I see these two phrases on Amazon re Sticky Fingers:

Original Recording Reissued

Original Recording Remastered


I thought all the Virgin 1994 pressings were remastered, or are there two lines, sort of like the 2002 Abkco pressings -- regular CDs, and also hybrid CD/SACDs?

Any clarification would be appreciated. Thanks.


p

I would not believe Amazon so much as what the CDs say, which is remastered and only that. Of course it's the original that's been remastered. But I don't understand why they'd include both for something like that - it's redundant.

IF that is what they mean.

remastering means nothing; you have to remaster in order to reissue on cd.

I thought I had heard that the Virgin "remasters" were actually of better sound quality than CD pressings by previous companies.

Perhaps it was remixed or somehow digitized differently/better, if there is such a thing.


p

No, actually, the original CBS and ABKCO CD issues were the vinyl masters, hence why they sounded so bad. So those weren't remastered.

Virgin remastered them FOR CD, hence why those (and eventually ABKCO) sound so much better than the original CD issues.

beware of 'better' verions or 'newly mastered' or 'remastered' etc..etc...blah blah...that kinda nonsense...much of what i've heard from the Stones and other great bands does not sound even close to the original stuff as approved and released by the artists and the original label....i hear crap on the radio, that is NOT in the best interest of peeps wanting to hear those original masterworks imo...steely thin digitalization of warm acoustics, electrics and wonderful singing, often sounds watered down...
everytime someone says with approval and excitement "you can hear things you NEVER heard before," i effin' cringe...
the market, for soap suds or muzic industry stuff, demands "NEW IMPROVED!!"_"NOW WITH (this or that crap)"
and to my ear, (i was a child abouty ten when the brit invasion hit and was already a huge fan of several early rockers and soul singers and got to experience all these classic albums as each and every one came out, and so spent a LOT of time with each album, waiting for the next release from my very favorites: stones, kinks, animals, yardbirds, beatles, who...)


and well, the original vinyl and first generations of cassettes, and yes even 8 track players, have wonderful fidelity in a (non digital) medium!!!...where they were created produced and released, envisioned and performed with such impact...

look i use cd's like everyone else and by no means think they are all shit, but i just say beware is all...those original artists are NOT as involved or caring as they were when a lot of this stuff was comptemporary for them....

i like the sound of the vl cd a lot...i do not know what's supposed to be 'better' than what the damn artists produced and released in the first place, when they were ON it and INTO it....

i'm sure it's been done 'right' by page himself in the case of zep, and others...
..but mostly i hate the steely miserable accentuation of stuff never meant to sound like that, or be that prominent, (which hides other more essential stuff potentially)...just my view...i turn on the radio and they played 'fool to cry' and it was a cringefest...then they played 'two of us' from 'let it be' and it sucked the energy out of the performances and felt very flat...and i KNOW these were good performances...I've HEARD them over and over again for so many years, and i personally feel that a lot of this stuff has been damaged and brought forth to newer and next generations, weaker, NOT stronger, that the orignals...
it takes one, imo, further and further away from these grand and beautiful and wildly exciting deep expressions of soul....
....totally off what the actual glims created, produced and released...it must be fun for 'new' fans or completists, but i really am not at ALL impressed with a lot of the absoulute crap that keeps getting further and further away from the original sonics, intent, and performances...

i realized that anything re-released has to be 'remastered' for duplications, but i think a lot of the people doing this stuff were NOT there to even hear or experience the original stuff, and have not a great perspective...so on comes more and more compression and DAMAGING eq, imo, not an improvement, but a devolution and depletion to some extent...
there is great stuff out there, but i say beware personally...
thnx for letting me sound off...

Mick Jagger had an actual hand (and ear) in the remastering of their Virgin catalog.

And it, to this day, still sounds amazingly better than the original CD issues that were the vinyl masters just plunked onto CD. He made a point of getting everything mastered FOR CD to sound like the original vinyl masters did FOR vinyl. So what came out on Virgin was designed to sound exactly like if not better than the original vinyl issues.

What Sony/CBS did for their CD issues was just to make a buck - nothing was done to the masters except for the transferring to digital.

I could be so that the way an old recordings sounds after remastering and maybe even remixing and on a new format could, for the first time, sound the way the artist intended, that was not possible 40 years ago due to the limitations the medias had then. SO even if a recording sunds different now, it could anyway be much closer to the original master tapes, and exactly the way the artist intended, but unheard, outside the recording studio, until now.
Mats

respectfully disagree with smoe points Matt.
there are imho absolutely superb recordings that still stand up amazingly many many years and many decades later; going back to the forties, even the thirties...

this digitilization, if that's a word, is a compact storage device that does not even EVER encapsule the recording of a true sound wave...
i think those artists and producers of a lot of the classics we love, were very careful with their mixing and sonics...

