I've now heard at least 8 remastered Prince albums or collections of songs, Box 'O' Chocalates being the latest (and one of the juicier offerings) that were remastered by fans.


What software is being used?
What process are they going through to do it?


Some of these remastered are phenomenal. The 'SOTT' Remasterd by FoeFur and (I can't remember the other guy ) make the songs truly 'pop', with each instrument very clearly defined.

Cindy C. and Le Grind sound completely revamped in the 'remasters'.

Hell, Rebirth 'o' The Flesh never sounded so good as it does on FoeFur's remaster. It sizzles.


But these guys have to be working from the crappy bootlegs in a 2-deminesional flat kind of way. It's not like their using master tapes or anything, right?


How are they able to make these songs sound so nice? I know they could sound much nicer professionally done from the original 'tapes', but given what the original releases sounded like, the fan remasters are quite brilliant.


Can someone tell me how remastering old records is done? Lawd, could jizz my pants if I heard 'The Queen is Dead' by the Smiths remasterd.


.
[Edited 3/27/10 8:54am]

i worked in a bar and morrisey gave me a 2 quid tip. that's after 2 nights of visiting the bar

by the way, i'm being serious...he asked for pints of carlsberg at the globe bar in dublin

Interesting topic. Would like to hear more about this.

All I can ad is some not publicly available music out there that has been remastered still sounds like crap.

I have better versions. Remember DBX or dolby? Never really liked them as you could background his during softer moments of a song. It's like someone turning up the volume on loud parts, and turning it down on low parts. So very faint sounds are almost lost. Now I don't know about the tools they are using today. But if they can shave off hiss, that would be cool to know how they do that. Then maybe I can do that to some of what is not widely available.

Most people who think they know how to engineer (I won't mention names) really suck at it. But all the hard work they put into doing what they are doing is nice. Just not as great as they think.

I would love to hear FoeFur's remaster, especially of Rebirth...the most Funkiest Prince tune ever.

As you probably already know, remasters can only be done with the 2-track mixdowns from the multi-track tapes (or modern digital equivalent), so "Remastered" is really a misnomer when it applies to fan-made releases like the FoeFur, Dr.Fink, Maxim9661, SIT, etc. discs.

I don't know what software and hardware the skilled tweakers use, but it's very nice that we get to hear their handiwork.

I'm not sure what the bootleggers have been using for their "remasters" but here are some tips if you want to try enhancing your music files:

The free solution is to use the program Audacity .. there's a bunch of built-in effects within that program but you can also add some VST plugins (there are many free VST plugins out there) for compressing/limiting the sound or perhaps to emulate analog tape "colorations", i.e. stuff that makes the music sound more warm and less digital.

If you're trying to tweak a song that has a harsh high-end and perhaps some high peaks while the song is generally low in volume, you could try applying
-2dB or -3dB at 10.000hz (10Khz), some peak limiting and a volume boost if the limiter doesn't do that for you. Adding bass or adding treble doesn't always help, but reducing some high frequencies like I talked about earlier can actually make the lower frequencies more prominent, relatively speaking. In general I think it works better to reduce some frequencies than to boost frequencies to achieve a better sound.

A few VST plugins I like (btw you can of course use them with many other programs (like ProTools) too - if you intend to use Audacity, I recommend the current beta version because it handles VST better):
http://varietyofsound.wor...t-effects/

As squirrelgrease said, TRUE remasters can only be done "with the 2-track mixdowns from the multi-track tapes (or modern digital equivalent)."

However, there are plenty of ways to process a 16 bit 44KHz WAV file to get it sound "better" (the "better" part is subjective of course). While many audio applications (like Cubase, Logic, etc) have some "mastering" plug-ins available, a dedicated mastering application is ultimately the way to go.

Ozone is an amazing software mastering product: http://www.izotope.com/pr...dio/ozone/

TRacks3 used to be the king of the hill until Ozone replaced it in popularity, but it still a deep and well reviewed package: http://www.ikmultimedia.c.../features/

Paired with reference monitors, headphones, and a good set of ears, you can do all right for yourself. Most of the big time commercial mastering studios use analog and dedicated digital outboard gear for mastering... but you can still get nice results with those applications.

squirrelgrease said:

Agreed. Just with they worked with better sources. As mentioned many times, I have better sources for quality and it is surprising this is not out there.

Not "remastering" by any means, but I sometimes just increase the volume preset in iTunes. (Get Info, Options, Volume Adjustment).

In the case of SOTT and The Black Album -- which on CD are horribly "quiet" -- this iTunes method really helps.

One nice thing about this is that you can turn it off whenever you want . . . it doesn't permanently change the source file(s).

Can anyone explain how a tape is remastered using this software?

Like A better place to die can be an explain. It has good sound but a lot of his. The end fades and there is more his. What software does the best job on elminating the hiss?

Se7en said:

And The Black Album as released by Warner Bros is extremely hissy. It's really noticeable on Le Grind. I originally thought that since my bootleg version of TBA was hissy, it was going to be rectified with the official release, but the legit CD doesn't sound any different than my boot.

