Helloween Remasters

[The_Q]

Has anyone else got the reissued and remastered "Walls Of Jericho", "Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 1", "Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 2", and "Pink Bubbles Go Ape" from Helloween? These are so awesome!!!!! Great interview with guitarist Michael Weikath in each where he talks about the album and that era of Helloween. It includes a seperate fold out Helloween timeline, newspaper and magazine clippins as well as the original LP art all contained in a double disc fold out package on each. Very cool! The sound I think (which is obviously most important) is much more solid and the clarity is very good.

 

[tenebre]

yes they are awesome! The rest of the remasters are due at the end of march

 

[trentdk]

Anyone know what the different "tracks" are stored on so that doing stuff like remasters are possible? I don't anything about studio work, but I assume each instrument and stuff is recorded seperately on tape or something? (and probably digital nowadays)

 

[sumairetsu]

That would be a "remix." The multichannel master recordings are what are mixed down to a 2-channel stereo recording. There, all the instruments are recorded on an individual track. The re-release of Megadeth's back catalog was all remixes according to Dave Mustaine's specifications.

A remaster is where they keep the original 2-track master and change the qualities of the sound. This is why you'll hear more bottom end and why the sound is compressed on some of the remasters. You'll hear this on remasters like Judas Priest.

Hope that explains it for you.

 

[Creeps]

the megadeth ones are all very very good

 

[Curufin]

Shit, I didn't even know they were doing remasters. Time to get these!

 

[thesungoesdown]

Anyone know what the different "tracks" are stored on so that doing stuff like remasters are possible? I don't anything about studio work, but I assume each instrument and stuff is recorded seperately on tape or something? (and probably digital nowadays)

Well...Back in the old days in the big studios all the individual tracks were recorded to 2" tape at either 15 or 30 I.P.S. All the individual tracks were then mixed to two tracks ( left and right ) to usually either 1/4'" or 1/2" -
1/2 track tape at either 7.5, 15 or 30 I.P.S. ( inches per second ). 1/2 track ( or sometimes called 2 track ) is used only in one direction. A lot of the reel to reel plaers and recorders bought for home use were 1/4 or ( 4 track ) and both sides ( directions ) of the tape were used. In the late 80's early 90's something was invented called ADAT. It was like VCR tapes that was used for multi-tracks. They used to sync a number of machines together to get the desired number of tracks ( since 1 machine only did 8 tracks ) and everything was then digital. Present day everything is pretty much hard drives. 2 Inch machines are still used ( expecially for drums ) is a lot of the bigger studios. Dat tapes were used in place of reel tape for 2 track mixes. Since cd is 16 bit and most digital stuff is 24 bit a lot of mixes are sill on hard drive or on a cd format called cd24. The bit rate is pretty important as well as the sampling rate.
Now a lot of labels and companies are digitzing their archives since a lot of tape is deteriorating. A lot of times when they dig out the old tapes they have to be baked because the glue that binds the oxide to the plastic will absorb moisture and "break down." So I guess the simple answer is most remixes come from multitrack tape and most remasters come from the "un-eq'd" tape in a perfect world. There used to be a number of 2 track masters. Since vinyl is not a perfect copy like a cd some adjustments in the final mix adding or subtracting different frequencies to compensate for the imperfect transfer on to vinyl. So in order to do a remaster right the master un-eq'd tape is the best to use. Early cd's sound like shit because they used the eq'd masters for cd's ( for the most part ). Now of course the mastering for cd is has been technolically improved and things sound way nicer if it is done correctly.
I guess I rambled a bit...sorry.

 

[Jim LotFP]

There used to be a number of 2 track masters. Since vinyl is not a perfect copy like a cd some adjustments in the final mix adding or subtracting different frequencies to compensate for the imperfect transfer on to vinyl. So in order to do a remaster right the master un-eq'd tape is the best to use. Early cd's sound like shit because they used the eq'd masters for cd's ( for the most part ).

... the important thing to take away from this conversation is that all of the vinyl "snobs" who would go on and on and on about how the vinyl versions of albums sounded better... were right. Until people started mastering with CDs in mind, anyway.

 

[sumairetsu]

... the important thing to take away from this conversation is that all of the vinyl "snobs" who would go on and on and on about how the vinyl versions of albums sounded better... were right. Until people started mastering with CDs in mind, anyway.

That is with a properly remastered CD, of course. I've heard Jazz CDs of classic recordings that were remastered for CD and sound absolutely horrible.

With the invention of the SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) and DVD Audio, the sampling rate has increased to over 2x what CD is, so I think we can expect to hear better recordings, remixes and remasters as time goes on.

 

[thesungoesdown]

... the important thing to take away from this conversation is that all of the vinyl "snobs" who would go on and on and on about how the vinyl versions of albums sounded better... were right. Until people started mastering with CDs in mind, anyway.

100% true.

Actually if you have a very nice slab of quality vinyl and it is mastered properly it still sounds damn fine on a nice turntable.