I'd forbid remasters by law! >:-[

SickBoy

SickBoy

Croatian Panzer division
Apr 9, 2004
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Split, Croatia, Europe
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I'm so pissed off at these crap remasters that ruined so many albums!

I've recently bought "Operation: Mindcrime" remastered edition and it boasts "24-bit digitally remastered" on the cover....Just another catchphrase that should impress someone, but I'm just impressed by the deafness of those ME's that can't hear the tons of more clearly audible CRACKLING!!! :puke:

This is probably even worse than Exodus' "Bonded By Blood" which has been the worst in crackling in my book until now... :erk:

I say, one strike of the whip on the bare back for each "crackle" CD does! :heh:
 
Do you mean like that crushed-cymbal sound you get from over-limiting, or actual digital clipping?

Either way, I totally agree. 'Remaster' these days just means 'louder and more distorted than ever!'.
 
Moonlapse said:
Do you mean like that crushed-cymbal sound you get from over-limiting, or actual digital clipping?
Click to expand...

Pure digital clipping/crackling, in all its glory! I didn't even want to mention those squashed masters... This particular one doesn't sound squashed, but crackles like mad. :erk:

OTOH, maybe they wanted to approximate the vinyl sound with these crackles... :lol:

What pisses me off the most is that they constantly bitch about people not buying the CDs as much as before...
Did they think that there is a certain population that maybe avoids buying the almost unlistenable recordings they shove on the shelves?! If I'd known that this Ryche is ruined that badly, I'd buy the original edition, turn up the volume and enjoy the crackle-free sound. My cash doesn't grow on trees, contrary to what the industry may think...
 
Moonlapse said:
Do you mean like that crushed-cymbal sound you get from over-limiting, or actual digital clipping?

Either way, I totally agree. 'Remaster' these days just means 'louder and more distorted than ever!'.
Click to expand...

+1
Mastering is something very difficult as i experience it myself. But almost any person who knows how to use a computermouse can make albulms louder and more distorted. I get the feeling that 90% of those people don't even know what the hell they are doing.
 
I am totally with you on this. 95% of the remasters I've heard made the album worse*.

examples:

Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse. the compression they put on the master buss killed the ambience from the synths. what made the synths so great on that album was how they hung out like drones above the rest of the music. once they squashed everything together by overcomping the mix, the ambience disappeared. also the original mix lacking any kickdrum at all left a lot more bandwidth for the ridiculous number of guitar and synth tracks to come through. this was impeded on the remaster.

Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss. there's a reason they mixed the kick low. it sounded like poop. plus in the remaster everything is compressed so much that the guitars are completely choked out during the fills. unacceptable. stupid.

Megadeth - everything after killing that was remastered. why? why dave? they don't sound any better.

HOWEVER. one remaster that actually made the album better was Megadeth - Killing is my Business and Business is Good. EXCELLENT. FINALLY. I can listen to this album loud in my car and not wonder why I'm doing that. plus that white noise fade in after the intro isn't 12dB louder than the rest of the program material. finally. this is the one exception to the "remaster bad" situation from the ones I've heard..
 
I bought the remaster of Rush's "Grace under pressure".....bad move. The first song (approx 15 seconds in) contains digital distortion sounding just like a DAT-tape that needs cleaing.....I guess they did that remaster in their sleep....how could they not notice???

Unless: maybe it's supposed to be like that - haven't heard the original!
 
I'd have to go with remastering being a must on Enemies Of Reality, myself, as well as possibly Focus (Cynic) and probably the old MFSL remasters of... well, just about anything they did was better than 'official' rereleases from the major labels - but that probably falls under an entirely different category. I also have all of the Death remasters (as well as a ton of other Nuclear Blast remasters, like Whoracle and Colony) and honestly don't see what good they've done (except for maybe the bonus DVD here and there, but even that rarely is worth the hype - anyone else wish the Death in Cottbus got the sound it deserved?) for anyone but the accounting department.

