It’s not a matter of being able to. First-generation master tapes never leave the premises anymore, not at major labels. Archive vaults provide flat transfers to mastering studios. Exceptions apply where a company like Universal employ their own cutting engineer, e.g. at Emil Berliner Studios, to avoid the insurance nightmare of originals traveling by courier. Those have become rare.
No, they leave depending on the mastering/cutting facility and reissue label.
Majors may provide facilities and personnel, and/or hire or employ mastering and cutting engineers. The bottom line is: as long as original tapes don’t travel, are being checked/restored under supervison, and aren’t played back more often than absolutely necessary (which in a real world scenario usually means: to make a flat transfer for the mastering engineer to work with).
And yes, I understand that audiophiles find it counter-intuitive that flat transfers may henceforth be referred to as “master”, but that’s what engineers consider a flat transfer to be: a straight copy.
Besides, common sense would have it that audiophiles favor the best available (in terms of sound quality) source, such as in the case of Solti’s Ring the Japanese production master and not the original session and master tapes that have oxides flaking off.
Challenge accepted.
I came across a few of "Alexander Bak" remastering releases (24.96) (e.g., Wagner's Lohengrin (Solti/VPO) and Kemper/VPO's Wagner's Preludes) - they are uniformly awful, worse than original CD releases. Think they are fraudulent.
Mastered for iTunes is the result of producer Rick Rubin noticing that his productions (more obviously than the full rez file) distorted when played back in mp3 format. This is because the data reduction of the mp3 codec results in a higher level and more intersample peaks. The answer was to render full resolution wav files at a lower peak level based on using an Apple app during the mastering process that tells the enginner exactly what the number of overshoots and clipped sample will occur when data reduced during the making of a 256kbs mp3. The Apple spec for a MFiT file is at least 24bit, 44.1K (Apple encourages higher sample rates when possible) and no or few, post mp3 conversion, clipped samples. It is simply a peak level spec to give more headroom for the dac.
I feel the same way, altough I do think most of the Stan Ricker era releases are excellent,
Up until about 2010, the vast majority of mastering engineers capured any eq, level adjustments, and other processing at 24 or 16bit 44.1K. This was so an additional step of sample rate conversion did not have to be used owing to the CD standard. It didnt make sense to play mixes whether off tape or digital and record at some high sample rate, only to have to use another sonically diminishing process to get it to 16/44.1
Of course, but the only question that is relevant here is this: is it or is it not fraudulent labeling to sell the exact same compression level digital file in different file format containers at different price levels? In Switzerland at least, a well-known supermarket chain had to retract products when it turned out (as an independent laboratory proved and reported to the price supervisor) they sold the exact same content (in this instance it may have been foodstuff, but the law is the same for any article) in several product lines at different prices. We have a term for this: "moon pricing" (think of offering an article at an unrealistic price at a discount, same thing). So yes, you might find it understandable labels/remastering engineers don't want to do a separate high-resolution remastering of e.g. classical music expecting to sell only a small number of copies - but that is their problem, not the buyer's (who's purposely led to believe the upcharge for the more expensive high-resolution release over e.g. the cheaper MP3 is indicative of a qualitative difference). Provided we agree on legislature and regulation being at all necessary, sales offers must be neither counter-intuitive nor misleading.
Good suggestion.
You have the major lables confused with people who care about music and artists. The labels will be the ones to release AI generated content of artists under contract to them.
@Mcsnare You are in the business, so have an insiders view that most of us do not. I was indeed thinking of the majors, but also the independent labels. As I listen to a lot of music via Roon/Qobuz, I am often surprised by the excellent quality of the recording (mostly, fairly recent recordings). Then I get curious about the label and often find names that are completely unknown to me. I realize that some of these are actually parts of the major labels or partially owned by them or the major labels distribute for them. The sheer number, however, is a surprise for a music lover who knows very little about the process of making music in today's marketplace. I'm assuming that independent labels are closer to the artist's intent and will be concerned about their well-being.
Two things:
I came across the 2023 Alexander Bak remaster of Karel Sejna's Dvorak Slavonic Dances, and that one doesn't seem too bad to me. Sounds fresher than the 1995 Supraphon CD. All the other Alexander Bak remasters I sampled on Qobuz sounded awful to me though.
