I have been fortunate to find a nice version of the album demo on the net, but it needed to be worked on so I did my very best, and after a few hours I had something really special.
Here is the completed log I included with the release
Monday July 16TH, 2007
Everyone seems to know the history of this demo
recording, so I don't need to get into that. If
you wanna learn more, try google.
Anyways, I spend a lot of my time now working on
improving the sound of old recordings. I have
always had a hard time finding a good quality
cassette to copy "No Life Til Leather" until
recently.
This cassette was not mangled or damaged in any
way I could find, so I new I had a gem. I
carefully recorded the entire cassette at once.
Once the copying was done, I evaluated the quality
and to my surprise, it was quite good already,
but it still sounded like a 3rd generation tape,
basically, a copy of the cassette tape demo.
I had to do a little bit of noise reduction because
even though the cassette tape was a great copy, the
master recording was going to have noise on it, so
either way a little had to be done. There was a low
freq hum which I removed, without removing bass freqs.
Overall, I individually used noise reduction on all
tracks separately, spending about 4 hours doing just
that. With hiss gone, the treble was automatically
raised, and you could hear the cymbals a lot better
without further eq. Still, there was more work to
be done.
Since the volume levels changed a lot, I kept that
the same, and didn't attempt to compress or anything
like that, I just carefully added a bit of top end
and some bass. I thought the quality of this final
work was pretty good. If you listen to it without any
kind of eq it should sound fine the way I mastered it.
To me it sounds more like a 2nd generation copy now,
some have even told me that they thought I had the
original master, if I had there wouldn't be a freq cut
after 16k.
If you listen to Seek And Destroy, you can pan all the
way to the left channel at about 0:32 and you will hear
the original studio echo from the guitar, no hiss at all,
it sounds really fantastic. Other than the occasional wow
and flutter which is in the original, everything is
better sounding, and I think most fans will like this
newly remastered version.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Careful Post Production - EQ, Compression, and Reverb
EQ, Compression, and Reverb
Here is an excellent example of what can happen with just a little bit of EQ, Compression, and Reverb. My friend had recorded a track a while back, and he wanted to make it sound a little bit more punchy. His computer was broke, so we didn't have access to the master tracks, only the final stereo mixdown.
Using Adobe Audition 1.5, I opened up three idential copies of the song. Track One was going to be my reference, so I could check the changes I was doing.
I was able to remove the center channel from Track 2, and then the opposite for Track 3, meaning I kept the center channel and removed the sides. This gave me a bit of flexibility when it came to mastering.
Here is how the tracks were on Audition
Track 1 - Original Song - No changes would ever be made to this file, used as a reference.
Track 2 - The center channel, vocals and Fuzz Guitar Overdubs along with drums and bass
Track 3 - The side channels, guitars and reverb.
One thing I noticed right away was that the vocal track was way too low, so I eq'd that a bit to bring it up just a tad, not too overwhelming. I also noticed that the reverb was not so pronounced, so I did a 60/40 mix, 60% original, 40% reverb. This gave it a more balanced reverb compared to the original, where the reverb was in just the left channel. Anyone who has heard the Cure knows how the drums have a lot of reverb, especially on the album Disintegration.
A big problem for the center channel was that the bass and kick drum were at the wrong levels, the bass was muffled because the kick drum overpowered the song. I compressed the bass track to -16db, because that kept the kick drum from getting too loud, now the song had a bass presence it never did before.
For the two side channels, I noticed the guitars could be brought out a bit, so I eq'd those just to make them audible more. Not a lot of work here. In fact, I lowered the final mix level because it was still a bit loud.
When you compare the two recordings, they sound really different after the changes.
Here is an excellent example of what can happen with just a little bit of EQ, Compression, and Reverb. My friend had recorded a track a while back, and he wanted to make it sound a little bit more punchy. His computer was broke, so we didn't have access to the master tracks, only the final stereo mixdown.
Using Adobe Audition 1.5, I opened up three idential copies of the song. Track One was going to be my reference, so I could check the changes I was doing.
I was able to remove the center channel from Track 2, and then the opposite for Track 3, meaning I kept the center channel and removed the sides. This gave me a bit of flexibility when it came to mastering.
