what is the reason for REMASTERING old songs? Is that due to the newer and more advanced sound systems?
In: Technology
I answered a question just like this one previously so I’ll re-use (and add onto) my other answer:
There’s been some advancement in DSP – digital signal processing – technology, which means we can do a better job of removing unwanted hisses, crackles, and background noise from a song’s original premaster record than we could a few years back, as well as undoing, or modifying, some of the waveform distortions which were inherent to the recording tools of the old days. Of course, some of those distortions are considered desirable, and ‘part of the sound’, so some of this comes down to aesthetic decisions, rather than objective measures of quality or fidelity.
Mastering also includes dynamic range compression and limiting, which changes the volume of the loud parts of the song relative to the quiet parts, and remasters will often revisit those decisions too. In these cases it’s less that we have new technical capabilities, and more that we have new aesthetic preferences. Songs which were recorded prior to the “loudness war,” often sound kinda thin and wimpy when played back at equal volume next to newer music, so radio stations would have to turn the volume on them way up to compensate, which might mean the peaks on an old song end up clipping or triggering their system’s limiter, which can sound pretty bad. Remastering old songs with ‘modern-sounding’ loudness levels makes it easier to include them in broadcast programming etc. while sounding good next to the newer stuff.
But there’s a new development! In just the past few years, many streaming platforms have standardized on playing songs back at a “LUFS normalized” volume, which largely removes the advantages of the highly compressed masters of the loudness war. Songs which are mastered super loud, the streaming platform automatically turns them down to compensate. Songs which were mastered to be as loud as possible 10 or 15 years ago now sound kinda quiet and muffled compared to stuff with gentler compression settings.
This means that a lot of publishers have now decided to re-re-release some of that old material, but with less compression and a wider dynamic range with louder, peakier peaks and a quieter overall profile – because Spotify will turn it *up* to compensate.
Also, of course, anytime they can re-sell the same material to the same customer base for more money, they’ll take the opportunity. 😉
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