Its hard to see how to answer this properly without explaining a little about the recording process. It varies tremendously from recording to recording.
At the far minimalist end are direct to disc. With these there is no tape in the recording path. The signal may or may not go through a mixer and then straight to the cutting lathe.
The minimalist approach with tape would be direct to two-track. These are also one-take type sessions. No dubbing, no multiple tracks to be individually engineered and mixed down.
The majority of recordings are multi-track. With these there's any number of tracks. Any number because even if the tape deck is a certain number of tracks these can be done like Seal did, recording some tracks in one studio, some tracks another, all over the place, until eventually all these tracks are mixed down into two. That's probably the far end of the scale going the other way, opposite of D2D.
So in most cases what happens is a whole bunch of tracks are recorded, and mixed, until eventually someone usually some combination of artist and producer are happy and this version then is used to generate the original master recording.
The original master then represents a tremendous investment of resources. So usually the first thing they do is make at least one copy, and store the original master somewhere nice and safe. Usually. Not always. This is after all the music industry we are talking about here. Snoop Dog, Marky Mark. The Library of Congress its not. All kinds of crazy stuff happens. All the time.
Then at some point some version (you never know which) is used to produce records, or CDs, or what have you. I'm leaving out a bunch of steps and details, obviously. Hopefully you get the impression- its a mess, nobody can answer your question precisely because there's so many variations possible with any one individual record.
The value of remastered is totally up for grabs. Digital or analog, nothing gets better with age things only go downhill. Theoretically the first shot is the best one. But remember there is no guarantee they even used the original master to make the first production runs. Yes its that much of a mess.
Ideally remastering involves a highly skilled engineer like Doug Sax (if you happen to like his work, or if not then someone else) using superb equipment and access to original tape remasters it to whatever the new medium is- LP if they want it to sound good, otherwise digital. Remastering you can call voodoo and not get too much of an argument from me. Remixing is different. The difference is in remastering its the exact same recording, only the quality changes. Remixing is technically an altogether different recording because it was mixed using whatever takes and levels and tracks they decide to use. Usually pretty close. Usually tracks are taken from the same musicians in the same sessions. But not always. If you have read this far hopefully you are getting the message, there are no guarantees in the music business.
Except one: its all about the Benjamins. No matter what they say nobody remasters for the art or the quality or any of that. They do it for the money. Which is true of the whole shebang. If you can get that much then you understand why remastered is no guarantee of anything. And my job is done.
At the far minimalist end are direct to disc. With these there is no tape in the recording path. The signal may or may not go through a mixer and then straight to the cutting lathe.
The minimalist approach with tape would be direct to two-track. These are also one-take type sessions. No dubbing, no multiple tracks to be individually engineered and mixed down.
The majority of recordings are multi-track. With these there's any number of tracks. Any number because even if the tape deck is a certain number of tracks these can be done like Seal did, recording some tracks in one studio, some tracks another, all over the place, until eventually all these tracks are mixed down into two. That's probably the far end of the scale going the other way, opposite of D2D.
So in most cases what happens is a whole bunch of tracks are recorded, and mixed, until eventually someone usually some combination of artist and producer are happy and this version then is used to generate the original master recording.
The original master then represents a tremendous investment of resources. So usually the first thing they do is make at least one copy, and store the original master somewhere nice and safe. Usually. Not always. This is after all the music industry we are talking about here. Snoop Dog, Marky Mark. The Library of Congress its not. All kinds of crazy stuff happens. All the time.
Then at some point some version (you never know which) is used to produce records, or CDs, or what have you. I'm leaving out a bunch of steps and details, obviously. Hopefully you get the impression- its a mess, nobody can answer your question precisely because there's so many variations possible with any one individual record.
The value of remastered is totally up for grabs. Digital or analog, nothing gets better with age things only go downhill. Theoretically the first shot is the best one. But remember there is no guarantee they even used the original master to make the first production runs. Yes its that much of a mess.
Ideally remastering involves a highly skilled engineer like Doug Sax (if you happen to like his work, or if not then someone else) using superb equipment and access to original tape remasters it to whatever the new medium is- LP if they want it to sound good, otherwise digital. Remastering you can call voodoo and not get too much of an argument from me. Remixing is different. The difference is in remastering its the exact same recording, only the quality changes. Remixing is technically an altogether different recording because it was mixed using whatever takes and levels and tracks they decide to use. Usually pretty close. Usually tracks are taken from the same musicians in the same sessions. But not always. If you have read this far hopefully you are getting the message, there are no guarantees in the music business.
Except one: its all about the Benjamins. No matter what they say nobody remasters for the art or the quality or any of that. They do it for the money. Which is true of the whole shebang. If you can get that much then you understand why remastered is no guarantee of anything. And my job is done.
