Remastering

Emergence of the remastering in music

With the appearance of the audio CD at the beginning of the Years 1980 for the general public, (the technology, developed by several companies of which mainly Philips, going back in fact to 1979) it appeared necessary to propose a catalog of albums important, likely to push the consumers to evolve to this new Média.

The main argument of sale of this form of mediums was at the time its incomparable sound quality. At the time of the exit of audio CD in 1982, the two other supports available on the market of the recorded music were the audio Cassette and the Long-playing record, both read by devices Analogique S. For its part, audio CD reads music encodée in the form of data Numérique S, therefore without loss of quality in time, with less of course than the physical integrity of the support itself is compromised.

Few studios then having the numerical equipment necessary to the production of CD in very numerical, of the recording to engraving, the label S turned to their important catalog of works fallen into the Public domain, composed quasi-exclusivement of Classical music. It was thus possible to avoid the expenses generated by the realization of new recordings numerically, the latter being de facto reserved for the production of contemporary artists. These recordings of traditional, plethoric with the beginning of the year 1980, thus belonged to the very first remasters available in the trade.

The remastering with the cinema and on television

It is mainly the launching of the support DVD which was the vector of the generalization of the remastering of cinematographic works and the emissions of Télévision recorded at the time of the analogical one. However, the extremely high price of the restoration of a film on support strips made take precedence, in this field, quality over the quantity. The restoration of the bands Video of the television programs, as for it cheaper, explains the presence on the market of very many recorded televised series these thirty last remasterized years and recently.

Techniques employed in post-production

The remastering consists in employing again recordings carried out in the past, and improving their quality by employment of numerical technologies of post-production. With this intention, it is necessary to have the master , in other words supports employed in studio during the recording for a piece of music, or original film for a film.

In music

For musical works, the master sets out again in studio of post-production. If possible, the tracks separate then are digitized independently before being mixed again. If it is about a recording whose bands studio are lost, one will be satisfied with the tracks left and right-hand side for a recording in Stéréophonie, or monophonic track for the oldest recordings.

The most current improvements before engraving on numerical support are:

removal of the breath, very present on the growing old analogical tapes and the long-playing records;
improvement of dynamics and the signal-to-noise Report/ratio, in order to be able to increase the volume of the recording without suffering from the effects of distortion;
the application of a news equalization, used to emphasize some Frequency S, therefore certain not very audible instruments, or to return a sound more harmonious, “heat” or “round”.

Once the made improvements, the new numerical tracks obtained are resynchronisées and engraved on CD known as gold , which will be used by the industrialist in charge of engraving in series of musical work.

In cinema industry and in television

In the case of the cinema and of the televisual recordings , one will first of all separate the audio tracks and the images (film or magnetic band) in order to treat them separately. The audio part will benefit from the same kind of improvements as those applied to the other types of sound recordings (see above). For the images part, one uses work stations particularly powerful and generally reserved for such a use. According to the seniority of the recording, the improvements and modifications differ. They consist mainly with:

to erase the stripes physically present on a film;
to revive the colors, diluted by too many exposures to the intense light of the projector;
to improve the Contrast;
to add scenes cut during the assembly, or turned a posteriori , as in the case of the original trilogy of Star Wars of George Lucas.

Distinctive system specific to audio CD

During the launching of audio CD, in 1982, a simple distinctive system was set up, making it possible to recognize the various technologies used during the recording, of the mixing and the mastering of CD. Composed of three letters affixed within a rectangular framework on the booklet and/or the disc itself, this system functions as follows:

AAA : recording, mixing and mastering carried out on analogical materials, the type of audio CD more running on the market at the exit of this support;
AAD : recording and mixing carried out on analogical materials, mastering numerical;
ADD : recording on analogical material, mixing and mastering numerical;
DDD : recording, mixing and mastering carried out on numerical materials.

Bibliography and sources

Bonds

Technologies of the amplified musics
Table of mixing

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