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

Keith828 -- Actually what you attributed to me (The "logic" of improving....)  was a quote I took from earlier in the thread from Beetle, not myself. 

And I very much agree with Steve that mastering in earlier times was for the most popular current medium -- which was probably the interior of an automobile with woeful speakers, or home systems that may not have even been stereo.

And I very much agree with Steve that mastering in earlier times was for the most popular current medium -- which was probably the interior of an automobile with woeful speakers, or home systems that may not have even been stereo.

My apoloies for my incorrect attributation Cal, but can I use this one to move a little further down the road..

People don't master to impress other mastering engineers, probably ever.

Might it be fairer to say that an experienced Masterer might avoid effect processing techniques when the results of which are certain to be 'critically rich' Steve?

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.

Before I blunder on, and others might possibly judge my contributions as unhelpful, let me say my intentions are two-fold.
Firstly I would like to quantify for my own understanding this magical world of Mastering, and secondly establish whether in fact, it is possible to improve a cd that was mastered 30 years ago.

As ever, Steve puts it so succinctly, 'norm' 'neutralise' sounds like 'averaging' to me, and I wonder that maybe 'Mastering' might have been better titled 'Averager' or forgive me 'Equaliser.'  And certainly the equipment required isn't cheap, but I again wonder how necessary all this equipment is when I continually read in the threads, "don't use much of it" - why do Wavelabs include countless processing facilities, when it appears to be roundly agreed here that 'CER' Compression (if you dare) Equalisation and Reverb, should see you ok?

Like Steve says "There's mastering and there's 'mastering'" and I guess 'twibble wave enhancement' (made up) is probably used for balancing the acoustics of jet engines or something, I am having a lot of fun 'toddling' into AA and constantly oohing and aahing with the changing sounds, especially when altering the order of effects, but I do hear distant voices saying 'don't do that you monkey, it'll sound terrible on a PVR9000.'

As I already said I had a go at "improving" the sound of an old CD, I followed some direct advice here on one of the versions, and tried something else for the second version, I'm sure my ears don't deceive me and I hear a little difference between them, but I've still had no takers yet for the experienced to 'put their mouth where there ears are' and point out my clumsiness.  Can you hear acoustic replay problems just with your ears, or is it essential to see all the metering to judge whether music won't be heard on Mercedes' latest In-car entertainment system?

Here's the thread again:
http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,8187.0.html

Quincy Jones always had a pair of $2 speakers sitting on his bridge, 2 bits of poorly constructed early Japanese plastic junk the size of cigarette packets, he said and I quote "If it sounds good on these I know it will sound great anywhere."  So he was trusting his ears for sure, with 'monitors' he trusted to be a great average, can we all trust our ears with great monitors?

And lastly coming back to Cal, "Woeful systems - may not have even been stereo" Surely it follows then that older CDs can be re-mastered and improved, or am I looking at the concept too simply?

Surely it follows then that older CDs can be re-mastered and improved, or am I looking at the concept too simply?

To start with, there is surely no definition of "improved" that we will all agree on.  Try expressing it in terms of what changes  you would like to hear, and that can be discussed.  Explain why  you would like those changes, and that can be discussed also.  Finally, the age  of a CD is irrelevant, unless the changes you are looking for are rather specifically those which fashion has dictated in the mean time, as opposed to improvement in some more objective sense (but see the first sentence).

Paul

To start with, there is surely no definition of "improved" that we will all agree on.  Try expressing it in terms of what changes  you would like to hear, and that can be discussed.  Explain why  you would like those changes, and that can be discussed also.  Finally, the age  of a CD is irrelevant, unless the changes you are looking for are rather specifically those which fashion has dictated in the mean time, as opposed to improvement in some more objective sense (but see the first sentence).
Paul

Thanks Paul that goes a long way to answer a lot of questions for me, one masterer's hard limiting is anothers over-compression I guess?  And possibly poor mastering can only be judged so if you can find a system a particular piece of music, on when played, distorts noticeably?

Personally when I listen to any music at high amplitudes, I like to hear complete clarity in the highs without hissiness, and clarity in the lows without buzzes and rumbles, and if the mids fit comfortably between the two I'm a happy man.  The original version of 'Told You So' I posted at SoundCloud is mastered I guess at quite a low - mid amplitude, maybe someone could hazard a guess at the dB range, and it doesn't sound as 'crisp' to me as it could be, so I made the other two versions in two different ways to see if I could enhance the clarity a little.  I consider my ears good but I'm not experienced enough to accurately disseminate the results technically, I was kind of hoping someone might be able to categorically say "You've cocked up here and there because.." from just listening.

