What can be done to improve older cd's sound?

Hi Guys,
          I have some older cd's that were mastered in the early days and will probably never get re-mastered. My question is this, can anything be done to improve the overall sound of the cd? I don't really wanna mess with the eq all that much, eq'ing a final mix is usually a bad idea. I just wanna add some punch, increase volume a bit..increase the resolution if I can...is there anything that can be done and what would you do. MaxQ

It probably depends on what's already in the mix.  If the ambient reverb/room sound is fairly dry you could do some multiband work using compression to add punch to the low end. But if there's a lot of swishy reverb it would be best left alone, since any processing of that kind would only exaggerate it beyond listenability.

Many people would suggest (including many mastering engineers) that most older CD's sound fine with their dynamics preserved. Many re-mastered re-issues actually sound worse than the originals. If you want them to be louder then turn up the volume control on your player.

If I'm creating a compilation where some tracks are louder than others I will often turn the louder tracks down rather than turn the quieter tracks up in order to preserve the dynamic range of the quieter tracks.

James.

I'm with jamessp all the way on this.  I would never tamper with the dynamics of a track or even its EQ (unless specifically requested to do so by a client).  In the main, the earlier recordings are a damn sight better than many current releases and do not require any further post processing work. Current 'mastering' techniques have contributed greatly to the demise of well recorded and presented music.

What you hear, on any recording, is generally what the producer/artist wanted you to hear.  It represents their concept of what they are doing - if you don't like it, then perhaps you should be looking at artists you do like.

Gets my vote too. Unless you've got monitoring conditions at least as good as where the CD was mastered, anything you do is going to be a bit of a guess anyway. But I have to say that it's a bit of a minefield, one way or another:

Because I wouldn't say that all early CDs were  that wonderful; there are certainly some around that were made directly from the master tape used to cut disks, and some of those tapes were somewhat compromised by the need to keep the bass under control. The overall EQ isn't generally compromised, though.

You also have to bear in mind that pretty much all of the 'significant' early CDs have been re-released anyway, often using the original master rather than the disk master. But that situation often isn't any better - what the disk mastering engineers frequently did was to take what they got and pretty much get it to sound good anyway - so in fact those disk masters may sound better than the so-called remix from the original. But I will reiterate - if you haven't got monitoring and a room at least as good as a mastering suite, then probably you won't actually  make things any better at all.

if you haven't got monitoring and a room at least as good as a mastering suite, then probably you won't actually  make things any better at all.

While I understand this advise, I wonder if it is relevant in this context. What understand that Max wants more like "how can I change the sound more to my liking for my personal enjoyment". I see this more as something a bit more sophisticated than the EQ on an stereo. Now if this would have been for release or on customer demand then sure, don't if you are not equiped for it.

Couldn't it be also a question of replay? Speakers not matched to room/type of music? Room problems?

That's all fine except for one thing - it's not what he said.

Maybe there is a point to the turn in the discussion that is worth emphasizing here,even though to me it seems to address an issue that wasn't asked about. The following shows that what was stated/asked was:

...I just wanna add some punch, increase volume a bit..increase the resolution if I can...is there anything that can be done and what would you do. MaxQ

But the discussion has turned to the ethical, purity, or advisability sides of recorded music manipulation. Clearly he asked: "How?" not "Should?". And even though he could be told of ways to go about it, my first thought is, if he doesn't know what to do, then he probably doesn't possess the skills needed to proceed -- and it would turn out a disaster anyhow.

But the "should you" part is another issue, and probably could never gain a unanimous conclusion if the results of processing are simply for personal use and not for resale or distribution. UNLESS: If there are legal aspects covering that, the personal use of it, then that may be worth stating clearly here and now so no one gets in trouble.

So the question would be: If I boost the 80 - 150Hz range of a 23 year old commercial CD 3dB because I want more bass, is that a punishable offense requiring I go to jail or pay a fine? Or is it just potentially offending the musical preferences of anyone else?

If I boost the 80 - 150Hz range of a 23 year old commercial CD 3dB because I want more bass, is that a punishable offense requiring I go to jail or pay a fine?

Both, clearly.

But anyway, as you have noted, the original question was "can I improve", and went on to list things that clearly wouldn't improve anything - however loosely you define the word. And also one that's clearly impossible (increase the resolution???)The original is what it is, and apart from removing noise added during the copying process, probably won't be improved by anything except perhaps the one thing that the OP sort-of excluded - a little corrective EQ. So the only viable question could possibly be about whether you should mess it up, not how.

Why would it make any difference to anybody's musical preferences? This is simply about the sound, isn't it?

Why would it make any difference to anybody's musical preferences? This is simply about the sound, isn't it?

Yep, musical, not as in style, but as you said, the sound, irrespective of style.

The logic of "improving" the sound of older CDs only works if one actually thinks hyper-compressed sound sounds good.

Hi MaxQ, being a 'toddler' I just blundered in and had a go, I wasn't too concerned about upsetting sensitivities or rule-breaking, just wanted to see if 'doing' could and/or does or can't and/or doesn't improve the sound of older cds.  I'm hoping to hear some experienced opinions on the examples I've posted, have a listen in the thread I posted if you get a chance.  If I had seen this thread first I would have posted here, would have been directly relevant.

http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,8187.0.html

The logic of "improving" the sound of older CDs only works if one actually thinks hyper-compressed sound sounds good.