...for some techie to substantially change eq, mixes of instsruments and vocals in relation to other instruements and vocals etc, and compression ratios, is at best, an attempt to bring it back alive, and at worst, which is most of the time imo, is to substantially change and weaken and demean the very golden stuff they are trying to 'replicate' and improve upon...
it's mostly a mess...to project that 'oh this is what elvis (or the stones or the beatles etc...) were REALLY going for' is an interesting opinion but not a realistically viable one imo.

i don't think mcartney, for example, gives a good shit, unfortunately, about the masters from his beatle days...
i don't think i can ever believe that a lot of our classic artists were so stupid as to record warm acoustics and other instruements, but REALLY wishing it would be thin, steely and harsh..to my ear anyway

4 example, i've heard lame and thin vocals on elvis albums that were absolutely Masterful in their original performance...this great great voice of rich tonality is gone on some releases, and some good hearted fan from a subsequent generation, picks up on this album and thinks that THAT is what Elvis soundes like, or MEANT to sound like, and it's just wrong.

and beyond that, its a little disturbing to think that new generations, of new and even older listeners, are being dumbed down sonically...and to think that people are thinking, THIS is what dylan or whoever MEANT to sound like, instead of staying REALLY extremely close to the original tape masters, is going in the wrong direction and painting over picasso..



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2009-01-20 08:38 by Beelyboy.

Quote
skipstone
No, actually, the original CBS and ABKCO CD issues were the vinyl masters, hence why they sounded so bad. So those weren't remastered.

they were...you can't just go from a vinyl master to cd without remastering.

Quote
T&A
remastering means nothing; you have to remaster in order to reissue on cd.

This is a point most people overlook, EVERY record is "mastered" before it hits the production line. All that happens with older material is that they go back to the "original" master tapes (if they can find them) and use them to create sound templates for production. Invariably sound levels are tweaked to modernise, i.e. sanitise the sound for CD, so you never get the sound of the original album as it was from the first pressings. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on one's view.

SonicD

Quote
SonicDreamer

Quote
T&A
remastering means nothing; you have to remaster in order to reissue on cd.

This is a point most people overlook, EVERY record is "mastered" before it hits the production line. All that happens with older material is that they go back to the "original" master tapes (if they can find them) and use them to create sound templates for production. Invariably sound levels are tweaked to modernise, i.e. sanitise the sound for CD, so you never get the sound of the original album as it was from the first pressings. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on one's view.

SonicD

correct. i'm always bemused when a new issue of an old album comes out with a sticker that says it's been REMASTERED! No duh.

Judging from the sound quality of recent remasters of other artists' work (e.g., Eliminator by ZZ Top), the Universal remasters, if and when they are issued, will blow the Virgins to bits.

Drew

All I know is that from what I've read over the years and from what Mick said in that interview when asked about the Virgin remasters is what he said about the original CD issues, which were just the vinyl masters put on CD. Whether or not that is actually 'remastering' is a moot point - there was nothing done to improve the sound, which I think is the whole point of 'remastering'.

Just because those ABKCO original CDs said at the bottom 'Digitally Remastered From Original Master Recordings' does not mean they were actually enhanced - just turned into digital. That's been my understanding of it.

Yet alone we all know they didn't do anything to make them sound better.

true - and that's my point - remastering is merely a requirement of producing a new digital source - it has nothing to do with enhancing sound.

OK, so the mere fact that it's been transferred is the remastering. But what Virgin did was actually go back to the masters and make them sound good for CDs and to sound like the original releases on vinyl. That's how Mick stated it.

I find it amusing that ABKCO got the same dude to do that bunch as well. Bob Ludwig must really never want to hear the Stones again ha ha. Imagine what he did ramp up that hasn't gotten released? Makes me wonder.

well, having read some well thought out and considered posts, first I wish to thank each of u.

a few thoughts . . . .

the definition of mastering and remastering is different to different people and as used in different contexts which sometimes includes promotion of a certain release. It appears evident that remastering does not necessarily involve remixing, or not?

Beelyboy, thanks for all the time and consideration u put into your posts. Question: if I just took my original vinyl releases and made CD-Rs out of them, would they sound the same or nearly the same as when playing the vinyl? Would this get closer to your goal of trying to listen to things as they originally were/intended?

