Remasters vs. Remixes
Hearing about a remaster or remix of an old favorite is exciting! Should it be? Let's listen to some!
When I worked in a record store in high school, hearing about a newly remastered version of an album was exciting! I had no idea what it meant, but the fact that it was something "new" and also something I was already familiar with tickled a part of my lizard brain in just the right way. I had to hear it! But what was I actually listening to?
We'll define some terms first, and then I'll have several example tracks you can listen to at the end.
If we want to know the difference between a remaster and a remix, first, we need to understand mastering and mixing. Let's talk about how modern music is made. (For our purposes, modern means the last fifty years or so.) There are typically these steps.
- Write
- Record
- Mix
- Master
- Distribute
Mixing
Mixing comes after writing and recording and before the master. Let's talk about that first. Each piece of a song is recorded individually to get the best possible performance on that part, vocals, drums, guitar, bass, horns, etc. This can get extraordinarily granular, e.g., individual tracks for each piece of the percussion kit. Then, we combine all the recorded pieces or tracks into a single track. The audio engineer literally mixes all the separately recorded audio track sessions with each other to make the song. This involves adjusting the volume, equalization, stereo panning, and adding effects at the individual track level of a multi-track recording.
Mastering
Once the mixing is done, we must combine the song tracks into an album. This is where mastering comes in. Ideally, the mixing process results in songs that meet our standards for sound production individually. Even so, they may sound disjointed as a whole.
The mastering process aims to make each song sound like a cohesive part of the same album. Volumes of individual tracks are normalized. If one track is an outlier in terms of bass or treble, it may be dialed back to fit better in the finalized playlist. Or maybe one or two songs actually get some tweaking to stand out. The result is a cohesive set of song recordings that combine to make an album.
Knowing what mixing and mastering are, it becomes straightforward to deduce what remixing and remastering are. So let's talk about that quickly and also talk about why.
Remixing
If a song gets remixed, it can change a little, or it can change drastically. An audio engineer may use alternate effects, equalization, and channel placement techniques to create a richer experience than the original or bring the song more into line with current (or any desired era's) sound trends. On the other hand, remixing can sideline some performances or remove them altogether in favor of others. Sampling, looping, and overdubbing individual tracks can change the entire song structure.
Remastering
Remastering is a mastering engineer using the original mixed tracks and putting them together again using modern techniques and technology to recreate the cohesiveness of the album. Why would one do such a thing?
Tastes change, and more importantly, so do mediums. For instance, many old albums were mastered to keep the needle from jumping out of the vinyl groove. This necessarily truncated some highs and lows. When those masters were transferred to CD they sounded thin and flat. Sometimes, separate mastering is done for radio play or surround sound.
Remix and Remastered Comparison Tracks
Taxman - The Beatles (Revolver Album Remix and Remaster)
Taxman is a fabulous song, and there are a bunch of versions for us to explore and compare. The mono version sounds pretty good but lacks stereo dynamics. While everything sits nicely in the mix, no depth or sound stage exists. We don't get any of the stereo-graphic illusion of presence in space that our two channel hearing is so effective at producing in our brain.
Now listen to the 2009 remaster of the original stereo release. The remaster sounds great, but the weaknesses in the original stereo mix are still glaring. Things are panned hard right and left as was customary in those days. Taxman was recorded and produced in the infancy of stereo. The mono release of Taxman was likely more popular at the time. Hard left/right pans work OK on a nice two-channel setup in a large room, but they are jarring and unpleasant in headphones. In older music production, these hard pans may not even be a stylistic choice. They are often the result of attempting stereo separation on a mixing console whose only controls available are left, right, and mono (both); they had switches, not faders.
Now listen to the 2022 remix. It sounds fantastic. Note that this is an excellent outcome of both remaster and remix efforts. It's not always like this...
Bad - Michael Jackson (Album Remaster)
- Bad from The Essential Michael Jackson (2005)
- Bad (2012 Remaster)
The 2012 remaster of the album, Bad, could be better. I've linked to the namesake title track here. The 2012 remaster feels flat and has lost much of the texture and nuance we can hear in previous versions. The dynamic range isn't awful, but all the sounds in the mix are loud or soft, and nothing sits in the center or is allowed to linger in the middle. It's like looking at a blown out picture where the contrast has been turned up too high. Quincy Jones, who produced the original record, sued the Jackson estate over it. Here's an interesting video by an expert witness at the trial: https://youtu.be/6qHvOaUYwWQ?si=Qpgdw5fSpQVQ-mva
I am still hunting for a digital version of the original. If anyone has one, let me know using suggestionbox@seekhifi.com.
Animals - Pink Floyd (Album Remix and Remaster)
Pink Floyd's Animals is one of my favorite albums of all time. I had probably listened to the entirety of it over one hundred times before the remix was released in 2018. To say I had reservations was an understatement.
I've found the remix to be an improvement over the original on all fronts. It was a revelation for me to hear this album, which is so important to me, in a new way. The sound stage is larger, separation is better, and clarity is improved without sacrificing any of the warmth. I love it. The vocals, in particular, sound much more organic and defined in the mix, and the drums sound fantastic.
EDM/Dance/DJ Remixes
Lastly, we should discuss what can happen when a remix uses samples, overdubbing, loops, and effects to completely alter a song's structure. These types of remixes are common in the electronic dance music world. It's a way for artists whose music wouldn't usually be considered dance-able to cross over and reach a new audience with a genre-bending version of a track and vice-versa for the remixer.
This isn't exactly the same thing in spirit or in execution as the remixing and remastering we've covered so far. I find many of these remixes to be forgettable garbage, but I want to include a couple in this article since they're a ubiquitous component of music remixing.
Sweet Surrender - Sarah McLachlan
The DJ Tiësto mix of Sweet Surrender is from Sarah McLachlan's Remixed album. It's filled with many of the aforementioned forgettable EDM/trance versions of her songs, but I dig this one. McLachlan's voice is sublime, floating over the driving four-on-the-floor beat that mostly gets out of the way and showcases her.
Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
A nearly perfect rock song remixed into dubstep. The Glitch Mob does dubstep about as well as one can, but that's like being the best at getting hit in the balls for a laugh. (There is not a lot of staying power to the bit.) The Glitch Mob Remix is definitely different from the source material. I also think it's interesting how quickly and easily the screaming, dissonant guitar work in Seven Nation Army lends itself to dubstep-ification.
Remastering vs Remixing
At its most basic, songs get remixed, and albums get remastered using the original mixes of the songs. Remixing is complex and more time-consuming. It requires more access to source materials that are harder to obtain. Remastering is a broader task and does not require as much fine-tuning of individual pieces.
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