Crappy remasters of older tunes on Beatport?

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-- Crappy remasters of older tunes on Beatport?

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Sep-02-2009 18:29:

Crappy remasters of older tunes on Beatport?

I recently downloaded a few older (pre-2000) trance tracks in WAV form from Beatport. I'm thinking, "Great, I can finally have these tracks in the highest quality rather than just hearing them in sets or on YouTube." Then I listen to them only to find that they sound a bit shitty, and I wonder why. So I load them into Audacity and lo and behold, the levels are all maxed out and there are clipped peaks galore, something you generally do not see as much in music put out before the early 2000s or so. Someone has "remastered" them, probably for a Beatport reissue or whatever, and turned the audio quality to shit to make sure they fall in line with the stupid supercompressed standards of much of today's dance music.

Anyone else experience this?

Posted by SYSTEM-J on Sep-02-2009 18:40:

Which tracks, out of interest? And which labels?

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Sep-02-2009 18:58:

quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Which tracks, out of interest? And which labels?

L.S.G. - "The Blaxone", "Fragile", "The Train of Thought 1.1" [Superstition]
Virtual Symmetry - "See you" [Schallbau]

Posted by SYSTEM-J on Sep-02-2009 19:04:

Haven't noticed this myself. I've only really bought the NE re-releases and a couple of old Hooj releases, and they sound fine.

You've put me off buying Humate's 3 EP though.

Posted by lenazi on Sep-02-2009 19:06:

a lot of new releases are mastered quite shittily as well.

it is a lost art and it can be really frustrating for the buyer at times.

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Sep-02-2009 19:06:

The Northern Exposure Recordings reissues that I bought on BP have been fine. Thankfully they either did not touch them or did so tastefully enough that I didn't notice any decrease in quality.

Posted by iTranscendence on Sep-02-2009 19:11:

Well, when I pay for something and then I get fucked on it like this, I just go get a lossless copy by other means then.

Posted by lenazi on Sep-02-2009 19:13:

ummmmmmm.

lol

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Sep-02-2009 19:20:

What I do not get is how some producers today can listen through their tunes that have been squashed by compressors and think, "This sounds great!" Is it because all the other music they listen to sounds shitty and squashed, too?

Posted by Mr.Mystery on Sep-02-2009 19:45:

quote:
Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
What I do not get is how some producers today can listen through their tunes that have been squashed by compressors and think, "This sounds great!" Is it because all the other music they listen to sounds shitty and squashed, too?

Yes.

Posted by KilldaDJ on Sep-02-2009 19:48:

does ebay not offer the CDM or something similar for a used price?

Posted by Zak McKracken on Sep-02-2009 19:55:

many of the old labels might have lost their DAT recordings and maybe just rip some from their overused vinyl instead. lol i dont know.

Posted by kramer333 on Sep-07-2009 17:40:

I once got a crappy Riva - Stringer wave file from Alien Recordings at beatport, and not a day goes by where I dont think about it.

Posted by Teezdalien on Sep-07-2009 23:43:

quote:
Originally posted by palm
many of the old labels might have lost their DAT recordings and maybe just rip some from their overused vinyl instead. lol i dont know.

I've heard rumors that some of Beatport's files are indeed ripped from vinyl but I don't know if there's much truth in that.

Posted by Tenshi on Sep-08-2009 10:12:

there are some! even if i don't have that many old tracks from beatport a few of them are clearly ripped from vinyl (they have eg cracking noises in them from vinyl)