mastering technology for CD's:mid80's-early 90's

[CJ Shearn]

As I just finished listening to disc 1 of "The Complete Concert: My Funny Valentine/Four and More"a '92 domestic Columbia remaster, I was wondering what type of technology was used in remastering older recordings circa mid 80's early 90's since with Blue Note and Columbia, as compared to Fantasy, the former companies were releasing inferior sounding remastering, I mean the Miles disc does sound pretty decent considering it is a 12 year old mastering, all my other Miles on Columbia are the 20 and 24 bit remasters which sound great, it's just that with MFV/ Four and More the music is too good and essential to have waited for a new remastering(this year on that Miles Live set perhaps?) Anyway, were early versions of Pro Tools and the like used back then? Although I realize that the mastering has as much to do with the engineer as the equipment.

[Claude]

I don't think the technology really makes the difference between those badly remastered CBS CDs from the 80's and the excellent remasters from the late 90's. Audiophile companies such as MFSL and DCC made CDs at that time that still sound as good and often better than the latest "24Bit" remasters from the originating label.

The problem with those crappy early CDs from CBS was that the engineers tried to eliminate tape hiss by simply reducing treble level. Probably because they thought that the consumer expects a CD to be complete free of noise. The new remasters have the complete frequency range, including the hiss.

Many times there were also problems with the tape sources (for example on "Miles ahead"). The original tapes were only found and used later.

If you want answers to the exact equipment which was used, you might check the Steve Hoffman Forum

Edited January 19, 2004 by Claude

[CJ Shearn]

thanks Claude, that's enlightening. I figured that Noise reduction was maybe used on early remasterings, but also because the technology was still relatively new and that the full potential wasn't figured out yet completely. As for MFV/Four and More, was it one of the remasters that didn't necessarily cut back on the hiss, therefore making it sound pretty good? Mark Wilder did that earlier remastering, and I really like his 20 and 24 bit work with the Miles stuff in the last several years.