Synchronicity Remaster
Reply #14 – 2004-10-21 14:51:21
The Weezer remaster isn't significantly louder than the original, but the original was up at -9 already, so it's hard to push any louder than that. Interestingly enough, though, if you compare them without using replaygain, the guitars and drums are the same volume side-by-side, but the vocals and guitar solos are mixed much more out front. That's the only reason the album has a louder RG. * So, technically, the album was not only remastered, it was reMIXED as well. Interesting. That fits the other experiences mentioned. "Remastering" actually has nothing to do with "back to the original", like it should, it's "straight forward to new style". Given the intention to master in a more 'trendy' way, it's obvious that they achieve more loudness by additionally remixing the single tracks. Doing so prooves their evil goals, because for only true remastering it's enough to take the old master tape and remove the damage caused by long-time storage.But here's another example: I have pretty much every R.E.M. album known to man. When their Best Of came out last year, I picked it up for the b-sides and new songs. But I also was interested in how they treated the older songs to put on their release. When comparing the Best Of's version of Orange Crush to the original one off of Green, there's noticeable clipression, and I even ran Voxengo's CurveEQ on the tracks to compare EQ curves. As it turned out, the highs were actually REDUCED on the Best Of's version. I'm not sure if this is due to simple tape degradation, or because many CDs from the 80s (Green = 1988) had a slightly boosted high end to begin with, and this reduction was how the master tape was "supposed" to sound. Though, sometimes, a slight high-end reduction can also be used as a very simple noise reduction tool. I have a lossless copy of their most reknown album "Automatic for the people" from 1994. It is relatively quiet, a bit clipping and compression, but still well-sounding. Could you upload a 30s sample from the greatest hits album from "Drive" or "Everybody hurts" for comparison ? (I suppose they are on the CD.)