surround CDs

Hello!

I have all the BMG-Dolby surround serie and the same collection in re-
released Red Seal Japanese edition for the comparison. I have to say
you better forget any of these Dolby-surround releases. These are very
noisy, compressed, and qualitywise much worse than the Japanese
editions. No such nice details like that of the "original" recording, not
even better feeling of space. It was really a sin to mastering Tomita that
way. Many of the melody-lines and sounds simply disappeared and
suffered phase coherency. NO system of the world can make an original
recording better, and the rest is an orbital lie including: mastering.
(I'm a mastering -engineer too) Tibor

 

Hello!

I have all the BMG-Dolby surround serie and the same collection in re-
released Red Seal Japanese edition for the comparison. I have to say
you better forget any of these Dolby-surround releases. These are very
noisy, compressed, and qualitywise much worse than the Japanese
editions. No such nice details like that of the "original" recording, not
even better feeling of space. It was really a sin to mastering Tomita that
way. Many of the melody-lines and sounds simply disappeared and
suffered phase coherency. NO system of the world can make an original
recording better, and the rest is an orbital lie including: mastering.
(I'm a mastering -engineer too) Tibor

 

on 4/17/04 6:40 AM, A Tonal Diktatur at supersurrexit at freemail.hu wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I have all the BMG-Dolby surround serie and the same collection in re-
> released Red Seal Japanese edition for the comparison. I have to say
> you better forget any of these Dolby-surround releases. These are very
> noisy, compressed, and qualitywise much worse than the Japanese
> editions. No such nice details like that of the "original" recording, not
> even better feeling of space. It was really a sin to mastering Tomita that
> way. Many of the melody-lines and sounds simply disappeared and
> suffered phase coherency. NO system of the world can make an original
> recording better, and the rest is an orbital lie including: mastering.
> (I'm a mastering -engineer too) Tibor
>

Well as a general rule, just re-transferring the analog master more recently
is going sound noticeably better than the same process done say a half
decade ago. I'd say also in general when an artist or original producer is
there for quality control the results are always better than when a
mastering engineer is simply asked to improve the sound via remastering. I'd
say more often than not the results of someone actively trying to improve
the fidelity backfire. Case in point the 2000 remaster of "Snowflakes are
Dancing", I'd say certain aspects are improved but I'd also say juat as many
aspects were worsened because someone actively I guess was trying to
'restore' the recording.

I have noticed some things about Japanese remastering. I guess a lot of it
is due to the economics of a typical reissue can be made quite profitably
with a pressing of only 5000. The Japanese seem to just transfer the best
analog master they can get to transfer from. The quality has gone up quite a
bit in that if you go back to Japanese CDs from the 80s, those analog to
digital transfers are poor by modern standards and some suffered from analog
masters that were poor dupes to begin with (case in point the 1980s "Abbey
Road" CD Toshiba put out that caused an 'uproar' many years before the
Beatles were released on CD - so that one typifies Japanese 1980s A to D,
which wasn't very good and a dupe master that wasn't good quality to
transfer from).

But in more recent years one can hear Japanese CD masterings form the last
few years that don't go nuts trying to fix things wind up being head over
heels better than American CD masterings where someone decided to fix
things.

> NO system of the world can make an original recording better

Well I don't know, some systems seem to help some. Many fans appreciated
Virgin running a collection of the works by Brian Eno through the Sony SBM
process. Sometimes additional more careful work can undo some kind of prior
mistake.

> and the rest is an orbital lie

Hey! Don't blame everything on the Hartnoll brothers despite their last
several albums

;-)

 

on 4/17/04 6:40 AM, A Tonal Diktatur at supersurrexit at freemail.hu wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I have all the BMG-Dolby surround serie and the same collection in re-
> released Red Seal Japanese edition for the comparison. I have to say
> you better forget any of these Dolby-surround releases. These are very
> noisy, compressed, and qualitywise much worse than the Japanese
> editions. No such nice details like that of the "original" recording, not
> even better feeling of space. It was really a sin to mastering Tomita that
> way. Many of the melody-lines and sounds simply disappeared and
> suffered phase coherency. NO system of the world can make an original
> recording better, and the rest is an orbital lie including: mastering.
> (I'm a mastering -engineer too) Tibor
>