This might have meaning for some young amateurs who use compression way past what is reasonable, but there are those who have a good idea what they might want to achieve who might never use any compression at all. Compression is not always a necessary component of sound enhancement/manipulation.

I'm thinking that Beetle is making the statement in order to discourage the mishandling of, or even the use of, compression. And that's probably a good point to make because it can be destructive all too easily. But it has no relevance if the user actually loves the feel of overly compressed, saturated bass and low range vocals that messes with the inner ear.

The logic of "improving" the sound of older CDs only works if one actually thinks hyper-compressed sound sounds good.

This might have meaning for some young amateurs who use compression way past what is reasonable, but there are those who have a good idea what they might want to achieve who might never use any compression at all. Compression is not always a necessary component of sound enhancement/manipulation.

I'm thinking that Beetle is making the statement in order to discourage the mishandling of, or even the use of, compression. And that's probably a good point to make because it can be destructive all too easily. But it has no relevance if the user actually loves the feel of overly compressed, saturated bass and low range vocals that messes with the inner ear.

As we can read so many times, in most threads, hearing or rather the enjoyment of what you're hearing is certainly a personal, individual experience, one man's compression is another man's amplitude.  I won't quote him here but a contributor that I feel deserves my respect talks of the 'ipod' generation, they enjoy a less sonically critical world, and today they make up a significant proportion of the market, bought or shared, that is consumed, and therefore recommended.

I can't remember the last time I heard the term 'bootleg cd' but I do remember when it was the order of the day for music fanatics, and the quality was appauling, in most cases, but it didn't matter. 

Forgive me Cal but what you say:

"The logic of "improving" the sound of older CDs only works if one actually thinks hyper-compressed sound sounds good."

..only makes sense if you believe CDs produced 30 years ago were mastered to an unimprovable state, we've come a long way since the 80s, analogically and digitally, then sounds at best were a wibbly-wobbly green wave that you could oscillate, to varying degrees, now, sound is a 'Mona Lisa' you can retouch almost infinitely with a brush or pencil. 

The end product, for me, is subject to the same critique, is the customer or the consumer satisfied.  I go away for 2 weeks and have my home redecorated by carefully chosen professionals, I come back and it's exactly what I asked for, everything I can't see doesn't matter to me.  An expert friend tells me they're complete amateurs, used 3 coats (compression) when 2 would have done, he's a good friend, I know he's probably right, but I'm satisfied with what I see.

From everything I've read here if you're Mastering to impress other Masterers you're fighting a winless battle, the bar will be moved every time you think you've exceeded it, which for me is quietly satisfying because progress is happening in real-time, we're not restoring 'Chippendales' we're manipulating MDF, so hopefully we CAN 'improve old CDs,' and in 20 years, 10 year olds will "improve" our Mastering, to their taste.

From everything I've read here if you're Mastering to impress other Masterers you're fighting a winless battle, the bar will be moved every time you think you've exceeded it, which for me is quietly satisfying because progress is happening in real-time, we're not restoring 'Chippendales' we're manipulating MDF, so hopefully we CAN 'improve old CDs,' and in 20 years, 10 year olds will "improve" our Mastering, to their taste.

People don't master to impress other mastering engineers, probably ever. What they do is to try to alter the sound of what they've been presented with so that it sounds good on a system that they know to sound good when other reference material is played on it. And often the rooms and monitoring systems they use are acoustically designed to 'neutralise' the sorts of anomalies that are often found in more indifferent rooms and situations, so that at least some sort of norm can be striven for. The equipment isn't cheap, and neither is the acoustic treatment.

So if you translate that into what people do at home, then you get the situation where people 'master' for themselves something that sounds good in their car, or whatever, using a pair of computer speakers, and that's fine as far as it goes. But to call this an 'improvement' really is going a bit far. Even in the bad old days when some of this stuff was first produced, the professional facilities were a quite a bit better than people's bedrooms and yer average car, after all. So this sort of mastering isn't an improvement as such, but merely making it easier to reproduce in a compromised situation. But that's not all there is to it, by any means... especially when it comes to what might happen in the future. This stuff simply doesn't compete.

One problem with this is that a lot of mastering steps, especially in terms of amplitude control, are effectively undo-able without recourse to an original recording, and this situation isn't going to alter any time soon. So the most effective remasters of anything actually worth re-releasing will only have come from original recordings, or at least the best possible copies - and these generally aren't the released versions.

10-yr olds can 'improve' mastering to their taste now, and by the sounds of a lot of things I've heard, they clearly think they have. Just don't ask me to listen to any of it voluntarily, though!

The other thing mastering sometimes is intended to do is to try to provide a 'unifying' force to a number of disparate tracks that are intended to be an album. Sometimes this is successful, other times not quite so. So it is possible occasionally to take an individual track and make it stand alone better than it appears to on the album it came from, but in reality, the occasions on which you can really do this are few and far between.

Also, it's worth remembering that the original purpose of mastering was to make material suitable for reproduction on a medium inferior to that of the original recording - almost invariably vinyl. Some of those changes can be undone to a little advantage, but first you have to understand what was done - and that's not always so obvious.

Bottom line - there's mastering and 'mastering' - and really, they aren't the same thing at all. Please don't confuse the two of them, because there are really no direct comparison points.