However, u assume that the songs as originally released were exactly as the musicians intended them to be -- how do u know this, maybe they were also limited due to the technology of the time?

and what is a vl cd?

OK, so Skipstone says that Mick had a direct hand in the remastering of the Virgin CDs. Why not get together as many of the original musicians (and perhaps engineers) from those sessions so they could all together have a hand in the remastering -- this, at least as an ideal? Who says that just because Mick was involved, that they are more accurately rendered as to the original intent or original sound? What if there were different ideas or visions of what that was?

Sony, CBS, now where does Columbia come into this?

Now, it seems to be the case that for the vaunted 2002 CD/SACD hybrids of the Abkco releases, that none of the Stones or anyone but an engineer who was not there was involved in that particular remastering. So what makes these editions so great or so superior as per their reputation?

Finally, what was the source for a) the 1994 Virgin "remasters"; and b) the 2002 Abkco "remasters"/CD-SACD/DSD? Were they from the original master tapes and were they just attempts to reproduce the originals or was any remixing done?


plexi

hiya Tim. thanx for your thoughtful post and queries,,,
remembering i'm not an engineer (i just play one on tv heh heh)

first off the mastering process is not a 'mix' or 'remix' process.
'mastering' involves tweaking the eq and compression factors in the two track (or stereo master) that is already mixed to common stereo...

...remix' would require the original multitrack tape (or digital sequencer program) which would have everything on seperate tracks (4 or 8 or 16 or 24 or whatever) each of them seperated by virtue of their own mike, (kick drum, snare drum, overhead cymbals, guitars,vokes etc...

mastering also involves 'level' or volume adjustment so one song runs into another in the same volume level...mastering can be great or destructive to the sonics, according to opinion and talent/perspective of mastering engineer...

u wrote ""Question: if I just took my original vinyl releases and made CD-Rs out of them, would they sound the same or nearly the same as when playing the vinyl? Would this get closer to your goal of trying to listen to things as they originally were/intended?

i don't know for sure and have not tried it; very interested in responses to this question from others here...i am sure many many have tried this and I'm really curious to an answer for this as well.

u wrote ""However, u assume that the songs as originally released were exactly as the musicians intended them to be -- how do u know this, maybe they were also limited due to the technology of the time?
and what is a vl cd?""

tim the artists and writers and players were in the same physical room at the mixing board with the producer...mick and keith became very studio savvy almost right from the beginning. very 'hands on' and you can see this in GS movie when mick and keith are mixing ya ya's...

these various artists pretty much HAD to approve things for them to get released and they were working with magnetic tape..

... electronic signal with analog outboard or rack gear (for reverb, analog compression, eq etc...) that had valves or tubes driving their power...

this kind of setup is perfect for capturing the entire full spectrum of the soundwave going onto the recording medium, mostly one inch or two inch width magnetic tape...tho tube devices can be used in the signal 'chain' before it gets to a digital board as well...

whatever 'limitations' this system might have had, in terms of 'cutting' or splicing the phsyical tape, rather than lifting a section in and out with a mouse, is not much of a sonic factor if any at all...digi is 'cleaner' and easier to manipulate and more compact to store, but i don't know of any sonic benefits with digital, quite the opposite imo...

...also these artists purposely overdrove the signal at times to get analog distortion to suit their vision...they also performed in the same room at the same time, allowing for music to Let It Bleed from live recording track/microphone to another recording track/microphone...
*(
yes there was overdubbing of course, but tradtionally the Stones filled each track with as much live stuff interacting with each other as was prudent and necessary...remember they started professional recording on four track, where this was necessary...and grew from there...*)

this makes for wondrous accurate sound, or sound that is purposely and carefully overdriven for natural effect...

i personally see no sonic 'limitations' to this process. i feel, as i mentioned that the artists, engineers and producers worked really hard to select the right instrument and microphone for each part, to project the sound they were making with full beauty...when i hear steely or thin acoustics or vocals squeezed so hard with compression that you can only hear the upper mid range frequencies, well i cannot, ever, imagine that this is what ANY artist had in mind, and could not capture on analog...they could have chosed other instruments and mikes if they wanted a different sound, or hoped the future would yield some engineer to re-invent it...

these are my opinions from my own experiences and observations but i am NOT an enginner, tho i work on the board a bit here and there...

i am sorry to be unclear vl cd is simply Voodoo Lounge, which i thought sonically beautiful on the CD medium it was released on, and designed to be released on...

i think your other questions were for skipstone and others here, take good care plexi...
btw, when did the Stones start using plexiglass on Charlie's kit for live shows?
been wondering about that...