Oh, and Void... what the hell is with your thread title? HOW R Fans ReMASTERING Prince Music?

Wh3n did u start using Princ3bonics?

even official remasters are lame, i'm thinking specifically of the bowie rereleases (though in the right hands, some remasters are amazing,).

normally the volume just goes up. i'm sure for the very best of prince there was a slight remastering job (volume went up), but in genereal i'd have to say his tracks don't really need remastering (not in the sense we know it).

there may be one or two albums that are a little on the low side, but there are none that are really lacking...

the reason we haven't been given the re-releases is because the man is meglo midgetmaniac when it comes to stuff like that (just created a new word!)

ever since dirty mind he's put out stuff "as is".

in most cases that is fine (put on when doves cry from the hits collection, can it be "improved"?)

First off, Box of Chocolates wasn't remastered.

If people would READ the label, it says, "All sourced from low generation tapes...NOTHING has been ripped from existing bootlegs."

Figure it out.

No one can remaster anything except whoever has the master tapes. No amount of software is ever going to do it on the fan's end.

ernestsewell said:

Exactly. You can only really EQ tracks to improve the sound quality, although there are some clever techi gadgets to help you achieve a 'better' sound.

.....

squirrelgrease said:

stichdoll said:

mmm, yeah, some remasters sound great and others sound.... eh. i'm really not a fan of the idea of someone going in and "touching up" or re-mixing older releases to remaster them. a new digital transfer from the original master, or the lowest generation master avaialble, would be ideal.


does anyone know why WB haven't done this with Prince's albums on CD? is it contractually prohibited? they've done it for TVBOP and Ultimate. or is it just not worth it to them?
[Edited 3/27/10 18:16pm]

errant said:

Contractually prohibited without Prince's consent.

Se7en said:

seems kind of strange to me. it isn't as if they have to do any actual re-mastering. taking what they already own, re-digitizing it and press it to disc seems like something that they ought legally be able to do. not even sure it would require a new catalog number.

but i guess not.

I would be interested to know of any recommended plug-ins for Audacity which could improve the audio from the 1980's era CDs as sometimes the iTunes volume leveling isn't that effective. On some CDs I have it says "AAD" on the back cover, which I've read means "analog recording and mixing, digital transfer to CD"

T-Racks and Sound Forge are good tools to help correct some problems like EQ and noise reduction.

Well, if you really want to work on tracks to improve the sound (what Foefur has been doing with his releases), you need proper professional audio plugins. As a professional musician myself, with two multi-platinum producers as cousins who worked on one of the biggest selling records of the last decade (20 million sold), I've been in my fair share of studios.

The best plugins overall are these:



/\ That full collection of plugins (Waves Mercury Suite) will cost you $9800.

As you can imagine, for that price you get some truly PHENOMENAL stuff.

If we were allowed to share Prince boots on here, I'd spend an hour in the studio working on an unreleased Prince track with these tools and show you just what is possible with them. I managed to make a completely clean acapella of 'Cosmic Day' the other day using them. Might as well have been a proper release for how good it was.

.
[Edited 5/6/10 19:25pm]

I actually have THE QUEEN IS DEAD remastered... did someone want that? My favorite album of all time... When they were remastering the SMITHS, Johnny Marr remastered all of the albums with an engineer Frank Arkwrght. The only way to get the albums remastered was if you bought the UK-Edition of the RHINO VINYL Records... Each contained a Coupon code for the remastered files in 320kbps MP3s. I emailed Rhino UK and they said "These are indeed remastered from the same Johnny Marr sessions, the same digitally remastered quality as the remastered vinyl"

However, these download codes are NOT available in the U.S. copies...

dodgers1970 said:

[seriously... - Mars23]

Militant said:

Ok, u can't tease us like this

What's this album ur cousins produced?

Thanks for this new "professionnal" tip, btw. I's really helpful to have you around for these kind of threads

databank said:

check your orgnotes

and no worries, i've been in the music industy professionally myself for a decade and around it my whole life, so I can usually help out on threads like this.
[Edited 5/8/10 9:38am]

I've found a free program called Wavosaur which supports VST plug-ins. There's a few good freeware mastering VST plug-ins that improve the sound quality which are linked to on their website. Not sure what type of plug-ins I would need for removing tape hiss etc. I've tried noise removal on Audacity too, although that has varying levels of success.

squirrelgrease said:

1994 TBA uses the 1987 master, AFAIK.

some fans have tried "needledropping" vinyl releases at a higher resolution than red book CD , but this process is subject to the same problems as the original vinyl(rumble, crackle, inner groove distortion etc)
You can minimise the noise with software noise reduction, but even when you "manually" de-click you lose some of the music.
I would love to hear the original 1/4 inch analogue 2 track masters sampled as 192/24bit aiff or wav files, but I am not holding my breath
[Edited 5/9/10 22:09pm]
[Edited 5/9/10 22:11pm]