Your thoughts on albums being remastered

Re-masters are a con.......digitally re-mastered? so what. A few tracks thrown in that weren't good enough first time around.or some dodgy demo/live track.  More money for the appalling record companies, and more than enough buffoons ready to buy them.

Edited by Hyperborea - March 29 2007 at 21:00

I love remasters. They usually sound way better than the original cd release, which most of the time came out in the mid 80's when they didn't really know how to made good cds. But if I'm not in the mood to pay a lot of money for aa remaster, I can usually find the original kicking around for a really low price. Everybody wins.
What I don't like is when artists remix as well as remaster, as Megadeth has done with their releases. That's the equivelant of Lucas sticking a CG Jabba the Hut into Star Wars IV. :P

Personally, I love remasters, especially when an album hasn't been available for a while (all those that get sold on eBay for over $40). Sound quality is generally good, but occasionally, some companies tend to over compress the sound to make it seem very loud to the point of distortion. This is also the case for new albums since the 00s and especially in metal. Bonus tracks are welcome even if they don't add much to the album, but it shouldn't be the reason to upgrade your old copy. Also, you generally can't go wrong with Japanese Mini-LPs. The only problem is that they are much sought after and their price can be a little high, but they are worth the price. Be aware that there are bootlegs out there.

I've encountered great remasters, like the Gentle Giant re-issues from DRT. Fans of the band know that prior to 2005, all albums from 1973-1980 were quite hard to find (at least in N.America they were). The die-cut Power & the Glory and the embossed cover of The Missing Piece were a nice touch. Jethro Tull's Warchild is a great example of great bonus tracks. Not only there are plenty of additions but these extra songs are as good as the album itself.

While remasters are generally great imo, there are some really crappy ones. The initial pressing of Gentle Giant's Interview from DRT was mastered in mono. It was the CD manufacturer's fault and thankfully my disc was replaced with a correct copy and signed by Derek Shulman himself. I also bought Sadus' Swallowed in Black (great metal band!) from Metal Mind Productions and it had a really big mistake: the music on the disc was from their next album, Vision of misery. I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail.

The last crappy one I've bought was Comus' First Utterance released by Breathless. Please avoid at all cost!!!! I've wrote about this in the Comus thread. For the details click here
I never heard other releases by Breathless, I assume they're not that bad. Anyone can comment on that?

Geez, that was a lot of typing...



To Mystic Fred:    Is it Mobile Fidelity?

Its annoying and iffy.  Sometimes they remaster things like crap and a lot of good stuff isn't in the mix anymore.  Other times they don't do a bad job and everything is ok.  Adding two bonus tracks and jacking the price up to 25 bucks is not good though.  Lame liner notes are also not appreciated.

Check out the Rhino reissues of the Elvis Costello albums.  They are so well done.  Great full sound, plenty of pages on what Elvis had in mind for the album at the time (written of course by Costello himself), a 2nd cd of demos, live tracks, b-sides, etc.  And for 13-18 dollars.  Its a goooood deal.

Most of our local 70s music hasn't been reissued again, so it'll be a long wait for the remasters... 

I don't mind remastering, but I usually shy away from the bonus tracks.

One thing I hate about remasters is the so-called "penalty tracks" that stretch an album onto a second CD.  For example, Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat easily fits onto one CD.  However, they added so much extra material (most of it garbage) that the album had to be extended to two CD's.  Leave those tracks on an outakes collection that can be purchased by someone who actually wants it.  

I have mixed feelings about remasters and most of the pros/cons have been brought up here already.  My contention is that if you own a previous edition and the same label is doing the remaster, the consumer should be able to exchange their old copies for a discount on the remaster.....that and a free Twix bar.

My experience with remasters has led me to judge each on its own merits.  I've bought some that sounded worse than the original, some that sounded better.  Bonus tracks can be great or awful.  One thing I can say with certainty: don't sell your original until you've listened to the remaster thoroughly.  Many remasters are simply louder than the original, with the bass and high frequencies boosted.  If you have a sound system which allows you to adjust the EQ (a must in my book), the original issue is probably fine.  There are exceptions;  the original "Lamb Lies Down" and "Ummagumma" CD's had very audible tape hiss in the quiet passages, and the remasters fixed that.  I just got the Hillage remaster of "Fish Rising", and it sounds much better than the tinny, muddy-sounding original, and the bonus tracks are worth having, too.

Napster is really cool when it comes to remasters ... just a few days ago they released all the Steve Hillage albums. Ok, it's all in 192kbps WMA ... but the quality is good enough to check whether you like the changes they made to the sound.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - February 26 2007 at 15:46