Can someone explain the actual process of Re-Mastered

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

This phrase get tossed around so much that I really don't understand the real process of what Richard has actually done.

I received a couple weeks ago a Japan Mini LP Style CD of "Lovelines" it's from the 30 Anniv Remastered Series. I believe this is the same equilivent to the US Remastered Classics. I have to say that this Japan Lovelines CD I got is 10 x better than the original issue, I keep listening to it & thinking wow I can really hear a huge difference in sound. However I was not so excited about the Us Remastered Classics of Close to You that I got a year ago.

But what did Richard actually do when he went into the studio again to do these, I understand these are the original take down from the original Lp's but what does he actually do to get them to the state he calls "Remastered" He removes the hiss, imperfections, brighten them up? How does he actually do this? From the original master tapes (reels)?

I'm really curious.

 

[mr J.]

Actually,mastering and remastering is something that is done by the record label engineers.Remastering refers to the recently developed technique of being able to reproduce a recording onto a Compact Disc with as much clarity as possible,and minimal surface noise.The mastering techniques available today are able to improve the quality of recordings much better than the mastering techniques that existed at the dawn of the CD era.(1985-1986).I would definitely say that the remastering on the new ESSENTIAL COLLECTION is superior to almost every other album.I noticed that the sound quality on the remastered classics reissues is uneven.Some albums,like VOICE OF THE HEART and HORIZON sound improved and enhanced,while others,like NOW AND THEN,TICKET TO RIDE and PASSAGE don't have any noticeable improvement.(I wouldn't recommend those last 3 albums,anyway.I personally don't own them).As several people pointed out on an earlier discussion, the mastering on LOVE SONGS is definitely not up to standard.

 

[Steven J. Gross]

Can remastering ever actually make the sound worse?

 

[Harry]

Can remastering ever actually make the sound worse?

Yes. Check out "Tijuana Taxi" on Herb Alpert's Definitive Hits or "Wichita Lineman" on the British 2-disc Very Best Of Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66. Both are 'remastered' and both have huge dropouts when compared with other versions.

As for remastering in general, the term is bandied about quite often as a technique to persuade the potential buyer that there's something new on this disc, even if it's just another issue of the same old stuff. When you make a CD-R of something -- that's called 'mastering.' When you re-do it, changing levels, using different source material -- that's called 're-mastering.' It's nothing more fancy than that.

Carpenters' remasters were specifically issued to finally represent every original LP on compact disc the way they originally sounded, as a response to fans' demands for such. The CDs that came out in the 80s were often speckled with various remixes that Richard had done in the intervening years, thius thde old LPs still had mixes on them that hadn't gotten to CD.

As for Lovelines specifically, I hear a tad more oomph in the bassline, but other than that, no real appreciable difference between the remaster and the original. In fact, I held off buying the re-master, simply because I couldn't conceive of anything being all that different. Though some of the original recordings dated back to the '70s, the album itself wasn't finalized and released until 1989. And Richard hadn't done any further tinkering between 1989 and 1999 when this remaster was re-issued. My though was it was re-packaged just to compete the 'set.' And that's why I ultimately bought it -- to complete my own 'set.' (Even though I've still never run across a 'Remastered' Interpretations as indicated on the tray liner). So, perhaps the Japanese did something to make the difference that Chris describes. Chris, have you compared the two side by side?

Harry
NP: Lovelines, two versions

 

[davidgra]

The "remastered" CD series is a really interesting thing, technically speaking. Richard talked about this process in an interview he did for a magazine back in 1998 (I think it was "Keyboard" magazine).

In most cases, when a CD is labeled as "remastered," it means that the engineers and producers went back to the original master multi-track tapes and created a new analog-to-digital transfer, employing noise-reduction techniques, new equalization, etc.