Quote
T&A

Quote
SonicDreamer

Quote
T&A
remastering means nothing; you have to remaster in order to reissue on cd.

This is a point most people overlook, EVERY record is "mastered" before it hits the production line. All that happens with older material is that they go back to the "original" master tapes (if they can find them) and use them to create sound templates for production. Invariably sound levels are tweaked to modernise, i.e. sanitise the sound for CD, so you never get the sound of the original album as it was from the first pressings. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on one's view.

SonicD

correct. i'm always bemused when a new issue of an old album comes out with a sticker that says it's been REMASTERED! No duh.

Agree with the above.

Looks like there are three scenarios:-

A. 2-track/stereo master tape (originally mixed for vinyl), copied to digital and tweaked a little to make it suitable for CD production. I'm guessing that the Beatles and Stones CDs from the mid-80s were done this way.

B. Same as A but given a lot more care and attention a properly mastered for CD, but bear in mind this still the 2-track/stereo master tape source that's been used. Most likely the Virgin remastered CDs were done this way (but possibly as C below?)

C. The multitrack tape is transferred to digital, track by track, each track is then individually cleaned up and tweaked to perfection, finally all tracks are digitally mixed to get a digital master. Ideally all CD releases of old albums would be done this way. A good example of this is the CD version of Bob Marley's Legend album.

It's a bit confusing though as in practice most CDs are labelled 'digitally remastered' and you never know quite what they've done with it..except you can probably tell by listening in some cases.

Interesting read, this thread, and excellent comments from Beely above (thanks for clarifying the difference between "remix" and "remaster") and WeLoveYou. Scenario A mentioned by you seems to fit with the CBS issues of the late 80s. But I'm not sure if the Virgin Remasters are not a mixture of Scenarios B and C actually. What I mean is that they could have used improved masters of (most) songs, but remixed others for one album. For example on the 1994 "Tattoo You", the track "Slave" uses a different master tape than on the old CBS CD. (a different version of the song so to speak). And there are some other little differences throughout the series, that indicate that it was not only EQed, compressed and so forth as "mastering only" suggests...

What do you think?

Don.

Changes were made each time the titles were issued on CD. The most obvious occurrence with 60s recordings is the mono vs. stereo decision as well as attempts to create new wide stereo mixes that sound noticeably different from the compressed sound listeners were familiar with (in the case of the Stones, the 2002 masters of AFTERMATH and BETWEEN THE BUTTONS are a good example) or the new remix of "Satisfaction" that cropped up on the 2002 master of HOT ROCKS. There are also decisions or accidents that result in previously unreleased versions replacing the original versions ("Ruby Tuesday" on CD is lacking one of the vocal tracks heard on vinyl, "The Under-Assistant West Coast Promo Man" on the original pressing of THE SINGLES COLLECTION runs longer, Virgin's releases of "Luxury" and "Slave" run notably longer than the originals and Virgin substituted a remix edit of "Sex Drive" when reissuing FLASHPOINT). Stranger still is the replacement of a completely different version of "Under My Thumb" on GOT LIVE IF YOU WANT IT on CD than originally heard on vinyl, the most recent release of GOT LIVE features "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby" without the brass overdubs from the studio version, "Brown Sugar" on FLASHPOINT now features onstage comments from Mick that were absent originally. Sometimes the difference is purely regional. "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" on vinyl in the US was a completely different, shorter take than released in the UK until 1986 when ABKCO made the original longer UK take the new international standard until 2002 when the US variant take was added as a bonus track to MORE HOT ROCKS. The longer version of "2120 South Michigan Avenue" from the 5x5 EP now became the new standard with the 2002 reissue of 12x5 on CD. The rare acetate version of "Tell Me" has replaced the standard LP version on the newest pressings of the first album. The longer version of "Out of Time" only available in the UK has now become available worldwide as of 2002. I'm sure there's other examples but these are the ones that stick out to me.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-30 18:08 by Rocky Dijon.

I remember reading a lengthy interview about the Virgin releases when they were released. I remember that Mick and Keith were involved and I think a few other studio personnel were pulled in for consultation as well.

If I remember that article correctly the tracks were being re-mixed for CD. I remember the new Virgin team talking about using the master tapes and having to recreate what was done on the original albums. I remember my stomach dropped when reading that part because of several reasons that Beelboy has mentioned. I'd just purchased a few and started to feel that I'd wasted my money on something that wasn't authentic.

What saved it for me was the part about Mick and Keith listening to the finished tapes and giving their approval. The people involved said that Keith would catch little things, timing issues, etc. that they overlooked or couldn't even hear in the first place. I remember their surprise at the things he noticed. They cited a few examples and I figured that if Keith could still pay attention enough to correct those minor details then the new releases overall must be close to the originals.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-30 18:49 by lamemodem2.

