How can an audio engineer take a thirty-forty year old song that was recorded on analog tape? How is the data extracted and processed?
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Personally, I’d use the term of art “remastering” for the situations where we do the mastering process again… with the intent of making what is essentially the same version of a song, but with defects and unintended noises removed. Traditionally, mastering is a process that is applied to “final mixes”, that is, stereo mixes that are whatever the best results of the recording / mix engineers can generate. Of course, if your intent is to make the best possible use of current technologies, you want to go back as early as you can in the process, which is generally the multitrack recordings. That means “ mixing” again, where mixing refers to the blending of individual instruments/tracks into a generally playable standard format (WAV File, for example).
As a rule, this “mixing again” process should not be confused with “re-mixing”, which is generally not trying to make a version that might’ve been mistaken for the original version. Remix engineers are engaged in the creation of effectively new compositions, sometimes not very related to the original song. In fact, the point of it is to come up with a wholly new take on the basic idea of the song.
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