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Remastering Karajan's Bruckner for Deutsche Grammophon

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Recently, Deutsche Grammophon released a remastered vinyl box set of Karajan's Bruckner recordings. In this video, the two sound engineers explain the remastering process from the original analog 8-track master tapes. If you are not interested in the discussions, start the video directly at 17:40 minutes.



EDIT:
Here is the documentary from DG without the discussions

 
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This is a pretty wonderful video. Anyone still playing LP and anyone wanting to see how such things are done should really get a lot out of it. I did skip to the 17 minute mark, and haven't watched it all yet. Well the main part is 17 minutes to 45 minutes. The rest is a discussion on things instead of showing how it was done.

I had this recording back on the original DG. I was sorely disappointed with it. I see where these current people show how he used the new 8 tracks to work with to do lots of post-processing in mixing for the tape used to cut it. They have decided to set a good mix for each part and mostly leave it alone. They said their opinion was a more coherent recording without extreme dynamic swings and other extremes. I'm guessing it will be a better recording.

I've not finished the video yet, but I would hope maybe they'll offer a digital version too. Though they are insisting on re-doing this totally in analog. Including using stairway echo chambers for reverb rather than digital units.
 
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Here is another nice video with the two sound engineers from the Emil Berliner Studios who did the remastering for DG - in German however...

 
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It's more remixing the recording than true remastering (altough that also happens). Mastering is not done on multitracks, but on the final format (mostly stereo). Here they remix the recordings and remaster them for a vinyl release, all in one take. They start from a fully edited 8 track multitrack recording, and mix it down (fully analog, even reverb and delay) to stereo for vinyl release. Very informative for those who don't know what (re)mastering used to be, and how technical it was (and still is) when done right.
 
I also watched the technical bit only, and it is very interesting... The main artistic decision seems to be the simple straight-through mix that they've done, rather than messing with faders during the process that the original engineer did.

The technicalities of cutting records are pretty complicated, and to me as a confirmed Digital person, also these days totally pointless. Why go to all the trouble of doing that remix and then basically corrupting it via an enormously complicated and error-prone electro-mechanical recording / playback process, when you could simply do a digital capture that's technically perfect, and can be played back consistently as well. I know that the reason is that they're able to sell this stuff at a high price to collectors who value the "pure analogue" thing, but this is ASR, right :) ?
 
I also watched the technical bit only, and it is very interesting... The main artistic decision seems to be the simple straight-through mix that they've done, rather than messing with faders during the process that the original engineer did.

The technicalities of cutting records are pretty complicated, and to me as a confirmed Digital person, also these days totally pointless. Why go to all the trouble of doing that remix and then basically corrupting it via an enormously complicated and error-prone electro-mechanical recording / playback process, when you could simply do a digital capture that's technically perfect, and can be played back consistently as well. I know that the reason is that they're able to sell this stuff at a high price to collectors who value the "pure analogue" thing, but this is ASR, right :) ?
DG is going to make a lot of money with this limited edition vinyl box set. “Pure analog” sells quite well these days. The buyers of this box set will probably never listen to the first three symphonies since they were recorded digitally in the first place ;)... However, the production process is quite interesting. In particular, the way in which reverb was added to the recording...
 
The technicalities of cutting records are pretty complicated, and to me as a confirmed Digital person, also these days totally pointless. Why go to all the trouble of doing that remix and then basically corrupting it via an enormously complicated and error-prone electro-mechanical recording / playback process, when you could simply do a digital capture that's technically perfect, and can be played back consistently as well.

From the first video, a digital transfer and remastering has previously been done in 2018 (22'13'' to 22'27'').
 
I also watched the technical bit only, and it is very interesting... The main artistic decision seems to be the simple straight-through mix that they've done, rather than messing with faders during the process that the original engineer did.

