Back catologue in 5.1 / DTS

[super saint]

After purchasing the Depeche Mode remasters & releasing what a difference it makes, I long for the day that Underworld remaster their back catolgue in glorious 5.1 / DTS sound.

Anyone else agree ?

[Jan]

You know what they do with remasters, don't you?
that -->
but you probably know that already...

Reminds me that on the chatroom during the broadcast some people demanded a remaster of STITI... but that album actually is their best mastered album. If it's too quiet, just turn the volume up... or better use something like Replay Gain on all your music files. I can't stand the thought of using my MP3 player without RG.

Then again, 5.1 and SACD remasters are usually not overcompressed.

However, UW are not at a point in their career where they need remasters. It's always a sign of desperation when established bands throw unnecessary remasters on the market to rip off their fans. Of course, with that I don't mean purposeful remasters, but nothing that UW have put out sounds bad.

First step in that kind of direction should be releasing everything that is available on analog mediums only on digital mediums. Like all the music videos on one DVD, the Lemon Interupt and The Hump / ME tracks on CD... Although that probably won't happen.

[negative1]

Originally Posted by super saint

After purchasing the Depeche Mode remasters & releasing what a difference it makes, I long for the day that Underworld remaster their back catolgue in glorious 5.1 / DTS sound.

Anyone else agree ?

welcome to the board super saint,

yeah i have all those depeche mode releases...not needed,
the videos were good though...

surround is too gimmicky in some cases to make it worth the
effort..

so to answer your question, doubt it will happen..

later
-1

[chems1919]

Nice to know there's some depeche mode fans here. I've always loved their sound and for some reason, Dave Gahan's voice shares a simliar liking to Karl's. I'm excited to hear their new album.

And I know it sounds strange, but I like the older "underground" sound of Underworld's previous albums. While it would be cool to hear it in a better format, I'll always appreciate the subliminal sounds and whispers along with some heavy bass lines in dubno and second toughest of the infants.

[galama]

Originally Posted by Jan

You know what they do with remasters, don't you?
that -->
but you probably know that already...

I honestly doubt that UW would willingly treat us to such horror.
I think OWB has received the best treatment in the studio. BF is OK but Dubno deserves some serious repairing.

[King of Snake]

well they did remaster some old tracks for the 1992-2002 anthology.

I also think STITI sounds quite good, although a bit quiet and a bit noisy in places. I also noticed when looking in an audio editor that strangely the left channel seems to be quite a bit louder and more limited than the right. Check out the wave of Confusion the Waitress on the lower left:

http://www.sputnikk.nl/waveforms.jpg

BF was a lot more "in your face" and quite loud. For OWB on the other hand they seem to have really tried to keep the dynamics and even on the dance tracks there's none of the usual "square block of sound" if you look at the waveforms (see Crocodile top right)

[Jan]

I did a quick test. I chose two tracks from STITI: "Confusion the Waitress" and "Rowla". I boosted their volume by 6 dB to match their volume to that of "modern" CDs with a modern limiting plugin. Then I lowered the volume by 6 dB again, similar to that youtube video.

STITI is an album that has, by modern standards, a fairly low volume. The ReplayGain value for that album is +0.68 dB, which means that while I listen to that album, the volume will get boosted by 0.68 dB by ReplayGain to match the RG reference level. For comparison, OWB has a RG value of -4.86 dB and AHDO -5.95 dB. So these albums get lowered in volume when I play them back.

So to match STITI's volume to that of OWB or AHDO, I applied a 6 dB boost with a limiter. For fair comparison, I applied ReplayGain correction to all files after that.
Some pictures:
Confusion the Waitress (original)
The left channel appears to be clipped a bit. To explain, this is just a result from a 0.82 dB boost applied by ReplayGain to allow fair comparison. There has been a limiter applied so the sound difference to the STITI version is neglegible.
Rowla (original)
Here you can clearly see the kickdrums (zoom). Most of the dynamic range available is just used for the kickdrum.