But with the Carpenters' "remastered" series, the goal was to reproduce the original vinyl mixes on CD, so they didn't use the original multi-track masters -- they used the "two-channel masters" (TCMs), which were created when the albums were originally mixed.
According to Richard, the TCMs had deteriorated to the point where they were shedding oxide particles, so the tapes had to be baked -- a process where the whole tape is put in an oven for about 20 minutes to "bake" the oxide particles onto the tape base. After this process, you really only get one or two passes over the tape heads before the particles begin to shed again, so the analog-to-digital transfer would have been done immediately following the baking.

Richard didn't say in the interview, but I imagine that the analog-to-digital transfer was done at 24-bits and 96 kHz, to create the highest possible quality digital stereo master. That would have been digitally converted to a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz file for use on a CD, but the possibility would remain that in the future a higher quality DVD-Audio or SACD could be released containing the original album mixes...

As for the sound quality of the "remastered" CDs, they do vary. Some of the TCMs aged better than others -- remember that recordings like MADE IN AMERICA and VOICE OF THE HEART were originally transferred to CD when the masters were only a couple of years old, and about 15 years passed before the remastering took place (Richard said that they did the remastering of the TCMs in 1997).
On the other hand, while the tapes have aged, there have been significant improvements in digital noise reduction since the mid-'80s. So you have quality variances of different sorts on the "remastered" CDs.

Personally, I find the improvements to be most noticable on the early albums (TICKET TO RIDE, CLOSE TO YOU and CARPENTERS). The remastered CDs really sound brilliant. However, the albums from the mid-'70s don't sound as good to me in the "remastered" form -- A KIND OF HUSH especially sounds muddier.

The CD I was most curious to hear when the "remastered" CDs came out was VOICE OF THE HEART. I have my original CD of that album which was purchased in 1984, about a year after the album's release, so the TCMs would have been very fresh when the transfer was made originally. I find that the remastered version is almost identical, with only a little change in the equalization.

Anyway, that's the technical end of the remastering process. Had Richard gone back to the original multi-track masters and tried to re-create the original vinyl mixes, we would've ended up with something that sounded quite different, I imagine, because it's almost impossible to re-capture a mix that was done on different equipment 25 years before.

David

 

[Rudy]

According to Richard, the TCMs had deteriorated to the point where they were shedding oxide particles, so the tapes had to be baked -- a process where the whole tape is put in an oven for about 20 minutes to "bake" the oxide particles onto the tape base.

You're telling me...I got a couple reels of Ampex Grandmaster 456, probably of 70's or 80's vintage, and I can't even play it for more than ten minutes without the oxide building up so bad that the sound literally fades out and disappears. Basically, garbage. Surprising since Ampex is one of the leading studio brands available. They had changed either the binding agent or lubrication in their tapes, which performed poorer over time.

I"ve been finding lately that "remastered" is just a marketing term; some of these remasters are so compressed on final CD mastering that it's painful and tiring to listen to.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Harry, I have actually done that a side by side with the Japan CD & My regular Lovelines CD. I'm not that good at explaining this but I can tell you I hear a big difference. Before I got this Japan Cd, I must have played my original Lovelines 1000 times so it was imbedded in my brain every note & sound. When I first played this Japan LP CD it was different for me. The Japan Cd was richer fuller & more vibrant. Sometimes on my original Cd Karen's voice would peak & actually hurt my ears & I'd turn the speakers down in my car, most noticebly on If We Try & again on If I Had You. But the Japan Cd all that was gone & Karen was richer & fuller without peaking too high, to me it was amazing to hear this.

I also want to share that this past Monday I got in the mail my second Japan Lp Style CD Remastered "Voice of the Heart" I've been listening to this for the past 2 days comparing to my original CD. All I can say is there is again a much improvement over my original. After playing both of these Japan Cd's I am convinced that something is different here. (I'm not hearing these differences on my only US Remastered Close to You CD.) I know just because the Japan labels are different on the Cd's from the US Remasters that doesn't mean anything...but something sounds better to me here. It's so evident that I want to get the whole Japan Lp CD series but I don't have that kind of money now.

I know that David said VOHT was not different for him but I have to disagree. David are you listening to the Japan Lp Cd Remastered? Just wondering.