Well as a general rule, just re-transferring the analog master more recently
is going sound noticeably better than the same process done say a half
decade ago. I'd say also in general when an artist or original producer is
there for quality control the results are always better than when a
mastering engineer is simply asked to improve the sound via remastering. I'd
say more often than not the results of someone actively trying to improve
the fidelity backfire. Case in point the 2000 remaster of "Snowflakes are
Dancing", I'd say certain aspects are improved but I'd also say juat as many
aspects were worsened because someone actively I guess was trying to
'restore' the recording.

I have noticed some things about Japanese remastering. I guess a lot of it
is due to the economics of a typical reissue can be made quite profitably
with a pressing of only 5000. The Japanese seem to just transfer the best
analog master they can get to transfer from. The quality has gone up quite a
bit in that if you go back to Japanese CDs from the 80s, those analog to
digital transfers are poor by modern standards and some suffered from analog
masters that were poor dupes to begin with (case in point the 1980s "Abbey
Road" CD Toshiba put out that caused an 'uproar' many years before the
Beatles were released on CD - so that one typifies Japanese 1980s A to D,
which wasn't very good and a dupe master that wasn't good quality to
transfer from).

But in more recent years one can hear Japanese CD masterings form the last
few years that don't go nuts trying to fix things wind up being head over
heels better than American CD masterings where someone decided to fix
things.

> NO system of the world can make an original recording better

Well I don't know, some systems seem to help some. Many fans appreciated
Virgin running a collection of the works by Brian Eno through the Sony SBM
process. Sometimes additional more careful work can undo some kind of prior
mistake.

> and the rest is an orbital lie

Hey! Don't blame everything on the Hartnoll brothers despite their last
several albums

;-)

 

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 12:40:02 +0200 (CEST), you wrote:

>NO system of the world can make an original recording better

If by "better" you mean create something that wasn't there originally, I
agree. We've suffered through decades of "electronically re-recorded to
simulate stereo". Fortunately, 95% of that went away with CD remasterings.

Unfortunately, we also got a ton of CD remasterings that sound like they were
made by deaf engineers. (For example, RCA again-- the Camden CDs of some
vintage Arthur Fiedler material actually make the recordings sound like they
were made with wooden microphones. Far below the quality of the LP reissues.
Nobody with an ear could possibly have been anywhere near the remastering
process.)

But, in theory, making Dobly Surround mixes of original 4-channel recordings
sounds like a good idea. However, since Dolby Surround uses just one rear
channel, maybe the missing sounds were out of phase in the original rear
channels? Then all it would take is inattentiveness during the remastering to
destroy the recording. (The "black box" approach: you just feed your signal
in, go away while it works, and you're done! Yeah, right. LOTS of remasterings
sound like they were done that way. And I'm convinced that's how CEDAR was
always used during the first 15 or so years of its existence. But I
digress...)

 

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 12:40:02 +0200 (CEST), you wrote:

>NO system of the world can make an original recording better

If by "better" you mean create something that wasn't there originally, I
agree. We've suffered through decades of "electronically re-recorded to
simulate stereo". Fortunately, 95% of that went away with CD remasterings.

Unfortunately, we also got a ton of CD remasterings that sound like they were
made by deaf engineers. (For example, RCA again-- the Camden CDs of some
vintage Arthur Fiedler material actually make the recordings sound like they
were made with wooden microphones. Far below the quality of the LP reissues.
Nobody with an ear could possibly have been anywhere near the remastering
process.)

But, in theory, making Dobly Surround mixes of original 4-channel recordings
sounds like a good idea. However, since Dolby Surround uses just one rear
channel, maybe the missing sounds were out of phase in the original rear
channels? Then all it would take is inattentiveness during the remastering to
destroy the recording. (The "black box" approach: you just feed your signal
in, go away while it works, and you're done! Yeah, right. LOTS of remasterings
sound like they were done that way. And I'm convinced that's how CEDAR was
always used during the first 15 or so years of its existence. But I
digress...)