So after the debacle of the so called Rhino remasters and the success of Recycle, does anyone know where the original master tapes are? Did they get lost when Factory went bust or did some twonk nick 'em? Do the JD and NO master tapes still exist? Hooky said that Unknown Pleasures was remasterd from a source that Rob Gretton owned but it wasn't the master tape. How the hell did all this come to pass!?
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Where Are The Original Master Tapes Then?
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johnny james wrote: There are many master tapes of all sorts in Warner's Tape archive facility.
Begs the question why the remasters were awful then, supposedly using vinyl and CD as source?
From what I've read over the years the album master tapes are safe but the singles and non-album material ones are either lost or not available. This would explain why the album discs of the remasters were mostly "ok" while the bonus discs were simply ropey vinyl transfers.
Every now and then Hooky recounts the tale of fishing the Unknown Pleasures master tapes out of a skip just after the demise of Factory in 1992. They obviously weren't good with money nor looking after the music in physical form.
It's odd as if you take a track like Touched By The Hand Of God 12" Mix which sounded horrible on the remasters was previously available in pristine form on the International compilation in 2002. What happened to the master tape for that track in the intervening 6 years? At a company like Warner Bros?
The original disc 2 'remasters' were put together on the cheap by Warners using poor sources (not actually vinyl transfers btw, but crap nonetheless).
The fixed versions were from original master tapes sourced by band and management, though sometimes not quite the right ones (as per 'The Beach', which seems to be a not-quite-finished mix).
Denholm Reynholm wrote: Every now and then Hooky recounts the tale of fishing the Unknown Pleasures master tapes out of a skip just after the demise of Factory in 1992
i'm almost sure Hooky told me at the club press day that the Unknown Pleasures master tapes were found under the stage/steps at the Hac? I think it also says that in the book although i could be wrong.
i'm almost sure Hooky told me at the club press day that the Unknown Pleasures master tapes were found under the stage/steps at the Hac?
Oh frig, they could be fretboards by now!
Hooky told me that the 2007 London remaster of Unknown Pleasures will sound different to the original release because they couldn't find the original masters. An actual difference in edit? They used a source that Gretton had but I haven't checked for differences. Strange that the masters could ever go missing. Surely London have the masters for the albums at least but you never know in this continually mad New Order story...
the reissues are not from the original tapes, they are different versions!
warners kept fucking up when provided with the correct masters for the second discs & included wrong versions repeatedly. various promos kept coming back & were wrong, everytime the management tried to put it right they fucked it up again. the other problems are due to the master tapes being lost
Warners would not have the master tapes, which are multitracked. They would have a 2-track stereo master which may have had some additional compression or alteration added during the runoff process because they felt they knew what would work in the US marketplace.
Knowing Factory's financial standing I seriously doubt safety copies of the multitrack were created, and if they were, they've probably disappeared along with the originals.
True remastered CDs would be done from the ground up with the original multitrack recordings. At most these reissues have tried to clean up the 2-track masters used for the US market.
I don't know what multitracks exist or not but they wouldn't go back to them and try and 're-produce' each album, maybe The Beatles albums were redone in this fashion but New Order simply don't have that budget to play with. Not withstanding the fact that Martin Hannett isn't around to redo his productions, can you imagine the cost involved in reverse engineering the various album productions/mixdowns?
In almost every case of 'remastering' (except The Beatles and other big budget types) the best you'll get is a reworking of stereo mixdowns.
Any added (and inevitable) compression/limiting will be done to that stereo master, and I doubt it needed to be some kind of 'US master' for that to happen.
Big Clive wrote: the reissues are not from the original tapes, they are different versions!
warners kept fucking up when provided with the correct masters for the second discs & included wrong versions repeatedly. various promos kept coming back & were wrong, everytime the management tried to put it right they fucked it up again. the other problems are due to the master tapes being lost
Are you talking about the original versions of the remasters? The ones that everyone complained about?
The revised versions were done by the band and management, without Warners/Rhino having much chance to mess it up.
johnny james wrote:
Big Clive wrote: the reissues are not from the original tapes, they are different versions!
warners kept fucking up when provided with the correct masters for the second discs & included wrong versions repeatedly. various promos kept coming back & were wrong, everytime the management tried to put it right they fucked it up again. the other problems are due to the master tapes being lost
Are you talking about the original versions of the remasters? The ones that everyone complained about?
The revised versions were done by the band and management, without Warners/Rhino having much chance to mess it up.
both!
Big Clive wrote: the reissues are not from the original tapes, they are different versions!
i meant the jd ones here
Big Clive wrote:
warners kept fucking up when provided with the correct masters for the second discs & included wrong versions repeatedly. various promos kept coming back & were wrong, everytime the management tried to put it right they fucked it up again. the other problems are due to the master tapes being lost
& the no ones here
johnny james wrote: I don't know what multitracks exist or not but they wouldn't go back to them and try and 're-produce' each album, maybe The Beatles albums were redone in this fashion but New Order simply don't have that budget to play with. Not withstanding the fact that Martin Hannett isn't around to redo his productions, can you imagine the cost involved in reverse engineering the various album productions/mixdowns?
