"Original Recording Remastered"

Hey yeah I'm kinda interested in that too.

It's had some good results, I like what was done with some of those Stones recs a few years ago.

As far I know: sometimes remastered records they are just compressed and so on to sound "better" according to the standards of today (IPod et al), but often the original mastering was also "flawed" in one way or another, and the remaster tries to correct that. This is especially true regarding records that were mastered to CD during the early days of the format - they often sound weaker than the vinyl versions, because CD mastering was a new thing back then, and people hadn't yet learned how to, er, master it. So many of the newly mastered versions use current knowledge and technology to get a better sound than on those early CDs.

Has the actual technology of capturing the initial sound changed so much in the last 20 years that digitally recorded albums need to be remastered for technical reasons?

yes

This is especially true regarding records that were mastered to CD during the early days of the format - they often sound weaker than the vinyl versions, because CD mastering was a new thing back then, and people hadn't yet learned how to, er, master it.

I've read (and don't ask where, things like that in my brain tend to go poof) that often times it's just not a lotta proper care being given to the process with cd reissues of niche or obscure stuff.

I mean, in addition to what you said, not negating this...

Calling all Southall....

yes, can't wait to read for the millionth time how everything should sound like talk talk.

"i made yoo a reference recording but i ated it."

http://bp1.blogger.com/_-nM9iIxDifo/RwaQCCmVd8I/AAAAAAAAASY/tENcys0hWSo/s1600/Talk%2BTalk.jpg

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1835/talktalkfk7.jpg

Original link remastered for scott.

haha, good job!

you have to master things different for vinyl (well or anything but given that that was the initial release format for most of these things) due to the nature of the frequency response inherent in the medium. this is the reason that lots of early CD's sound "tinny". there's a whole bunch more involved, and mastering at this point is actually far more involved/nuanced/full of shit depending on your point of view, but that was the genesis of the phrase. destructive use of compression threads get into some of the newer aspects of mastering if you're into that sort of thing.

Music Into Noise: The Destructive Use Of Dynamic Range Compression

XP. I didn't mean to post on the older thread:

I recently made a driving mix for CD and was frustrated by the huge range of levels. My remastered version of The Who's "Out In The Street" sounds great, especially in the car, on a shitty boombox, not so much on headphones. I loaded it into Audacity and had a look at it, and it had such extreme clipping, it looked like a solid block. Given the originally distorted sound of that particular song, it kind of worked. I went ahead and compressed and clipped the hell out of most of the other songs on the mix to try to match those levels. I couldn't bring myself to go to that extreme, but at least the rest are just about as audible in comparison. Kind of micro-model of how the compression trend snowballed I'm sure.

If in doubt, just download the free software and look at the waves to compare different music:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

My hope would be that as more stuff becomes available for download, they'd start to introduce decent masters of uncompressed .wav and lossless codecs along with the .mp3 and .aac for mass market. However, I don't know that the "audiophile market" (those who listen to music at home on decent speakers rather than on noisy trains and in their cars) will ever be big enough to be catered to overall.

LESS HARRIS' TIT

LEE NOT LES

GGOSH EXCITING