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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Making a song fit for radio or streaming is done in four steps:
1. The RECORDING process which is when the band records their song. This is when they pick their amps, mics, any analog effects (like analog reverb and compression) that they may want. Back in the day, there was a lot more analog effects recorded than obviously there is now.
2. The EDITING process which is when little imperfections are removed, if there’s multiple vocal takes the editor will chop them and choose the best lines, if there’s multiple guitar takes the editor will choose the best one, any tuning is applied, and the song is in general “simplified” into its parts. Back in the day, this was generally done alongside the recording process or was quite limited on what they could do after. Tapes had to be literally cut and put back together. It’s very interesting, but not really relevant to your question so I’ll refrain from nerding out.
3. The MIX process which is when the mix engineer will take the edited audio and polish it. They apply any other effects that the recording is missing, balance the audio, pan instruments around the stereo field, automate the instruments. In modern times, this is when the majority of digital effects are chosen. Back in the day, the mix engineer might only be working with 2-4 different tracks (until the ‘8 track,’ ’16 track,’ and if you had money, the ’32 track’ came around), as recording engineers only had a limited number of tracks to store their audio on. Due to the practically unlimited nature of digital storage, nowadays they can be working with hundreds of tracks. Regardless, at the end of the mixing phase, song is then bounced to a single stereo file.
4. The MASTER process which is when the mastering engineer will take the stereo mix, check it over to make sure that it has no egregious errors that the mix engineer missed, apply any final touches that need to be done, and will process the song so it sounds as good as possible on all different streaming and listening platforms, from radio to Spotify, from hifi speakers to crappy Apple earbuds.
When a song is remastered, the analog stereo mix is taken and the song is digitized. It takes specialized equipment to digitize tape, so usually record labels will hire people out who are experts in this. It’s a bit risky to do this, because if anything goes wrong, the tapes could be permanently corrupted. Once the mix is extracted, they will hand it over to a modern mastering engineer who will remaster the song for today’s digital standards that the average, modern consumer would enjoy. For example, a song recorded in the 60’s didn’t have the same loudness standards that it does today (-14 LUFS), so the mastering engineer will master to today’s levels. There’s a lot that actually goes on in the mastering process—it’s not *just* making things “loud”—but that’s probably the easiest example of what a mastering engineer would do differently.
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