Here is how the tracks were on Audition
Track 1 - Original Song - No changes would ever be made to this file, used as a reference.
Track 2 - The center channel, vocals and Fuzz Guitar Overdubs along with drums and bass
Track 3 - The side channels, guitars and reverb.
One thing I noticed right away was that the vocal track was way too low, so I eq'd that a bit to bring it up just a tad, not too overwhelming. I also noticed that the reverb was not so pronounced, so I did a 60/40 mix, 60% original, 40% reverb. This gave it a more balanced reverb compared to the original, where the reverb was in just the left channel. Anyone who has heard the Cure knows how the drums have a lot of reverb, especially on the album Disintegration.
A big problem for the center channel was that the bass and kick drum were at the wrong levels, the bass was muffled because the kick drum overpowered the song. I compressed the bass track to -16db, because that kept the kick drum from getting too loud, now the song had a bass presence it never did before.
For the two side channels, I noticed the guitars could be brought out a bit, so I eq'd those just to make them audible more. Not a lot of work here. In fact, I lowered the final mix level because it was still a bit loud.
When you compare the two recordings, they sound really different after the changes.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Remastering Tips - Case Study - The Beatles' She Loves You
Remastering Tips - Case Study - The Beatles' She Loves You
One of the key things to remember about this song, is that every officially released version has been either in mono, meaning both channels have the same sound, or in some simulated stereo. There has never been an officially sounding stereo version until now.
This was created mainly by taking the German version of She Loves You, titled Sie Liebt Dich, of course the German version was available on the Beatles Rarities Album. Instruments on one side vocals on the other. Good for me, because is just what I needed to make my mix.
I started off by synchronizing the instrumental track from the LP with the Red Album (Beatles Greatest Hits) version of SLY. Once that was done, the rest was easy, copy the Yeah's and Ooh's from the German Vocal Track, and there was my mix. Took a couple years, but in reality, about 20 hours were spent altogether, nothing more really.
That should be about it for that story, now if only EMI could contact me so I could remaster the rest of the albums, I would be all for it, but I haven't received any calls yet. Maybe someday they will need me, until now, it's just my hobby.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
She Loves You - In Stereo
She Loves You - In Stereo
This project was the first one I ever attempted on my way to remxing songs, and doing remastering. I started by using a version of The Beatles' "She Loves You" from the Past Masters Volume 1 CD. I got criticism because that was not the "best" version I could have been using at that time.
My 2nd mix was by using the version from the Red Album (Greatest Hits 1962-1966). This one made a lot of people take notice that there may soon available to the public. Little did I know that from this point on, there was no turning back. I started on this new adventure, and before long I knew that the road to making a successful mix was a long and hard one.
My first remix was completed and I posted the details
By
Not a whole lot happened from that time until April / May 2005. By that time, I tackled most of the problems I had with the old version, and created fresh mixes as a result. I came back in
New mixes were posted but for the most part, the songs were the same from February 2006 until now, except for one final addition on
The rest is history.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The Beginning
Well, I guess I should have started this a long time ago, unfortunately, I'm a late bloomer in that respect, but here I am now, typing this blog at 1am trying to figure out where to go with it.
What do I usually do first? Well, a lot of times I get a track that someone want's cleaned up, that's usually pretty easy. First you have to listen to the entire recording, and take notes on anything out of the ordinary (things you don't like or shouldn't be there). In my case, a typical notepad would look like this:
@0:36 Large Volume Spike - Recommend EQ/Normalizing
@1:05 Dust and crackle - Recommend Noise Reduction
I do this three times throughout the whole song, each time looking away from my notes and closing my eyes. You hear a lot better if you do this, trust me. Anyways, here is the back story to this whole thing. A lot of my peers (I'm 25 next month by the way) are not big listeners to oldies from the 1940's - 1970's, fortunately, I am.
