Roots Archives Forum

Hello everyone, I wonderered what thoughts you have on this topic. In the early nineties my parents house got robbed which included me losing all my vinyl. At the time when I compiled the list of records to be replaced I chose CD instead . With hindsight this was a mistake. Anyway over the years we see more and more remastering and reissues of classic LP's with varying results in all genres of music. In our music it is so important not to compromise that warmth from the bass which is so often lost. I have for the last year or so tried to get the original first CD editions of much of my collection second hand and I have found the results staggering. IMO the pre-remastered CD's are head and shoulders above the re-issues. Just got an old copy of Exodus which sounds great. Also I recently got the first Edition of Aux Armes Et Caetera on Mercury France 1989 in which the mix is totally different from the double digi-pak and sounds wicked. There are parts of Robbie Lynn's that have been lost in the re-mastered edition. Vinyl heads please be gentle with me! I just thought it might be an interesting subject. What do you think?

Through the nineties the remastering trend, initiated and emphasized to boost the declining sales, got from bad to worse as the loudness war intensified.

Today the CD sound is thick, breathless, it's just a wall of sound you can't get into.
The details are lost, the music itself is lost. This is now well known and documented over the web.

Earlier CDs (from the 80's) generally do not suffer from that disease and have a more natural sound.
I recently observed that the "Rebel Music" 2CD set on Trojan was just mastered directly from the original tapes without any re-mastering tricks, and it sounds very well.

In the right hands the remastering could prove very satisfying, it all depends on who does it and if there is a musical supervision of the process.
Very commonly there will be the usual filtering/equalization/compression processes applied, without any regard to the music.

N.

I have to agree with both of you, I don't really enjoy a CD sound as the dynamic range is destroyed completly. But on the other hand some have been a tasty treat.

I dont like it. Most of it is digital remastering.
All they do is re-produce it so its not the original production and you dont get a true production quality that was the King Tubby production, so it was the remastering team thinking what King Tubby thought he was doing.

peace

Why has it been remastered in the first place?

In my opinion it's hard (maybe impossible or not done) to exceed the hands of the old masters like King Tubby.....

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