Remastered CDs of Latin music - What did they do to the recordings?

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Postby 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
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Postby davidpenalosa » Tue Feb 12, 2008 4:03 am

Hi Thomas,
I haven't heard false echo added to remastered recordings re-issused on CD. That sounds horrible! During the 50's there was an unfortunate trend of adding a lot of reverb to Afro-Cuban drum records, to make them sound "voodoo-like" or more "exotic". In fact Mongo's first recording has so much reverb on it that it's unlistenable!

There are no "re-mixed" Cuban recdordings though because they record over the multi-track masters! Can you beleive it? They only save the mixed-down two-track masters. What a shame! The original multi-track masters could be re-mixed by an expert with great results.
-David
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Postby caballoballo » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:38 pm

Thomas if you have vinyl records, there are turntables with USB so you can add those records to you computer, then you can add your own effects, bass, trebel, ect to the final recording. They are about $125 at musician friend online store.
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Postby Thomas Altmann » Tue Feb 12, 2008 4:53 pm

@David

I haven't heard false echo added to remastered recordings re-issused on CD. That sounds horrible!


As happened on the Papines CD I mentioned! It was after the record that had these numbers like "Zarara", "Tambores Felices" and "Si, No" on it. When I heard the CD, I couldn't believe it. I put my old cassette in and compared it with the CD. Whoever botched this one up must be insane.

The original multi-track masters could be re-mixed by an expert with great results.


You surely know what you are talking about, David; Bembe Records' "Música Yoruba" by the CFNC is a great example of what can be accomplished - contrary to the Orfeon reissue(s)! Perhaps I was so disappointed, because I knew the standard; I mean, those Caney and Tumbao reissues are fine, too. And I know of other good examples.

In fact Mongo's first recording has so much reverb on it that it's unlistenable!


Right; these tracks were added to the "Drums and Chants" recordings on the CD "Mongo Santamaria and His Afro-Cuban Drum Beaters".

When I think about it, those Egrem records from the 70's and 80's had a funny sound balance, too. A lot of bass from the bass. Either the engineers were exhausting the possibilities of their system like kids in a toy store, or they simply had inferior monitor speakers in the studio.

@caballoballo

Thomas if you have vinyl records, there are turntables with USB ...


Thank you c; in fact, I have such a turntable, and as soon as I have found out why only one channel is recorded, I will proceed to duplicate some of my more valuable records, which is a major project. But I was talking about replacing cassette (MC) copies of records with commercially available CDs, for various reasons.

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Postby Tonio » Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:06 pm

I have a few CD from Descarga that was remastered.
They sound good overall, no special dynamic processing or eq happening. But the problem is the stereo field is intermittent on a few songs. It cuts out of the right channel , or migrates to the left channel. Then blam it go back to stereo.
Sounds like maybe a limiter had intermitent algo or something was wrong with the source playback?

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Postby davidpenalosa » Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:18 am

Thomas Altmann wrote:Bembe Records' "Música Yoruba" by the CFNC is a great example of what can be accomplished - contrary to the Orfeon reissue(s)!

Thanks Thomas,
I was very happy to be able to release "Musica Yoruba" on CD. I had studied Carlos Aldama's iya playing on that record gor years; I had a multi-generation cassette tape copy of it, so I was delighted to finally hear a clear digital version taken directly off a two-track master. We didn't do too much to it in re-mastering.

The Orfeon version is a pirated product transferred from a vinyl record. If I remember correctly, you can even hear a skip in the record on one of those two CFNDC records they put out on CD.
-David
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Postby Thomas Altmann » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:53 am

OK, to sum up all the experiences, if I wanted to avoid disappointments with re-mastered CDs, I should find out WHO did this work and then go by my instinct ...

Thanks to everybody,

Thomas
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Postby jorge » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:42 pm

Thomas, I agree in principle, but how do you find out who did the re-mastering? For example, a lot of old Fania CDs are being marketed as "some have been re-mastered by Bob Katz...", but on the actual CD, it does not say who re-mastered it. Bob Katz is one of the best mastering engineers in the world, and one of the CDs he mastered, George Delgado's Mi Ritmo Llego, is one of the best sounding salsa CDs I have ever heard. But how do you find out who was the re-mastering engineer on a particular CD?
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Postby Thomas Altmann » Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:25 pm

That's true, Jorge. I don't know either. It just never entered my mind that someone could make such a bad work on a professional level. A mastering engineer is a skilled specialist, like the guy who builds my house or bakes my bread or plays piano in my band - I thought. Seems like I never learn.

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