Remastering

James Lee wrote: Hangedman wrote: James Lee wrote: sigod wrote: using modern equipment and techniques to improve the sound quality  That's the rub...it all depends on what the engineer (or whoever is in charge) feels is 'improvement'. There's some really crappy digital remasters out there, and a fair number of different tries for the same albums. Could be worse, though...they could always add new material like Lucas did with "Star Wars"... The remaster of Alan Parsons Project "Tales of mystery and imagination" has a LOT of added material on the remaster.... makes it better actually They must have replaced all the songs then. I'm kidding! Just kidding! Don't hurt me!

James Lee wrote: sigod wrote: using modern equipment and techniques to improve the sound quality  That's the rub...it all depends on what the engineer (or whoever is in charge) feels is 'improvement'. There's some really crappy digital remasters out there, and a fair number of different tries for the same albums. Could be worse, though...they could always add new material like Lucas did with "Star Wars"...

The remaster of Alan Parsons Project "Tales of mystery and imagination" has a LOT of added material on the remaster.... makes it better actually

Mastering and remastering are considered the 'dark art' of music to be honest. Put simply, remastering an album normally involves grabbing the original recorded media (usually the 24-track analogue tapes in the case of most 70's bands) and re-recording a 'master' tape/sound file using modern equipment and techniques to improve the sound quality. This new remastered recording is then used to make a 'glass master' which is the prime copy all commercial CD's get copied from.

Sounds easy doesn't it? Oh, no, no, no........