Another thing to remember is the older you get, the less high frequencies you can hear, meaning the older guys who usually do the remastering think they are doing a great job, unfortunately, the work they usually do sounds like crap half the time. The human ear can nominally hear sounds in the range 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz). This upper limit tends to decrease with age, most adults being unable to hear above 16 kHz. The ear itself does not respond to frequencies below 20 Hz, but these can be perceived via the body's sense of touch. Think of the bass in your car stereo! I used to have a car with a lot of bass back in 2000, those speakers hit LOW frequencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics
I had a job in the U.S. Navy where I would have to listen to foreign enemy signals and record them, a lot of times my supervisor would say, "I don't hear anything, what did you record?" I started thinking that this is the reason that so many oldies CDs don't sound that good, perhaps these guys heard great 40 years ago, now, you take them in for a hearing test and they miss the mark over a dozen times, meaning their hearing of upper frequencies like those above 15 khz is nothing. I feel that young people want to appreciate oldies, but have a hard time listening to a poorly mastered or remastered record.
Too many times, albums come out with the "NEWLY REMASTERED" tag, but in reality what did they do? Made the album louder by messing with the equalizer and turning the volume up, then normalizing the sound, don't believe me? Fine, it's true because that's what they do. What I do with a lot of the remastering is play the track at half speed (thanks MFSL) that way I can hear any distortion, also, if you are remastering, playing back at half speed will increase the quality of your finished product. Wonder why high-speed dubbing doesn't always work? Too much interference, try half-speed dubbing if you can.
I posted a ton of my remastered songs at this link
http://www.4shared.com/dir/1799872/782b9a27/Music.html
I get a lot of feedback from people of all ages, which is great because it helps me to fine-tune my work. The best mix I have gotten feedback from is my stereo version of The Beatles She Loves You. Everyone likes my versions over the originals because of the separation. That took a while to do, but was worth the effort.
There will be more added to this blog in the future, if you need some work done, please feel free to send me an email at djgiammarino@gmail.com Cheers
What do I usually do first? Well, a lot of times I get a track that someone want's cleaned up, that's usually pretty easy. First you have to listen to the entire recording, and take notes on anything out of the ordinary (things you don't like or shouldn't be there). In my case, a typical notepad would look like this:
@0:36 Large Volume Spike - Recommend EQ/Normalizing
@1:05 Dust and crackle - Recommend Noise Reduction
I do this three times throughout the whole song, each time looking away from my notes and closing my eyes. You hear a lot better if you do this, trust me. Anyways, here is the back story to this whole thing. A lot of my peers (I'm 25 next month by the way) are not big listeners to oldies from the 1940's - 1970's, fortunately, I am.
Another thing to remember is the older you get, the less high frequencies you can hear, meaning the older guys who usually do the remastering think they are doing a great job, unfortunately, the work they usually do sounds like crap half the time. The human ear can nominally hear sounds in the range 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz). This upper limit tends to decrease with age, most adults being unable to hear above 16 kHz. The ear itself does not respond to frequencies below 20 Hz, but these can be perceived via the body's sense of touch. Think of the bass in your car stereo! I used to have a car with a lot of bass back in 2000, those speakers hit LOW frequencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics
I had a job in the U.S. Navy where I would have to listen to foreign enemy signals and record them, a lot of times my supervisor would say, "I don't hear anything, what did you record?" I started thinking that this is the reason that so many oldies CDs don't sound that good, perhaps these guys heard great 40 years ago, now, you take them in for a hearing test and they miss the mark over a dozen times, meaning their hearing of upper frequencies like those above 15 khz is nothing. I feel that young people want to appreciate oldies, but have a hard time listening to a poorly mastered or remastered record.
Too many times, albums come out with the "NEWLY REMASTERED" tag, but in reality what did they do? Made the album louder by messing with the equalizer and turning the volume up, then normalizing the sound, don't believe me? Fine, it's true because that's what they do. What I do with a lot of the remastering is play the track at half speed (thanks MFSL) that way I can hear any distortion, also, if you are remastering, playing back at half speed will increase the quality of your finished product. Wonder why high-speed dubbing doesn't always work? Too much interference, try half-speed dubbing if you can.
I posted a ton of my remastered songs at this link
http://www.4shared.com/dir/1799872/782b9a27/Music.html
I get a lot of feedback from people of all ages, which is great because it helps me to fine-tune my work. The best mix I have gotten feedback from is my stereo version of The Beatles She Loves You. Everyone likes my versions over the originals because of the separation. That took a while to do, but was worth the effort.
There will be more added to this blog in the future, if you need some work done, please feel free to send me an email at djgiammarino@gmail.com Cheers
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