In almost every case of 'remastering' (except The Beatles and other big budget types) the best you'll get is a reworking of stereo mixdowns.
But surely if Depeche Mode could do this (for the 5.1 mixes of their entire album back catalogue a couple of years ago), then why not New Order?
It the multitracks still exist then of course it's possible. But as I said the budget just isn't there to do it. Like it or not DM will outsell NO.
Also, since I would bet that sales of this round of NO remasters were somewhat disappointing (due mainly to the botched job done of it) there is not much chance of the label ever thinking it worth it.
I suppose the key is whether it claims to be a remaster or 'remastered from the original master tapes'. In this case it has to be a standard remaster... Mostly crap.
Remixing something to 5.1 doesn't rely on having master tapes - you can do it with any stereo recording. I don't know a thing about the DM re-issues (don't want to either), just saying that 5.1 doesn't necessarily mean much.
well 'remaster' means remastered, not re-produced.
Mastering is a seperate thing to producing (with the band in a recording studio etc), it's taking the final mix and getting it suitably transferred onto the laquer used to produce the stampers that make the vinyl, or glass mastered for the CD. Usually some EQ changes and channel merging (for vinyl) take place in order to get an optimum reproduction. These days it tends to mean limiting to f**k the original, especially for playback through an ipod speaker dock and ruining it for everyone else (see 'Singles' for an example).
Pablo Bastardo wrote: Remixing something to 5.1 doesn't rely on having master tapes - you can do it with any stereo recording. I don't know a thing about the DM re-issues (don't want to either), just saying that 5.1 doesn't necessarily mean much.
not true for real 5.1 - you need the original tracks stemmed out.
tho personally i think 5.1 is like 3d films - nothing more than a novelty. we have two ears, not 5.1
johnny james wrote: It the multitracks still exist then of course it's possible. But as I said the budget just isn't there to do it. Like it or not DM will outsell NO.
Also, since I would bet that sales of this round of NO remasters were somewhat disappointing (due mainly to the botched job done of it) there is not much chance of the label ever thinking it worth it.
The DM re-releases are very good quality. I haven't got a 5.1 set up. Always thought this was alien compared to a true Hi-Fi set up. I have been impressed with the JD re-releases too. It's just the New Order ones that are disappointing.
My local HMV has the PC& L 'fixed' version.
Is it worth buying for the remastered original album?
It's sad that when "remastered" CDs first started appearing, "remastering" usually meant that they went back to the original mixdown tapes, or at least it seems so?
A good example is the Echo & The Bunnymen catalogue. This is how it should be done: The 2003 versions of "Crocodiles" and "Heaven Up Here" sound fantastic. They're clearer, with better instrument separation and less distortion. Without being brickwalled, I should add. Apparently, they discovered that the original CD release of "Crocodiles" didn't use the mixdown master, but a copy of it. Thank you Bill Inglot for getting this right!
Nowaydays, I'm highly suspicious of anything that says "remastered". In most cases, it seems no better than taking the original CD master (or worse, vinyl) and ruining it by adding "loudness", killing the dynamics. Even LTM has fallen victim of this (see Other Two). In these cases I much prefer the original CD release. I'd say that 90% of CDs released in the 90s are perfectly mastered, and to sell reissued versions of these as "remastered" is no more than a marketing strategy. Don't be fooled. To remaster, say "Republic", would be insane. It certainly wouldn't do the music any good.
Anyway, everything that could be said about the "Loudness war" has probably already been said, although certain record labels and executive producers still don't get the message.
Thankfully the NO reissues aren't as brickwalled as they could have been, but still, I'd much rather listen to the original Low-life CD (Facd100) than the "new" version with drop-outs in "Sunrise".
Pablo Bastardo wrote: Remixing something to 5.1 doesn't rely on having master tapes - you can do it with any stereo recording. I don't know a thing about the DM re-issues (don't want to either), just saying that 5.1 doesn't necessarily mean much.
Well, the DM 5.1 mixes were done from the original multitrack tapes (and in the case of Music For The Masses, which was digitally recorded, from the original floppy discs - they actually had to dig out old computer equipment that no-one had used for 20 years). They were faithfully created to resemble the original stereo mixes.
indiearchivist wrote: Nowaydays, I'm highly suspicious of anything that says "remastered".
Damn right. I was really looking forward to the remastered version of the Stone Roses first album last year, because the original UK CD mastering was bloody awful (no bass frequencies whatsoever), but it just sounds muffled. The original US mastering is still superior.
The ZZTop remasters (transferred from the original masters) of their early 70's albums are superb. Tres Hombres from 1973 sounds more open, clear and the instruments sound richer compared to the original release. The older the recording the better the result.
