out on some great recorded music.

 

[Sal1950]

The most glaring difference, besides the jacked up trebel on later digital versions,

So you like your recordings to have the treble rolled off so LP's don't have tracking problems with less than a SOTA TT & stylus?

 

[levimax]

So you like your recordings to have the treble rolled off so LP's don't have tracking problems with less than a SOTA TT & stylus?

That's not the case with this album... turns out the master tapes were EQ'd like the LP and orginal CD. The treble got jacked on first digital remaster and has been the same since. There are a lot of threads on the internet on this subject and of course it is all hearsay but in any case I prefer the Target CD to any other digital version and by an unusally large margin. Just having the original fade up on Gold Dust woman is reason enough to recomend the original Target version, without it the song it totally changed.

 

[GM3]

Not much to add other than almost anywhere ever you look, it's like things are designed to fail. The old "why can't we have nice things". This is what I have always found so painful with the audio hobby... With a good system, not a lot of music just doesn't sound great, quite a few tracks even seem to sound worse, as you can now hear how bad they are... And looking at the Dynamic Range DB of some of my favorite artists, it's really sad to see that vinyl editions have more DR than CD...

It's not a superior trait of vinyl music reproduction, quite the opposite; "Vinyl has a dynamic range of 55-70dB, whereas digital music can go up to 90-96dB.", it's just that a fucking bunch of retards decided it would be better to compress the shit out of every CD, making everything sound awful... And everyone went with it. The sad thing is that it didn't have to be that way.

It's hard to understand why there was never any push for 'audiophile' grade editions or masters of popular music; I'm sure they'd make a lot of money... I'm sure a ton of people would be more than happy to repurchase their entire music collection if it meant that they could have genuine sound quality!

Now, from my perspective, you've got a few choices
1) Buy inferior format vinyl, like if we were living in 1910, a shit format which will degrade on every playback and which sounds like garbage most of the time (shhhh snaps crackle pops, etc.), impractical; can't skip, must turn over halfway, no quick album and track change like digital, $$$, etc.
2) listen to your garbage sounding music and enjoy it because well, it's what you love, even if it sounds like ass...
3) find new favorite music from Asia or OSTs. These days, it's where you have a go to find good music that sounds good..!
4) go for 'audiophile' labels, which rarely has the type of music you enjoy, but hey, gets on your nerves quick but at least it sounds good right?
5) find a few current artists that you enjoy and don't sound awful... These still exist right? (#notall)

But yeah, it's so sad. You can't watch movies or series, (almost everything sucks; plus non-stop woke garbage propaganda), and you have to go to Asia to find stuff you can watch or listen to, that wasn't actually made for literal retards...

It's really all so depressing... Really, how much of a tragedy is it really that it's so hard to find great music that sounds great?

 

[Mart68]

It's hard to understand why there was never any push for 'audiophile' grade editions or masters of popular music; I'm sure they'd make a lot of money... I'm sure a ton of people would be more than happy to repurchase their entire music collection if it meant that they could have genuine sound quality!

The original 1980s release CDs of most mainstream artists tend to fulfil that role. Plus you can still get many of them cheap second-hand so go for it while you can.

For more obscure or more recent artists I can't help you there. I agree there would be a niche market for it.

 

[Sal1950]

1) Buy inferior format vinyl, like if we were living in 1910, a shit format which will degrade on every playback and which sounds like garbage most of the time (shhhh snaps crackle pops, etc.), impractical; can't skip, must turn over halfway, no quick album and track change like digital, $$$, etc.
2) listen to your garbage sounding music and enjoy it because well, it's what you love, even if it sounds like ass...
3) find new favorite music from Asia or OSTs. These days, it's where you have a go to find good music that sounds good..!
4) go for 'audiophile' labels, which rarely has the type of music you enjoy, but hey, gets on your nerves quick but at least it sounds good right?
5) find a few current artists that you enjoy and don't sound awful... These still exist right? (#notall)

AMEN, You hit the nail on the head with this post!
Only thing your missing is buy the 5.1 and Atmos blu-ray releases.
Their SQ is exceptional. !!!