At the moment I'm convinced the more you get the mix right, the little need for mastering, but you still have to understand the general limitations and capabilities of playback equipment and environments to get the mix right, and I get the feeling you probably learn to get that right by doing more mastering.

As ever, Steve puts it so succinctly, 'norm' 'neutralise' sounds like 'averaging' to me, and I wonder that maybe 'Mastering' might have been better titled 'Averager' or forgive me 'Equaliser.'  And certainly the equipment required isn't cheap, but I again wonder how necessary all this equipment is when I continually read in the threads, "don't use much of it" - why do Wavelabs include countless processing facilities, when it appears to be roundly agreed here that 'CER' Compression (if you dare) Equalisation and Reverb, should see you ok?

I'm not so sure that I could agree that any fixed form of processing could be okay - I'd want to make judgements based on what was actually there, rather than a formula... but yes, to a degree a lot of mastering is about averaging things out, especially if you are trying to achieve an overall 'feel' to a set of tracks. It's just that if they are all radically different then a) you'd have to approach them very much individually, and b) you are going to have a lot of difficulty anyway.

I'm personally not a big fan of adding overall compression at all unless I'm really stuck - this really does smack of desperation. But if you look at any mastering app that gets good reviews, like Ozone for instance, you'll find several other tools that aren't in your list that can make a lot of difference. Most of them are subtle (like band-limited phase shifts) but others, like enhancement, can make a huge difference to the feel of a track, and also this is very easy to overdo.

As I already said I had a go at "improving" the sound of an old CD, I followed some direct advice here on one of the versions, and tried something else for the second version, I'm sure my ears don't deceive me and I hear a little difference between them, but I've still had no takers yet for the experienced to 'put their mouth where there ears are' and point out my clumsiness.  Can you hear acoustic replay problems just with your ears, or is it essential to see all the metering to judge whether music won't be heard on Mercedes' latest In-car entertainment system?

Here's the thread again:
http://audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,8187.0.html

Haven't had much listening time at home recently, but if I get a chance I'll have a listen later this evening.

Quincy Jones always had a pair of $2 speakers sitting on his bridge, 2 bits of poorly constructed early Japanese plastic junk the size of cigarette packets, he said and I quote "If it sounds good on these I know it will sound great anywhere."  So he was trusting his ears for sure, with 'monitors' he trusted to be a great average, can we all trust our ears with great monitors?

He may well have been checking on a couple of old Japanese fag packets, but he sure as hell wasn't making the original judgements on them! You can only trust your ears with decent monitors when you've learned what a lot of stuff that you know to be okay actually sounds like on them - we've covered this quite extensively in the past. Generally this means testing them with stuff that's been recorded and mastered by someone else - and generally in fact several someone elses. It's only when you've been through this process for quite a while that you get some sort of idea of what to shoot for in mastering, and even then it's often worth making direct comparisons with similar material mastered elsewhere when you're starting out - and sometimes even when you aren't, if it's not a genre you are familiar with.

The whole point with all of this is that you are trying to make material sound acceptable to the ultimate listener. If this is only you, then it hardly matters what you do. If it's not you though, then you generally have to shoot for a genre norm. And even then, you can upset people - read the Wiki Loudness War article...

read the Wiki Loudness War article...

Thanks Steve, and everyone else, I'm very much clearer on the 'purer' objectives of Mastering, and mildly confident to appraise and construct an 'attack' on my first project - a Swing-Jazz quartet, 3 female vocalists and a pianist, they'll be recording in a few weeks, I'll let you know how I get on, all criticism to assist will be most welcome.

I actually can't see the point of mastering an old cd now, I can understand the 'loudness' war, but after everything I've read I'll be keeping it sensible, and encourage the listener to use their own volume control.

One final point, if anyone has the time for a succinct reply - not worth starting a new thread, I think it might be here already, I'll go looking as soon as I've posted this.

My laptop sound always sounds crap, doesn't matter what I play.  Might it be a mistake to attempt to master for my laptop, or could my laptop be Quincy's crap jap fag packets??  The sound improves vastly with headphones, if you ignore the background drive noise, but I'm thinking try mastering something so it sounds great on it without the headphones, but I get the feeling everything will be 'overed' for all other playback systems.

Again thanks to everyone, nice forum, genuinely helpful and informative, I'll be hanging around at least.

