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-- updating old songs...

Posted by Floorfiller on Apr-10-2007 16:20:

updating old songs...

ever hear an old Rolling Stones or Beatles song and heard the difference in recording quality? i was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how to make them sound a little more contemporary. now obviously we don't have the tracked out masters, but we do have lots of sound equipment. is there anyway to maybe give these songs a bit of a re-master of our own?

anyone have any ideas where to start with something like that? working on an example at the moment, but hopefully you guys kinda know what i mean...

Posted by BOOsTER on Apr-10-2007 18:05:

well I've done a remaster of The Police - King Of Pain recently...turned out quite well...I used a compressor, limiter and a linear EQ. Sounds quite well and wasn't even as hard as I thought

Posted by Michael Dow on Apr-10-2007 18:08:

What exactly do you want from it? You could try using an EQ, perhaps a maximiser or compressor to make it sound a bit louder and fatter. Maybe something like PSP vintage warmer if you're using plugins could be useful. Maybe if it suits the track some stereo widening to bring it to life a bit more could sound nice.

Posted by kitphillips on Apr-11-2007 11:26:

Have you heard the Jeff Beck album "you Had It Coming"? OMG
If you wanna hear old blues songs with crazy DnB style stuff going on grab it.

But I don't know you can do much with the stones stuff without the individual tracks... Mastering can't go that far I think because the drums would need a whole lot of editing and just chucking loops on top without taking out the originals will sounds really cheesy I think... When will people start releasing their individual tracks??? I would pay for it...

Posted by Pjotr G on Apr-11-2007 11:41:

stereo widening on the beatles?

I like that sound.

Posted by KilldaDJ on Apr-11-2007 22:01:

i suppose u could do some sort of phase offset for that sorta fake stereo effect on them early beatles recordings..

Posted by cybernetica on Apr-11-2007 22:54:

I dont really know much about mastering old tracks but I guess a multiband compressor is almost essential. Tighten the heights, and push the whole stuff a little more to the limit. The "clarity" in modern releases comes from more dominant hi frequencies (6-11kHz) so I guess they would be a good idea to boost.

Posted by camsr on Apr-11-2007 23:03:

If you have the mix stems things would be much easier. For a simple remastering on an old recording usually you can boost the 10k region to add some clarity and compress the highs after that if it's too piercing. Old school mix engineers did things alot differently than we do today and most of the recording aren't meant to be EQed too much. You'll find most all the old school music has almost no bass below 80hz.

Posted by yesman400 on Apr-12-2007 01:13:

Psh, its all about the mono.

Hell I turn my soundcards to mono just to get that back-in-time goodness.

Seriously though, doing anything with out the masters is just going to muddy the sound imo.

Posted by Pjotr G on Apr-12-2007 06:52:

mono? In the time of the beatles engineers had the guts to actually hard pan a rhythm guitar to one side! it's brilliant, I feel these old tracks are far more interesting to hear mixwise than current standards.