by Thomas Altmann » Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:54 pm
Lately I have ordered a couple of older, often "historic" recordings of Latin music on CD to replace my cassette recordings from about 20 years ago.
Quite a few of them sounded less than satisfactory.
- Obviously, the treble and bass frequencies were boosted.
- They seemed to have gone through a process that levels up the dynamics to an overall maximum, which makes for a very exhausting listening experience.
- They mixed down percussion parts, probably because they deemed it less important than the other musical components.
- Sometimes the stereo separation was exaggerated, and dizzying stereo effects (very modern: from the Sixties) were applied.
- They even mistreated the original recordings with false echo effects through delay.
I should have done better digitalizing my old cassettes on my own computer in some cases.
Beware of the Papines remastered CD "Bolero-Rumba-Guaguanco" a.k.a. "Salsa" by Manopla Records, for instance! It is garbage, and expensive! It is so ridiculous that it's impossible to listen to it. Same with Don Gonzalo's "Repicao" (SAR): Unnecessarily mutilated, especially Nicky Marrero's timbales!
Did somebody make similar experiences? Do they hire children to re-master these recordings? Is it an open secret that you have to look for the remark "Original, not re-mastered", or better buy the LP, and I am the only bum who doesn't know it yet?
Thomas