The technicalities of cutting records are pretty complicated, and to me as a confirmed Digital person, also these days totally pointless. Why go to all the trouble of doing that remix and then basically corrupting it via an enormously complicated and error-prone electro-mechanical recording / playback process, when you could simply do a digital capture that's technically perfect, and can be played back consistently as well. I know that the reason is that they're able to sell this stuff at a high price to collectors who value the "pure analogue" thing, but this is ASR, right :) ?
I also prefer digital for classical music (altough i'm a vinyl fan for most other music), but there is a big scene, with big money for those original analog recordings, done only with a few microphones (depending on the session 2 to 8 tracks) to tape. And DG earns a lot of money with those (not cheap) vinyl releases, next to their digital (still mostly cd) releases that are mainstream in the classical music scene.

Those old recordings are already coloured, they were often done with Siemens build (but sold under different brand names) mixing consoles, studer tape machines and Schoeps and Neumann microphones that (except the Schoeps) were not neutral at all. DG used Telefunken TAB console mixers (custom spec build by Siemens), Studer tape machines with Dolby noise surpression and Schoeps and Neumann microphones just like the rest in that time. Those machines are still very popular, and keep being used and repaired for the way they colour the sound (or in the case of Schoeps, how transparent they are).

Modern recordings of orchestra's are very different, they seek for the most neutral equipment (schoeps, Maselec or similar super clean preamps and digital consoles/DAW systems with plugins) and close mic a lot more than in those days. And I also don't think that that is better, especially the close micing of instruments. An orechstra sound the way it sound live because of the hall and it's effect on the sound, so you need to record that, not close micing like with pop music or jazz. But on the clean sound with digital i agree fully, just use the old microphone and mixing techniques with it (and some still do luckely).
 
The only thing in the video I was a bit surprised by was the use of added reverb in the post-production. For pop, blues, and rock recordings, echo chambers have been used forever. Still, I thought that would be considered "cheating" in classical recordings, and I find it especially surprising that they did it already back in time when the original releases were mixed.

The fun part is that they go far to make sure every step of the production is done the analog way to satisfy the audiophile customers, but what will those same customers say when they get to know that the reverb is done in an echo chamber/a stairway that leads to the studio room? :)
 
The only thing in the video I was a bit surprised by was the use of added reverb in the post-production. :)

From a transcribed conversation I had with Peter Aczel:

Your Levine/Met recordings of the Ring sound a bit sterile because they were made in Manhattan Center (New York), which is an acoustically rather dead venue. In 1989, Max Wilcox produced a wonderful-sounding recording of the Mahler 5th (Mehta/NY on Teldec, released 1990) in that same Manhattan Center. He added some very subtle artificial reverb, which is not at all perceptible as such but makes the sound come alive.

Classical records have been recorded like pop records for as long as there has been recording. Check out the Golden Ring documentary about putting together Decca's Culshaw/Solti Ring.

For my part I really don't care. I've learned to 'listen around' studio techniques and manipulations. If I don't like the stereo effects, just switch the damned thing to mono and listen through one loudspeaker. FWIW, I have the 'original' Karajan Bruckners on both CD and records. I know their demerits, but I'm happy to have them. Just as I'm happy to have old Furtwangler (et.al.) mono Bruckner recordings.

Like the Chinese engineer in Empire of Dust, for me the entire hi-fi scene has become so tiresome. The same thing, over and over, sometimes packaged in new and improved bottles. I'm really too old for this hobby anymore.
 
“Like the Chinese engineer in Empire of Dust, for me the entire hi-fi scene has become so tiresome. The same thing, over and over, sometimes packaged in new and improved bottles. I'm really too old for this hobby anymore.”

This strikes me as a somewhat strange argument: no-one ever complains about re-issues of literature (be it as paperback or luxuriously bound and/or illustrated). Why shouldn’t young music lovers have the chance to buy a new, pristine copy of an old recording, just like they can walk into a book shop and buy a new copy of, say, Catcher in the Rye?
 
