A few years ago (2012 to be more specific), veteran mastering engineer Ted Jensen, who was responsible for the original 2004 CD version of Green Day's American Idiot and the original 2009 version of 21st Century Breakdown, remastered those albums from analog for the HDTracks music service. The remastered versions features less compression than the original, meaning clearer audio, more separation, and punchier drums due to greater dynamic range. The guitar is also no longer distorted. These are the definitive version of the two albums, and it attests to the fact that proper, non-compressed mastering and quality mixing efforts result in better-sounding audio. The remaster was released in hi-res 24-bit 192khz.
Mastering engineer and anti-loudness war advocate Ian Shepherd examines this, making the point that even heavy rock sounds good with more dynamics. In fact, everything sounds better with greater dynamics. He analyzes the new remaster of "American Idiot" here.
For those who are familiar with the albums, you've never heard them like this before. To be played on YouTube, they needed to be downsampled to 16 bits, 44.1 khz audio (Redbook PCM standard (used for CDs)). YouTube, meanwhile, converts everything down to AAC audio. That said, they are completely new remasters, and the source audio (the FLAC files) sound far better than the original CDs. Their dynamic range doubles that of the originals, going from a DR5 rating to a DR10 on the Dynamic Range Database scale. You will hear the difference.
These less compressed versions have received stellar reviews from those who have heard them, thus confirming that less compression means better-sounding music. Let's hope that the loudness wars are beginning to end.
"American Idiot"
"21st Century Breakdown"
You'll notice that these versions absolutely destroy all other versions of the albums on YouTube. That's proof that a well-mastered source will sound better when compressed down to MP3 than a poorly-mastered source. MP3s DO NOT sound better with DR compression! YouTube audio is 320 kbps AAC audio by default. The better the input, the better the output.
Better mastering practices mean clearer audio and better overall sound. Here's Eric Clapton's 1998 album, Pilgrim. The original sounded muddy; the 2014 audiophile remaster sounds so much clearer, so much more musical.
Good mastering means lifelike audio. Audiophile labels prefer to do minimalistic transfers from the original master tapes for analog-recorded music, resulting in incredible clarity and life in the music -- the way the music was meant to be heard.
Older music (analog recorded) used to suffer from the problem of using high-generation copy tapes for the CD mastering process. Look up tape generation loss for the problem -- you lose fidelity with each copy that is made. In recent years, reissue labels have looked for tapes that are closer to the original source, but in the process of remastering digitally for CD they've decided to apply limiting to those albums. Rhino's remastering of the Chicago catalog is a prime example of this. For older music: just get the master tapes and do a minimalistic transfer.
For digitally-recorded music (and digital remasters), it's important not to suck the life out of them through compression in mixing and mastering. Through compression, the drums are flattened and the music loses clarity, to the point of it sometimes being distorted. Imagine Dragons' Night Visions has a measly DR of 4! When you listen to it, it sounds as flat as a pancake. The drums have no life, the instruments have no definition. It's even distorted. There needs to be a wake-up call.
It's important that the music industry knows that loudness and compression don't improve music and will always make it sound worse. Let's talk about these new versions, the improvement in quality due to the lack of compression in the mastering process, and the need for better mixing and mastering practices to ensure that we preserve the dynamic range and sound quality that music should have.
submitted by quakeroatscdc to Music
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