If STITI had been mastered today it would probably look like this. Again the shots have been taken after PG correction:
Confusion the Waitress (compressed)
Rowla (compressed)
You can see how the kickdrums are "cut off" at around -6dB.

Now, I could view waveforms the whole day, but they tell me nothing about the sound. So I did a quick ABX comparison:

foo_abx 1.3.1 report
foobar2000 v0.9.4.5
2008/05/01 13:01:58

File A: J:\___losslessmusic\neu\Confusion_original.wav
File B: J:\___losslessmusic\neu\Confusion_compressed.wav

13:01:58 : Test started.
13:02:37 : 01/01  50.0%
13:02:43 : 02/02  25.0%
13:02:51 : 03/03  12.5%
13:02:54 : 04/04  6.3%
13:02:58 : 05/05  3.1%
13:03:03 : 06/06  1.6%
13:03:08 : 07/07  0.8%
13:03:12 : 08/08  0.4%
13:03:15 : Test finished.

 ---------- 
Total: 8/8 (0.4%)

At the beginning I could not hear a difference, but when the track got louder, the kickdrum literally got buried in the mix as there simply wasn't enough dynamic range left. It really sounded horrible.
I've put the samples up so you can judge for yourself: http://www.mediafire.com/?m9nmtyyvgk9

foo_abx 1.3.1 report
foobar2000 v0.9.4.5
2008/05/01 13:05:43

File A: J:\___losslessmusic\neu\Rowla_original.wav
File B: J:\___losslessmusic\neu\Rowla_compressed.wav

13:05:43 : Test started.
13:06:42 : 01/01  50.0%
13:06:44 : 02/02  25.0%
13:06:47 : 03/03  12.5%
13:06:49 : 04/04  6.3%
13:06:51 : 05/05  3.1%
13:06:53 : 06/06  1.6%
13:06:55 : 07/07  0.8%
13:06:57 : 08/08  0.4%
13:06:58 : Test finished.

 ---------- 
Total: 8/8 (0.4%)

The same goes for Rowla. Except here the drums are slaughtered as soon as they set in at 56s. There is no "kick" anymore, all what is left is an undefined bassy mess. Samples: http://www.mediafire.com/?l2im4xf9y7m


Bottom line: a remaster would kill that album. They could denoise it, repair some clicking etc., but they would also have to boost the volume to a "hot" level because the market requires it. They can't just leave the volume at the original level because it just would not sound good in comparison to a bad mastered indie rock CD for example. That is what's so depressing about the loudness war. All we can do is using tools to normalize the volume to a reference level like ReplayGain or the equivalent tool from iTunes (forgot the name).

[super saint]

Originally Posted by Jan

However, UW are not at a point in their career where they need remasters. It's always a sign of desperation when established bands throw unnecessary remasters on the market to rip off their fans.

I don't think DM can be classed as desperate surely ?

Besides the the remasters were hardly big sellers anyway & were aimed purely for the fans.

I dont feel ripped off at all - each CD contained a unique listening experience with the 5.1 mix, bsides remastered, great packaging & a 3/4 hour documentary on each disc.

As I've said, a 5.1 mix sounds great if done properly...the Everything Everything DVD testifies that.

[negative1]

Originally Posted by super saint

I don't think DM can be classed as desperate surely ?

As I've said, a 5.1 mix sounds great if done properly...the Everything Everything DVD testifies that.

part a: maybe

part b: dont compare live tracks to album tracks, see analysis above

you're talking apples and oranges

later
-1

[mondokat]

I always kind of figured STITI sounded that way because it was mastered for vinyl first and no one bothered to re-master it for CD release. Either way, if it was mastered like more modern pop music, it would definitely sound like crap. Songs like Rowla totally depend on the ebb and flow, rise and fall of the music. It would sound like ass if it were compressed...