This strikes me as a somewhat strange argument: no-one ever complains about re-issues of literature (be it as paperback or luxuriously bound and/or illustrated). Why shouldn’t young music lovers have the chance to buy a new, pristine copy of an old recording, just like they can walk into a book shop and buy a new copy of, say, Catcher in the Rye?

Books wear and dog-ear with reading, and pages fade with time and exposure. Digital files do neither.

Personally, I believe that the point that @anmpr1 was trying to make was the re-issue of recording with subtle, just-so-particular differences compared to previous issues. I (and possibly others) believe that this is done solely for money, and not, as is often posited, for artistic reasons.

OTOH, I might just be old and cranky. ;)

Jim
 
In case of this particular DG re-release, it is very well explained in the aforementioned documentary that they used an innovative technique to widen the modulation of the groove, messed up less with fader controls than the original vinyle release in order to stay closer to the dynamic range of the actual performance and put the program on more than one face to mitigate the risk of distortion, especially in the final of the symphony.

This three things alone can very well produce a pressing with objectively better quality.

Obviously the disc editor make his efforts to earns money and stay in business. A disc label is not a charity institution. And proper work with up to date workflow costs money.
 
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Why oh why on vinyl? Just plain stupid.

Says who? If it makes business sense to sell a vinyl version, they will do it. There are good, objective reasons for DG to make and sell vinyl - money. And 99.99999999% of the world thinks that money is more important than sound quality. Probably even you.
 
DG is going to make a lot of money with this limited edition vinyl box set.
Everything's relative. Nobody is going make a lot of money selling a box set of Bruckner Symphonies :).

This 17 LP set is 300€ on the DG website, which at 17.64€ per LP is quite reasonable. I would guess that this Bruckner set will not be a big seller and is probably subsidized by more popular titles in the DG Original Source Vinyl series – this happens a lot in the classical music labels.
 
The only thing in the video I was a bit surprised by was the use of added reverb in the post-production. For pop, blues, and rock recordings, echo chambers have been used forever. Still, I thought that would be considered "cheating" in classical recordings, and I find it especially surprising that they did it already back in time when the original releases were mixed.

The fun part is that they go far to make sure every step of the production is done the analog way to satisfy the audiophile customers, but what will those same customers say when they get to know that the reverb is done in an echo chamber/a stairway that leads to the studio room? :)
Artificial reverberation has been used for a long time - since the 1950s - in the production of classical music! For various reasons: room with too dull acoustics, strings of an orchestra not very homogeneous and sounding too raw, etc.
And there are different ways to do it: in the past, we used speakers with springs stretched in front of the speaker... we recorded what came out and injected it at the right dose to improve things, more recently we broadcast the sound with speakers placed in a large empty volume, silent and very very reverberant and we recorded to inject this signal into the original recording at the desired dose...
sometimes that works out well...
 
Because the Bluray Audio is already available. Get that one if you prefer digital


55 euros ! For better sound with Bluray Audio...

Or streaming from Qobuz or Tidal of the 24/192 versions which are those of the Blu Ray for the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Symphonies (the best of the series of 9). Karajan's assistant (Emil Tchakarov) told me that during the recording of the first three Karajan was angry because he found them "very bad"

For the LP version, they took care of the engraving by favoring dynamics and bandwidth by not filling each side of the LP too much...
And no doubt when they remixed and then prepared the master they were very careful to maintain a plausible dynamic within the limits of the 33 rpm record. Bruckner's symphonies have the particularity of having a very great dynamic functioning in stages which works a bit like the organ by successive additions (Bruckner was an organist) which means that one can quite easily cheat with an excellent compressor which can slightly raise the pianissimos so that they are not drowned out by the noise and gradually compress the fortissimos a little without it being heard...
The problem would be that this was done from the sound recording by an overly interventionist producer who had the knobs touched during the musical performance... as is unfortunately often done...
 
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