2011 remasters - pedant's point

There is no damage on the tape. There is a slight anomaly in the loudness level of one channel. And it's so short and fast, that it's not audible. It's only visible especially when you compare the grafics. 
A correction of this can not justify to call it a new remaster.....

I agree Soundfreak. A tiny tweak here and there is not enough to declare it a 2011 remaster. It's deceptive, they could have just released it on Island and declared it the 2005 remaster and be done with it. As you know, I prefer the DCC anyway, but there will be plenty who had the 2005 and plonked down their cash for the 2011. I'm far too jaded now to do that, but would have several years ago before I realised QP had far too much of my money for little return!

I guess we could email Brian about it, but he usually dismisses dedicated fans (dedicated to good sound - he likes the fans that still worship his love affair with foxes) and will bang on with the same old rhetoric about how good his team is.

Sir GH wrote: rhyeking wrote:

If it's a mic, such as one of the drum mics, could they not mute that channel until they want the drum beat at the end heard?

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It's got nothing to do with the drum mic or any mic other than the guitar mic.  The guitar amp is buzzing and the guitar mic is picking it up.  It can't be undone.  Not sure what the discrepancy is here.. =========================

Not trying to be difficult, but the guitar mic would be assigned its own channel on the mixing console before reaching the multi-track tape. That channel can be muted or the fader lowered to eliminate the sound. 

Also, once on the multi-track, the console playing back the recording would have each instrument and vocal assigned to a channel, to allow for mixing and re-mixing each element individually.

I understand that some elements leak and get picked up by other inputs. If that leak is present on the same track as an element you can't remove (like the choral vocals picked up on Freddie's master vocal on some of the Barcelona tracks) then yes, your stuck with it that way. "White Man" is different, at least in this example, as even if that hiss appears on a non-guitar track, there is no other element present in those few seconds until the drum hit at the end. Whatever track contains that hiss can be lowered or muted.

'wait for it... DUM DUM!' Brilliant.

I'm more angry about the track marks. I checked Lily Of The Valley and they kept the same split as on the '93 version so I didn't listen to anymore.

"The inner sleeve notes state that the audio has been remastered using both 'digital and analogue' techniques. Does this make the rear tray description of 'Digital Remaster' technically incorrect?"

No it does NOT. First, it says "digital and analogue technology". As the source tapes are analogue you HAVE to use "analogue technology" to play them. Beside that, some mastering engineers also use EQs or compressors before the signal is digitised.

Also, the A NIGHT AT THE OPERA remaster is a brand new one. Of course is VERY similar, almost indentical to the 2005 one. That's due to the use of the same source tapes, equipment and engineer. Bar from some noise reduction and phase correction tools, there is only so much that has been improved in the 2005-2010 period.

Finally, it's strange -at least for a 'pedantic topic'- that nobody mentioned the line 'missing' from the referred statement on the QUEEN album...

So are you defending the "2011" remaster tag applied to ANATO?
I think it's extemely poor form. It's virtually identical, so just leave it alone, and mark it as 2005 so all those fans who forked out for that release don't rebuy it. 

Noise Reduction doesn't improve sound in most cases, it makes it worst.
Takes away all the wonderful ambience so inherent to the overall sound and feel. 

I'm not sure Ludwig has used Noise Reduction on these though has he?
Pete Mew used it to death and made things too sterile on the Japanese releases (along with making things way too loud).

According to Peter Mew, that's what the he asked to do for that market. It wasn't really his choice. The client gets what the client wants.

Here's a quote from his email to me:

"The 2001 remaster was done at the request of the Japanese, and is a liitle more extreme than the 1998 set."

I was asking about his different remasters from the 1998 Crown Jewels set to the recent Singles Collections.