Remastering CDs for personal use.

[wado1942]

Every once and a while, I hear about an engineer taking an existing album they own, tweaking it and making a CD for their own listening pleasure. How many of you have done this and what material?
I remember Bob K telling me once that he did that with Limp Bizkit. I pulled down 2.1K on Rush's "Presto" album by about 5dB and pulled down a high shelf (6K) another 1-2dB. Sounds great like that! Man, what a thin sounding album, but great material!

[Mertmo]

I've done this a lot. It's good fun and good practice.

[Jonathan Race]

I tried with a song from Stonesour - Stonesour once and I had a version that was preferable to me but I never bothered printing it

[Mertmo]

The best way to do this as an "exercise" is to recreate an album partly from
an old CD, and partly from remastered songs from the same record that come
from a newer box set.

For example, I rebuilt a version of Cheap Trick's "Heaven Tonight" using the
songs from that record that were on their box set and filled out the missing
gaps from the old CD release. I tried my best to get the old CD songs to
match the newer remastered songs, and make it sound like the same
mastering job. Very educational...

[huejahfink]

I do this quite a bit... although not for complete albums.

Most of the time, it's dubs or odds and sods that I want to play out in DJ sets and carve and mould them accordingly.

But sometimes I get some nice tunes that have been ruined by poor QC.
Recently I obtained the OST 'Mona Lisa Smile' because there were a couple of old jazz tunes covered by Tori Amos on there I wanted to hear. Shocked at the clipping on the CD, terrible anyway - but totally inappropriate for this type of music.

So I load the WAVs up into Izotope RX and gently massage all the little clicks and distortions out of those tunes I wanted to keep. I'm not sure I've heard of Vlado Meller before... but man - I'm not very impressed to have to correct these distortions to be able to properly enjoy the tunes.
Shame - as apart from some crackles it sounds great.

[bkbirge]

I'm not a mastering guy but I've done this a lot. But it's mostly for experimentation or getting CD's of my large vinyl collection. The modern stuff there's kind of no point in touching unless you can really work an expander, a trick I've never figured out.

[mmarra]

Thanks for the idea to do this. I would like to start learning how to master and this is a great way for me to learn and experiment.

[wado1942]

Thanks for the comments guys, I can certainly attest to the idea that playing completed projects through your processors can be a good learning tool. I was referring more to doing this simply because you like the sound better after you've reprocessed it yourself. Like my Rush album, I reprocessed and made a new CD of it because the original is so brittle sounding and I thought it could be better.

Another example... There was a band that I like who gave me a copy of one of their albums. It was badly mastered so I took the CD, tweaked it and made a new CD. They ultimately loved it and made THAT their official master for subsequent runs.

[Shy]

I've improved/fixed several albums I really like and actually listen to. I don't usually bother.

[mmarra]

Originally Posted by wado1942

Thanks for the comments guys, I can certainly attest to the idea that playing completed projects through your processors can be a good learning tool. I was referring more to doing this simply because you like the sound better after you've reprocessed it yourself.

I know it's not the intent of the post but are there any other good albums to conduct this process. I could use all the practice I can get.

Thank you,

[EDF]

I had fun remastering Rick Ross - Trilla, couldn't mess with the song Boss, it was just a failure mix wise.

[MOTTOsound]

Originally Posted by mmarra

Thanks for the idea to do this. I would like to start learning how to master and this is a great way for me to learn and experiment.

Yes sure it is a good way to learn, but do be aware that this material is already mastered and will not, necessarily, be similar to the material you will receive as an ME straight from the studio. However for learning frequencies and how you might remaster something - yes - it is the best practice.

[Hysteria]

And this is a great use for Ozone! (referring back to previous threads about it being 'too powerful' etc)

I've made many a badly-transfered thin-sounding early CD sound listenable. And I've even found it possible to take modern compressed stuff and 'help' them along. Iron Maiden's Dance of Death was one that I couldn't listen to as it was so dry, dull and lifeless. Mr Ozone and I sorted that out

I also take the opportunity to deal with any clipping and resulting ISC during the process. At least I can then be sure more playback D/A don't add more crap to an already bad sound.

Now, must get my Presto out...(does anyone else think that the Presto remaster is hardly any different from the original - gotta be one of the most hideous-sounding rush albums which is very sad as I love the songs. The other 80s rush has come up nicely with a more full bottom end but not this one. Anyway...)

[wado1942]

Most of the Rush remasters are the same, just louder. Roll the Bones is AWFUL. Luckily it's not my fave by any stretch. I have the original Presto master though.