 

[Snoopy]

Those who have settled on using streaming as their only or main source of music are going to have to accept the fact that ton's of albums have bunches and bunches of masters/remasters in the wild. I don't think we can expect streamers to offer every version that's been made and I consider ourselves lucky if we can get both a stereo and multich version of each.
If your the kind of person like me that wants to have the best of what's available for any particular album, the only path will remain to maintain your own library, at least for the ones really important to you.

I went down this rabbit hole because of David Bowie RCA and Ryoku CDs with their bonus tracks etc... Now I'm looking at 800gb of ripped music/ high-res purchases, DSD files etc.. once you really compare the dynamic range of older releases versus most modern stuff you really don't have another option.

Since I got into Japanese Jazz it got even more wild.. most stuff isn't even on a streaming service (qobuz, Tidal, Apple music).


And that brings me to something else.. someone offered to share pirated "Redbook" and high-res files, but also LP rips and stuff that is really available for free. It was a massive amount of 22 terabyte of files.

So I figured I check some of the stuff... Turned out nearly all SACD rips where ripped with pcm conversation and at 88khz (PS3 rips), the Redbook rips where often from Deezer without dithering, or cd rips in 320kbps and converted back to flac. LP rips that where so compressed they are most likely really from YouTube...

It's really the best option to maintain your own library where U know the source.

 

[PortaStudio]

I really wish someone would remaster this disc on CD.
Come the holidays, I very much miss being able to play it
since I dumped all my vinyl gear.

View attachment 294450

What does she talk about?

 

[krabapple]

That's not the case with this album... turns out the master tapes were EQ'd like the LP and orginal CD.

How do you really know that? Have you heard the master tapes, 'flat', on a neutral system?

 

[levimax]

How do you really know that? Have you heard the master tapes, 'flat',

Per Steve Hoffman on Hoffman forumns. Here is link

Questions about the "secret remaster" of Fleetwood Mac *Rumours*.

I've seen references here to a "secret remaster" of Fleetwood Mac Rumours, which has me intrigued. I have never heard of a secret remaster before....

forums.stevehoffman.tv

Ken Perry remastered "Rumours" at K-Disc in Hollywood from the original two track tape for CD.

Ken also mastered the original LP version at Capitol.

The first CD version was mastered by Mr. Un Known correctly following instructions about fading up and stuff.

It's possible that the Mac told Ken to start "Gold Dust" cold on the reissue CD, I dunno...

I personally prefer the Mr. Un Known version. That 4 db added at 8k to the CD remaster with the -4 at 150 cycles bass thinning trick gives me a headache.

 

[spiral scratch]

I went down this rabbit hole because of David Bowie RCA and Ryoku CDs with their bonus tracks etc...

The early '80's West German CDs are the best I've heard from that early catalogue.

 

[krabapple]

Per Steve Hoffman on Hoffman forumns. Here is link

Questions about the "secret remaster" of Fleetwood Mac *Rumours*.

I've seen references here to a "secret remaster" of Fleetwood Mac Rumours, which has me intrigued. I have never heard of a secret remaster before....

forums.stevehoffman.tv

Ken Perry remastered "Rumours" at K-Disc in Hollywood from the original two track tape for CD.

Ken also mastered the original LP version at Capitol.

The first CD version was mastered by Mr. Un Known correctly following instructions about fading up and stuff.

It's possible that the Mac told Ken to start "Gold Dust" cold on the reissue CD, I dunno...

I personally prefer the Mr. Un Known version. That 4 db added at 8k to the CD remaster with the -4 at 150 cycles bass thinning trick gives me a headache.

None of that answers whether either CD is a flat transfer of the master tapes. Which is what would have to happen for them to have the same EQ.