My laptop sound always sounds crap, doesn't matter what I play.  Might it be a mistake to attempt to master for my laptop, or could my laptop be Quincy's crap jap fag packets??  The sound improves vastly with headphones, if you ignore the background drive noise, but I'm thinking try mastering something so it sounds great on it without the headphones, but I get the feeling everything will be 'overed' for all other playback systems.

Unless you have an absolutely amazing pair of headphones (and probably even if you have...) you are going to end up with result which may well sound dreadful on speakers - simply because you cannot sensibly or meaningfully make any adjustments to the stereo field this way. With headphones, the sound is effectively developed across your head, and anything spatial is going to be nearly impossible to judge.

As for your laptop, unless you can find a reference track that does sound alright on it, you'll never know what you are shooting for. But I wouldn't bother - the speakers don't have the required characteristics for the job in the slightest.  Most grot box speakers have some quite special characteristics which mean that they are good for this sort of thing, and that's why a lot of producers/engineers use them. This all started out with Auratone Cubes, and eventually moved on to Yamaha NS10s. These speakers sounded dreadful most of the time, but if you could persuade a mix to actually sound good on them, it generally sounded brilliant on anything else. But these speakers were, in fact, good monitor speakers - they revealed a lot; which is just what domestic hifi speakers don't do. And I'm afraid that your laptop stands no chance in that arena.

The Auratones worked because they were full-range phase-coherent monitors, albeit with a limited bass response and rather indifferent treble. But they were revealing, especially in the mid range. The NS10s had a different layout but still had an amazing phase/time response, with very little overhang - and that's what made them revealing. Also both of these had good overload characteristics, which meant that they stood up to a studio environment. But with both of them, the tone hardened up quite a lot when they were driven hard - which is partly why there was a long tradition of taming the over-bright tweeter in the NS10 by suspending tissue paper in front of it!

The Auratones worked because they were full-range phase-coherent monitors, albeit with a limited bass response and rather indifferent treble. But they were revealing, especially in the mid range. The NS10s had a different layout but still had an amazing phase/time response, with very little overhang - and that's what made them revealing. Also both of these had good overload characteristics, which meant that they stood up to a studio environment. But with both of them, the tone hardened up quite a lot when they were driven hard - which is partly why there was a long tradition of taming the over-bright tweeter in the NS10 by suspending tissue paper in front of it!

I'm actually using KRK 6s with a Motu 828 Mk III, Beyerdynamic DT 770s for the head, an Imac i3 running 10.6.4 at the heart of everything with an Iomega 500GB slave, Pro Tools 9 for mixing, everything controlled by an Axiom 61 (love it) - all works seemlessly and without glitches - which I'm really pleased about when I read about problems many people have.  As I said in another post I only downloaded the Mac edition of Audition a few days ago, seems to work well too although it did 'quit unexpectedly' a few times last night when equalising some very small areas spectrally, so I'll just make sure I move and save each time now, just in case.

Would you be 'mastering' confident with the KRKs and the DT770 headphones Steve?  If you don't mind me asking  )

All the best, Keith.

I'm familiar with KRK speakers. Their tendency is toward the higher mids, crisp end, but that's not altogether bad. You will certainly hear what goes on in the most offending, and most important, frequency range. If you haven't done any critical mixing on them, you will find that when you think you've got it sounding pretty good, playing the result on other listening systems will show you that you've allowed too much bass -- because the KRKs tend to not define the low stuff in proportion to the upper -- and you will boost everything below 400Hz in order to get the rich sound your ear wants. And the 6's are much more this way than the 8's. One thing you could do to understand what bass should sound like on KRKs is to play several commercial CDs through them to get a feel for the low end. Then go from there.

One thing you could do to understand what bass should sound like on KRKs is to play several commercial CDs through them to get a feel for the low end. Then go from there.

Thanks very much Cal, will do.

Would you be 'mastering' confident with the KRKs and the DT770 headphones Steve?  If you don't mind me asking  )

With the KRKs (and come to that any other monitor speaker too), not until I'd swept the room with them in, optimised their positions, and then done what Cal suggested - listened to some of my reference CDs on them. They wouldn't be speakers of choice though - but that's just me. The headphones I simply wouldn't be mastering on - full stop.

It takes simply ages to really get used to what any given monitors are telling you, and generally this is why people using them professionally are very reluctant to change what they use very often. For the last few years, I've been using two systems, depending on what I'm actually doing; The classical location monitors of choice for years, Tannoy Devons, and also an ADAM system. Prior to that, I used a location-specific highly tuned KEF system, but since I'm not using that as a working space at present, they haven't been used. Brilliant for speech editing, though - very easy on the ear, and you can hear everything...