[mastringshuset]

...not to mention all the distortion and clipping on vapor trails... I actually returned that album thinking there was an error in the pressing, but when I re-bought it a few months later, it was just the same...
I thought they had a better sense of quality control themselves. I can't really imagine Neil, Geddy or Alex letting that one pass. :-(

[mljung]

I had to do this on some 70's Jethro Tull albums, that was horribly "remastered" at Abbey Road. They sounded like they put a lo-cut at 100hz and added some dBs above 8kHz. Moreover they pushed the level into distortion several places .
I had to remaster the remaster in order to make it a pleasure to listen to.

I also had to remaster the so-called "definitive remaster" of Lamb Lies down on Broadway [Genesis]. It became listenable after that!

::
Mads

[strdsk]

Yep...do it lots for fun and for practice. I always get a real kick out of biting off more than I can chew too! Like re-mastering Beatles albums. Sometimes I even dress up as Ringo and hand myself the project. With a poor English accent I'll say something aloud like..." Here you go me love. Can we please make the bass less bumbity bumbity?" It's just something I like to do....

[huejahfink]

Originally Posted by strdsk

" Here you go me love. Can we please make the bass less bumbity bumbity?"

.... Yeah everyone speaks like that over here, although you forgot to mention cups of tea which we do between any two sentences spoken between the hours of 0600 and 1800, and pints of ale or cider anytime thereafter.

"Here you go, me love! Make mine with two sugars. Oh, and can we make the bass less bumpety bumpety, please?"

or for the evening

"Here you go, me love! Mine's a pint of Abbots. Oh, and can we make the bass less bumpety bumpety, please?"

[lucey]

I did this Remastering-A-Master thing for myself years ago on these CD records from the 80s:

Dire Straits
Back In Black
The Nightfly

It was good practice on many levels .... that at the time I took a lot of shit for on a lesser forum.

[SSMastering]

Originally Posted by wado1942

Every once and a while, I hear about an engineer taking an existing album they own, tweaking it and making a CD for their own listening pleasure. How many of you have done this and what material?

I've done that with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" just for kicks.
Didn't use any compression, just some EQ and minimal digital limiting.

When I got my API 2500, I ran The Cure's "Disintegration" through it. I use that compressor on a lot of mixes now.

[Waltz Mastering]

Another cd that could use a little touch up is "Ziggy Stardust" ..to bright for me.

[therealbigd]

As I've posted elsewhere, using the Dynamic Perception and ITP tools in Slate FG-X are a really cool way to uncompress a compressed track. So, in essence, unmaster it in terms of loudness. Doing so does give you a bit more space to work.

I just thought I'd share that for anyone who gets involved in the aforementioned practice. I redid the Kyuss albums with Nick Oliveri (as opposed to Scott Reeder) as Reeder's bass adds a thundering low end to the tracks which makes Kyuss sound like the force of nature that Sky Valley is famous for, whilst Oliveri's plectrum-picking bass was cool in it's own right but made for very weak sounding mixes.

[jeff_free69]

Originally Posted by Waltz Mastering

Another cd that could use a little touch up is "Ziggy Stardust" ..to bright for me.

Good call -
I loved the clarity on this when it first came out The way the "ooo-yeah" vocals on Ziggy faded in like a horn section!

But that was on vinyl and boomy speakers
Now its "Where's the bottom?" ; and of course it is very dry overall (typical of the 70's)

[gingataff]

Originally Posted by Waltz Mastering

Another cd that could use a little touch up is "Ziggy Stardust" ..to bright for me.

Which version do you have?

I have the US Rhino master and that's pretty bright. I found a thread at Steve Hoffman's forum that gave some tips on how to adjust the eq on that (and other Rhino masters of Bowie albums) and I've had a some good results.

[luke2112]

hi guys, so basically you 'rip' tracks from a commercial cd, import it in your DAW and process it, or am I missing something?

[sat159p1]

Done it with:

Blink 182 - Dude Ranch (too much boooooooooooooing frequencies that ruined that record)
Blink 182 - T.O.Y.P.A.J. (absolutely the most TREBLEY record i have listened to. I must turn that damn frequencies down ;_

[wado1942]

Originally Posted by luke2112

hi guys, so basically you 'rip' tracks from a commercial cd, import it in your DAW and process it, or am I missing something?

Well, that's what I did. I can't speak for the other fellers though.

[huejahfink]

Of course. How else would you do it, except to track down the original mixes?

[bkbirge]

Play tracks from CD or Vinyl -> hardware eq's & comps & line drivers -> either computer for sequencing and head/tail edits or straight to CD. That's how I do it but I'm a dinosaur.

Originally Posted by luke2112

hi guys, so basically you 'rip' tracks from a commercial cd, import it in your DAW and process it, or am I missing something?

[huejahfink]

Haha! OK. I'd forgot about that. Haven't seen a DAWless setup for about 7 years and forgot about that shizzle.