Music remastered.

[postman]

Right i love my music and am on Spotify for ages.Now i go back to my youff,at this moment i am playing some Beatles tracks,sadly they have been remastered they seem too silky they have lost that lovely old tinny sound i remember,shame really.

 

[Drago]

Im a Beatles man, and funnily enough was thinking not dismilar thoughts while listening to Revolver while walking the dogs this morning.

Most Beatles albums, right up to and including the white album, were recorded in mono and the stereo mix created as an afterthought.

Some of the remasters are ok, Let it Be Naked in particular where all the Phil Spector schmaltz has been removed, but for the most part the original mono mixes are the best. Some of the early remasters/remixes of Rubber Soul are excruciating.

Eve the good ones can seem a bit odd. What's the point of removing the muck and distortion from the early recording techniques when the mics and instruments are just full of distortion and unwanted harmonics and artifacts of their own? To my ear as a musician they just sound odd.

 

[Sharky]

The Beatles were a great influence in my teens. Went to a Merseyside secondary school from 61 to 68, which coincided with the main years of the Beatles.

One of the 5th Beatles, Stuart Sutcliffe, went to the same school and although I never met him, remember his death being announced at morning assembly.

 

[biggs682]

It's the same for re mixes of classic tunes

 

[Oldhippy]

Mostly agree but Genesis and Floyd stuff does sound even better remastered on a decent stereo system. Prog rock in general even. Are they still called stereo systems?

 

[ColinJ]

Conversely... I was listening to some old stuff recently and was thinking how terrible the recording quality was!

Yes, we probably don't want old music to be made to sound pristine, but it would be nice for it to sound better than a gloopy mush.

 

[DRM]

Those Beatles remasters are another way of saying they've been vandalised by putting them through the auto tune process,

View: https://youtu.be/7Z9B6hMSCHI?si=I6sluo5LbNurkakv

It's everywhere, Fil on this channel knows how to expose this auto tune, miming malarky that's endemic these days
Edit: He really caught some grief for exposing Taylor Swift miming to the exact same recorded vocal, across three different continents on her recent tour!

 

[raleighnut]

Mostly agree but Genesis and Floyd stuff does sound even better remastered on a decent stereo system. Prog rock in general even. Are they still called stereo systems?

I've got a feeling the Pink Floyd remastering was done by a guy who worked for/with Sony called Gus Skinas and the remastering was done from the original analogue tapes onto DSD which because of its vastly higher sample rate captures much more of the nuances in music. Developed by Sony it is the (now semi-defunct) SACD format.

 

[Drago]

Some of the best remasters are by musicians rather than engineers. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree has done some brilliant remasters of a lot of different rock and prog bands.

 

[DRM]

To me this auto tune rubbish seems to have slight, electronic, sort of synthesised quality to the vocal, it's utterly dreadful, but not as bad as the AI generated fake artists, that aren't even real people

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Conversely... I was listening to some old stuff recently and was thinking how terrible the recording quality was!

Yes, we probably don't want old music to be made to sound pristine, but it would be nice for it to sound better than a gloopy mush.

I am with you.

Unremastered old heavy rock eg Led Zep has a tiny compressed sound stage feel. And the overall sound is 'thin'.

Irritates me and I much prefer digitally remastered versions.

 

[Pblakeney]

As with everything, it depends on how it is done. I have heard some awful remastered stuff and some really good work. Can't remember specific bad ones, erased from my memory? The uncompressed full res McCartney II is an excellent example of it being done right. IMO.

 

[ColinJ]

Unremastered old heavy rock eg Led Zep has a tiny compressed sound stage feel. And the overall sound is 'thin'.

Irritates me and I much prefer digitally remastered versions.

It was specifically 'Whole Lotta Love' that I was thinking of!!

Auto-tuning though - NO!!!