Sorry if this is a stupid question - but is a remastered CD a perfect representation of that music?

For example, if the original recordings were somehow lost (fire, stolen, etc) could a commercial CD be considered a master-quality recording? Or are they still somehow inferior to the original recordings?

To use a graphic design comparison, the way I understand it now is that the original recording would be like a layered Photoshop file, the commericially-sold CD would be a flattened Photoshop file which maintains the final image quality but locks out certain editing capabilities later.

Not in any way. It's more the engineer's digitizied version of the analog master. Unless the master tapes are damaged and need repair, the original vinyl will always be better.

PFunkjazz said:

Not necessarily true. Keep in mind that vinyl albums were originally mastered to tone down the bass, because too intense bass would often cause a stylus to jump. And softer portions of the music were often turned up so they wouldn't be lost under the surface noise of the vinyl pressings. So the original vinyl albums were not always a true representation of the music recorded. I know there are a lot of vinyl die-hards out there, and in many cases they 're used to the vinyl version of their fave songs being "definitive", because that's how the first heard them. But a well-mastered CD (note that Isaid "well-mastered) may be better (certainly cheaper and easier to find) than the original vinyl albums

Se7en said:

Master or remaster, is totally subjective. There is really no way for you to get a perfect representation of the music unless you have access to the original mix down tape!

The process is basically:
* Recording to multi track (like your multi layer photoshop file)
* Mixing (tailoring the texture of the sounds and adjusting the mix or the levels, kind of like opacity of each layer)
* Mastering (which is the final touch up on the mixed down or "flattened" recording)

A remaster is not usually a perfect representation of the original mix down because the mastering engineer will pretty much always apply EQ and or compression which affects the tone.

I don't like alot of the remasters these days because they make them sound so bright and flat by applying too much EQ and compression.

So it comes down to personal taste. Ideally, I have a listen to the remaster and original release before deciding which I like better.

Keep in mind that remasters are usually compressed/limited far more than the original masters so you need to turn up the volume of original master more on your stereo to get it sounding as loud as the remaster.

People are easily fooled into thinking that the remaster is better just because it's louder than the original.

If you turn the original master up on your stereo until it SOUNDS about the same volume as the remaster, you may be pleasantly surprised by the power and dynamics of the original. These are the first things that suffer from excessive processing during mastering.

_

nd33 said:

Thanks, this is the answer I was looking for! The Beatles remasters are due out this year, which got me thinkin' about remasters in general.

remastering can be nice, but though it may be sacrilige, often I wish they would re-mix it at the same time.

Beatles could really stand to have the bass & drums higher in the mix. Of course this would be nearly impossible considering how they recorded (more than one instrument per track) most of their stuff.

The original mix/masters often sound best on LP, but it doesn't always translate to cd.

jjhunsecker said:

agree