I also think it might be a good idea to cut the heads off of all those who RERECORDED rhythm sections of the Ozzy albums, just because it's another slap in the face to all the guys who put up with all the nonsense in the first place to make the music they were hired to make. I may be somewhat biased, in all honesty - okay, I want to rip the spines out of both Ozzy and Sharon and beat their limp, lifeless bodies against a brick wall before tossing the corpses into a shark pool because of the whole Iron Maiden thing - but I think that's a really arrogant and dishonest way of ripping off bandmates who are already out of a lot of money and who should have been paid what they earned long before. Just a thought.

Jeff
 
JBroll said:
I'd have to go with remastering being a must on Enemies Of Reality, myself, as well as possibly Focus (Cynic) and probably the old MFSL remasters of... well, just about anything they did was better than 'official' rereleases from the major labels - but that probably falls under an entirely different category. I also have all of the Death remasters (as well as a ton of other Nuclear Blast remasters, like Whoracle and Colony) and honestly don't see what good they've done (except for maybe the bonus DVD here and there, but even that rarely is worth the hype - anyone else wish the Death in Cottbus got the sound it deserved?) for anyone but the accounting department.

I also think it might be a good idea to cut the heads off of all those who RERECORDED rhythm sections of the Ozzy albums, just because it's another slap in the face to all the guys who put up with all the nonsense in the first place to make the music they were hired to make. I may be somewhat biased, in all honesty - okay, I want to rip the spines out of both Ozzy and Sharon and beat their limp, lifeless bodies against a brick wall before tossing the corpses into a shark pool because of the whole Iron Maiden thing - but I think that's a really arrogant and dishonest way of ripping off bandmates who are already out of a lot of money and who should have been paid what they earned long before. Just a thought.

Jeff
Click to expand...

are you saying they DID remaster Cynic-Focus? or they should*? if they did I'm going to have to check it out. that album ruled.
 
Focus was most certainly remastered, and bloody well, too. I'll spend more time with the original soon, but I do recall very clearly (before I knew what little I know now about mastering and production) that I thought it wasn't easy at all to hear what was going on. So much going on, and when I first heard it the sound seemed to not be open enough for what they were doing. I also couldn't hear the lower parts of the bass track, just the fills and things Malone did higher up. In the new one everything comes through clearly. There's also a message from Masvidal, more artwork and pictures, and a few bonus tracks (including an instrumental version of I'm But A Wave To..., which happens to be my favorite song on Focus). I'll pull up the old one whenever I find it.

I also can't help but wonder what the sound on the Death records (especially The Sound Of Perseverance) would have been like if there were more - and thicker - guitar tracks. I remember reading an article where Yngwie Malmsteen was asked about several songs without his knowing what they were, and some of his responses were quite amusing - he called a Jeff Beck song on being out of tune, said that John Petrucci should use a Fender vintage-style trem, and single coils (he did know who Petrucci was), and said that one of the Death songs - The Philosopher, I believe - sounded like it was recorded on a Tascam tape recorder while the vocalist was sitting on the toilet. For the record, I love Death, but I will say that while I'm not sure what the producer was trying to accomplish, I know that he chased a lot of people away from them with whatever he did to those poor tracks.

Jeff
 
Uhm, here's a thought: listen to the originals if you don't like the re-masters.

Fin.

~006
 
It's not that easy to find originals because of these remasters - unless you order online or get used stuff (which isn't always a good move). I was looking to get an original Rust In Peace (admittedly one of the better remasters, but some parts just are not even close because not all of the original stuff could be found) and I couldn't get the local stores to grab a copy for me - I ended up buying what I was told was a non-remastered version from two different online sellers (bloody Amazon Marketplace) and recieving in the mail two remasters. Actually, 006, since you live in the same city, let me know what stores you know of that still carry the original versions of the Megadeth stuff, or O:M, or the Nuclear Blast stuff - I don't know of any myself (partly because I can't get to too many places other than B&N, Borders, and Best Buy), not to imply that they don't exist, but I'd like to.

Also, there's the problem of people first being introduced to a band and getting HORRIBLE sounds, and then not looking further into the band and selling the cd off to someone else and losing money over the whole thing. Doesn't make people too happy.

Nobody's saying that they can't listen to originals, but when they're hard to find, and the remasters take away as much as they do in many of the cases listed here, I don't see how it isn't understandable to want to skullfuck these remaster-happy freaks with a jackhammer.

Jeff
 
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