Much less whether an LP , inherently compromised, was ever cut 'flat' from the mixdown master, which is a far fetched proposition for a rock album released in the oil embargo era.

Having EQ 'like' the master tape, as opposed to 'same as', opens up a world of possible differences.

The fact is, no listener but the mastering engineer actually knows what the original master sounds like, versus their 'mastered' product. And they aren't prone to provide objective before/after proof either (you can be sure Steve Hoffman won't).

 

[levimax]

None of that answers whether either CD is a flat transfer of the master tapes. Which is what would have to happen for them to have the same EQ.

Much less whether an LP , inherently compromised, was ever cut 'flat' from the mixdown master, which is a far fetched proposition for a rock album released in the oil embargo era.

Having EQ 'like' the master tape, as opposed to 'same as', opens up a world of possible differences.

The fact is, no listener but the mastering engineer actually knows what the original master sounds like, versus their 'mastered' product. And they aren't prone to provide objective before/after proof either (you can be sure Steve Hoffman won't).

Again not sure your point. In general nothing is a flat transfer of the master tape. Obviously the fade up was not on the master tape but it was on the first 20,000,000 copies sold to the public on LP. This is a perfect example of an enhancement added on the original LP "lost" when remasteted decades later. I ran FFT on original CD vs remaster and what Mr. Hoffman says looks about right, I will post if I can find it.

 

[nerdemoji]

Hello everybody,

I've seen it come up in a discussion on buying CDs, that remasters often are not the recommended versions for high fidelity listening. I'v heard about this in a couple of examples before, but I wasn't aware that it is such a common complaint. Since I am very interested what is regarded as quality audio production, I'd love to hear your perspectives on what makes a master great and what makes it bad. Sometimes it's hard to put into words describing the qualities or it is just personal preferenaces, but I'd like to hear all of it.

If you can provide examples (like youtube links etc.) for everyone to get an impression that would be very apreciated.

I knew that the megadeth remix/remasters were quite controversial and disliked.

I have to agree that the original version sounds best. It is more rich and open to my ears and has nice top end and mid range, qualities I miss in the other versions. Also I think everything falls better into place.

oh boy do not get me started with those 2004 remasters, they are incredibly bad. Obviously there are worse in the metal world, but those are many times unintentional (like there is no way Whiplash wanted their debut to sound so muddy. I am not very knowledgble about the process but I assume that the bad sound on those thrash and death debut albums is a result of mostly recording badly.
I think Megadeth was in the awkward position of having the most masterful masters (hehe) on Peace Sells and Rust in Peace that any remaster would sound exactly the same, or worse. Gotta make the money flow so they sold some remasters.
while we are on the topic of bad masters, am I the only one who thinks that Sepultura's Beneath the Remains has some of the worst masters in all of metal. Its sterile and clean on one hand, but the drums sound like they are being played in an adjacent room and everything feels dry and dull. idk because most people think that BTR was a huge step up in production from Schizophrenia.

 

[BeerBear]

I wish they would label them as such. It would be nothing to create a good version and then compress the life out of it for the masses. Storage is cheap, and I'd bet they would sell more of the good, wider dynamic range files, then they expected.

In fact some mastering engineers make different versions by default and then they let the clients pick one.
Even easier would be to make one reasonably dynamic version and let the playback software handle the compression for people who want it. Spotify has something like that, with its -11 LUFS "Loud" mode. Media players could have initial setup steps, where they'd ask users if they listen on built in phone/laptop speakers or in noisy environments...
The technical solutions are relatively simple. The problem is that people who care (audiophiles) are relatively small fish.

 

[delta76]

A number of Van Morrison CDs were remastered. I had copies of the originals and the remasters were superior. One that impressed me the most was the remaster of Veedon Fleece. I have looked for links. I think there are some flac downloads of the remasters.

Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece (Remastered) (1974/2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece (Remastered) (1974/2020)FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:30 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: RockStudio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | …

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is it legal?