Rocky -- impressive just to come up with all that off the top of your head! Kudos!

And a few people have cited an interview or article about the Virgin remasterings of 1994 and Mick/Keith's roles -- can someone post the article(s) it/themselves or provide at least the links? I would like to see it in its entirety.

And Beelyboy -- am even more impressed with your knowledge as is evident in your latest even more detailed post regarding the recording/mixing/mastering processes. Still not sure about if they were able, with the originals, to achieve their best intended sound with sonics or whatever.

I got some answers to the following, but not to all of them:

Sony, CBS, now where does Columbia come into this?

Now, it seems to be the case that for the vaunted 2002 CD/SACD hybrids of the Abkco releases, that none of the Stones or anyone but an engineer who was not there was involved in that particular remastering. So what makes these editions so great or so superior as per their reputation?

What was the source for a) the 1994 Virgin "remasters"; and b) the 2002 Abkco "remasters"/CD-SACD/DSD? Were they from the original master tapes and were they just attempts to reproduce the originals or was any remixing done?


Finally, Skipstone and others, at least Beeley and I are awaiting your responses to some of the issues and questions posed.

Oh, and Beeley, so far as I know, THE PLEXIGLASS was first used on the 1989 Steel Wheels tour. In its physical form.

Of course spiritually, as I have pointed out in posts past, it appears to have been extant in its nascent/spiritual form as far back as 1975 on the Tour of the Americas.

If u don't believe me, ask Ryan Pow!!


Plexi



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-31 02:41 by timbernardis.

I'm not sure where Columbia figures in on this.

From what I've read over the years there wasn't any remixing, just 'remastering', of the Virgin issued records. The reasons for Luxury, Slave and whatever else being longer is one simple word - editing. Those aren't different versions, they just were not edited as the original release was. Just as there is a UK mix of Miss You (no sax) and the US mix, which I believe is just the LP version anyway - just different edits done and they pick whatever one for this, one for that, etc...

OK thanks Skip.

Now, anyone:

Now, it seems to be the case that for the vaunted 2002 CD/SACD hybrids of the Abkco releases, that none of the Stones or anyone but an engineer who was not there was involved in that particular remastering. So what makes these editions so great or so superior as per their reputation?

Finally, what was the source for a) the 1994 Virgin pressings or "remasters"if u want to call them that (skipstone sez not) ; and

b) the 2002 Abkco "remasters"/CD-SACD/DSD? Were they from the original master tapes and were they just attempts to reproduce the originals or was any remixing done?

If no one knows, that is fine.

However, I would still like to see the article(s) which describe Mick/Keith's role in the 94 Virgin editions.

Thanks to any and all who can provide info on these questions and any articles.


plexi

Maybe I'm remembering the article incorrectly. I just looked at one of my Virgin CDs and found this on the artwork:

Digitally remastered by Bob Ludwig for Gateway Mastering Studios. Remastered using UV22 Super CD Encoding by Apogee Electronics, Santa Monica, California. Apogee UV22 is a unique new process capturing all the fine detail of the original analogue master on standard equipment.

I know the article talked about how Mick and Keith had to approve everything that was done. And I know they talked about Keith hearing things they didn't. Maybe it was a timing issue where they had something running too slow or too fast on the remaster and Keith caught it and had them change it.

I wish I could find that article. I never bought the magazine, I just read it standing on the bookstore.

Mastering is a somewhat arcane process, and there are really only a few "mastering houses" used by top artists. It's believed that these select technicians--Bob Ludwig is one of the tops, Greg Calbi is another name you'll see on many of your favorite albums--have unique ears for this task, and I'm inclined to agree. It's not as exhaustive as recording and mixing an album, so the same handful of guys master many records each year. I don't know what will happen when they retire.

So the mere fact that Ludwig--rather than some anonymous recent intern--was doing the Stones catalog was part of the buzz, both times. As I recall, Abkco ended up being a bit vague on the sources they made available to Ludwig in 2002. But that they were treating the project as at all serious and worthy of investing $ on the front end was big news. There were many articles about it at the time; you should be able to track some down using Google if no one else here knows the details. The SACD component made the story even bigger for technophiles.

hey thanks lame and cc, that really helps. I must try that search.

Happy New Year to all the contributors to this thread. I think it has been educational.


p

I'm not 100% positive but I think it was a video of Mick talking about the remastering and what they were going for - to make it sound like the original releases. I saw it on TV.