The Remaster vs. The Music

Does it happen to you, too?

You grab a new mastering of a particular record, love it from the first note, and then, go back to the older version the next time you want to hear that album?

And that new one, even though it sounded so great at first, ends up somewhere behind the digital cobwebs of your hard drive.

Well, I've been thinking about it lately, about how certain modern digital editions or remasters sound so well at first, and then, end up forgotten, and I have a theory:

What if some modern digital editions sound that way because they reveal TOO MUCH of the wrong things?

Whenever I buy a new remaster, I notice the same expectation creeping in. I expect to hear something that wasn't there before. More detail, greater, clarity, or some information hidden somewhere inside the recording that previous editions failed to reveal.

And sure, sometimes it does.

Sometimes a new remaster uncovers details that were always present in the performance but never fully emerged from the older edition. Suddenly an instrument line becomes easier to follow, or a familiar passage feels refreshed because we can hear more of what was already there.

But that's only sometimes.

Because equally often a new edition seems more impressive but not involving. Sure, I notice the detail and the new clarity. But, perhaps subconsciously, I also begin to appreciate the engineering behind it more than the music.

I've experienced this often enough that I no longer think it's an accident.

It's almost like some editions were made to showcase the recording (or the equipment behind it.) And only some seem to understand that not everything captured by microphones contributes equally to the pleasure of listening.

And this is one of my biggest realizations when it comes to digital audio:

My favourite digital editions of albums are the ones that disappear.

These are the edition that stop reminding me that I'm listening to a recording.

I don't think about the mastering when listening. I don't care about what source was used for the transfer. I don't pay attention to the engineering decisions. I stop analysing the soundstage, the tonal balance, or the amount of detail being presented.

I just focus on the music.

When an edition constantly reminds me how much detail it is revealing, I remain aware of the recording. When an edition allows me to forget about those things, I become aware of the music instead.

I compare that to looking through a window versus looking at a window.

A perfectly clean window does not attract attention to itself. It allows you to focus on what lies beyond it. You don't even think about it. You just focus on the view.

But if the glass becomes too reflective, too tinted, or the frame attracts more attention, you start noticing the window rather than the view. The view recedes to the secondary position. It's still there, yet all you care about is the window.

That can affect your actions. Rather than focusing on the view, you might start thinking"darn, I gotta clean the window." Or paint the frame. Fix it. Or you simply start judging the said window.

It doesn't matter. What matters is that you still see the view but it not longer occupies your attention entirely.

Recordings can behave in much the same way.

A recording might act like a portal to the music. It's that clean window that you don't see. It facilitates the activity of admiring something, but it does not take an active part in it.

Without the window, you wouldn't see the view. But if the window draws attention to itself, the view no longer matters anyway. You can't focus on it or enjoy it anyway.

Let me illustrate it with some examples.

Art Blakey's Moanin'

Moanin is one of the most revered jazz records, a pinnacle of hard bop. But there is a small microphone issue that appears throughout much of Lee Morgan's trumpet performance of the opening track. It sounds like Morgan moved from where he was supposed to stand, and positioned himself close enough to the microphone that bursts of air from his trumpet hit the capsule in a way that is surprisingly similar to vocal plosives.

It's difficult to miss. It's right there, in the left speaker.

(If you're curious, on the BlueNote DSD edition, you can even hear the exact moment when Morgan shifts closer to the mic.)

From a purely technical perspective, it is exactly the kind of thing that an engineer might want to minimise or remove. After all, it isn't part of the music itself. It's a recording artefact, a by-product of the session rather than an artistic choice.

And so, some digital editions of this album contains attempts to clean it up. Some more successfully than others, of course, but what's important is that every version I've heard loses something in the process.

And don't get me wrong, that microphone issue is a little annoying. But the problem is that attempts to remove it, also remove some of the sense that a real musician is standing in front of a real microphone.

After all, reducing artefacts like this often involves processing that affects more than the offending sound alone. A little of the musical signal may be removed with it, subtly changing the character of the performance.

But here is the funny thing: Nobody involved is making a mistake. The engineer is trying to improve the recording. The intention is entirely reasonable. The label doesn't want it on the edition either.

(Naturally, we can't be sure what the artist would say about it since he's no longer with us. But perhaps presented with the technical ability to fix it, Blakey would concur, who knows?)

But the result is a strange paradox. A technically improved edition ends up sounding "worse" than the imperfect version that came before it.

Cuarteto Casals Shostakovich Quartets 13-15

Not long ago, I came across the Cuarteto Casals recording of Shostakovich's final three string quartets. I grabbed it without hesitation. Not only they focus on one of my favourite composers but also, some of my most beloved of his works.

But the record left me bitterly disappointed. (Read my review here.)

To call it this a detailed release would be an understatement. The microphones capture more information anyone could ever ask for. Every nuance of the instruments is presented with startling clarity, and very little escapes the recording.

Note the last sentence above...

The microphones continuously reveal far more than the music itself. Loud breathing, chair creaks, players changing the bow grip, damn, even some tiny bodily noises...

These incidental noises repeatedly pull my attention away from the performance.

That's what makes this recording so fascinating in the context of this discussion. Nobody could accuse it of lacking detail. If anything, it contains more information than many listeners could reasonably want.

Yet that abundance of information comes at a cost. Instead of disappearing, the recording constantly reminds me of its own existence. I become aware of microphones, performers, and recording decisions. The illusion of simply inhabiting the music begins to break down.

In a strange way, this is the mirror image of the problem we saw with Moanin'.

There, an attempt to remove an imperfection reduced the sense of presence. Here, the recording puts presence first so aggressively that it starts to undermine the listening experience.

Both arrive at a surprisingly similar destination. I, as a listener, become aware more of the recording than the music.

I end up looking at the window, and only occasionally noticing the view behind it. Or even more, struggling to notice it at all.

Which brings me to what we started with...

To me, the most successful digital editions are not always the ones that reveal the greatest amount of recorded information.

They put music first.

They use the recorded information to support the listening experience, but they rarely draw attention to the support itself.

And certainly, they don't try to simply give us more things to notice.