BlurredEye said:

Not entirely true. I wouldn't use a multi-band compressor on a full mix ever if the mix itself wasn't clear enough on its own right. That is if we are talking about commercial releases and not just some off-the-cuff demos that can be improved/spoilt with such trickery. Besides, I doubt Prince would be that happy about someone else messing up his own mixes with multi-band compressors as any type of compression inexorably changes the overall feel of the mix. Trust me, I have used several on a daily basis.

If Prince himself wouldn't supervise the production of those remasters I wouldn't want to touch them. Prince's music's value stands somewhere completely else than at booming bass and airy high-end.

Novabreaker said:

Thanks for your interest in this post. However, I wish that you wouldn't keep dismissing the quality of such works without having heard the results.

If you would like an example e-mail me and we can discuss what you think via that method.

Thanks

squirrelgrease said:

There's some factual basis for the difference other than opinion. A US CD pressing facility uses the same master to manufacture 100,000 copies of any given release, while the Japanese have much higher qualty standards and change their glass masters after every 10,000 pressings. So you are actually getting a closer 'image' to the original master than the American releases. I have also noticed some European CDs are of equal sonic quality to the Japanese ones, but those are hit and miss, so that's why I chose to simply re-purchase the catalog in all Japanese CDs.

Jestyr said:

There is no doubt that Japan has long been known for their CD production quality. But they can only get so much out of the master discs that Warners gave them. The same can be said for the US and Euro pressing plants. You can't chrome-plate a turd. Be that as it may... you know that The Hits/B-Sides has just been re-released on Japanese CD again.

I would only shell out for remasters that had unreleased bonus tracks.
Hell, I still haven't replaced some of my vinyl!

BlurredEye said:

I have heard plenty of WAVES/BBE home-made remasters that make me cringe. I am personally responsible for butchering some of the Prince bootleg outtakes when I was trying to improve the sound quality and didn't really know what I was doing back then. Hopefully, none of them circulate widely anymore. As for professional remasters of official albums I haven't been usually terribly impressed. What's the point of attempting to make recordings of the past decades sound like today's recordings? Bring the levels up to current standards, but no boosts and definitely no mid-sweeps. And anyone who adds reverb in the mastering process should be jailed.

Of course, anything would be better than the way SOTT and Parade CDs are at the moment. However, one of my main concerns is that many songs on Prince's mid-80s output lack bass instrumentation altogether or have very little of it. When we start raising the bottom levels there will be a significant difference between songs that have bass and those that don't. His kick drums are always quite strong in the mix, and whatever you do with them, the characteristics are going to change drastically even with minor alterations.

Those recordings will be remastered oneday. I agree they definitely need it, but in the meantime I am glad to twiddle the knobs on my sound system until that day. I'm gonna twiddle them anyway, remastered or not. I can't help it.

Novabreaker said:

he he. You twiddle your knob!

Only if some of the original engineers were allowed to do the re-mastering would I even want them touched. Re-masters should only be done by someone that knows what the music was/is about. I don't need some kid born in '78 telling me how "Just as long as we're together" should sound. I wonder is Susan would up for the job?