At 10:37 AM 12/24/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>At Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 06:56:40 Billy wrote:
>. It all depends on the recording.
>
>Exactly!

When im dubbing vinyl to CD most of the time I leave the EQ alone and just
declick it - but if the record sounds weak or has loads of distortion because
of worn vinyl or poor recording-mastering I will do anything it takes to
boost,
filter or clean it up. 

>I guess it comes back to RS's original post.....why are labels REMIXING 
>albums at all (except maybe fo for the 5.1 market)? 

1) To get a cleaner sound from the first generation tapes.
2) To create first time stereo mixes of songs previously only available in
mono, or to do a final mixdown of different takes and songs that were never
released before. 
3) The original 2-track tapes were too worn out for CD remastering, so new
mixes had to be made. (a lot of columbia stuff - Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel,
Byrds)
4) So the compliler/remasterer/company can make some extra $$$?

EMI-USA and Capitol went remix crazy with thier reissue program in the late
80's-early 90's. Ron Furmanek did most of the work and while some of his ADD
remixes were improvements over the old stereo mixes (Gary Lewis) others,
especally English artists that recorded at Abbey Road turned out to be
disasters, sounding nothing like the original recordings because he removed
the
huge reverb and EQ, compression that made those records sound so unique.  

I've had the opportunity 
>to remix a number of my own earlier records for the Bullseye 20th 
>anniversary archive next year. And with the exception of two early punk 
>recordings, the results have been less than sastisfying. There was something 
>about the mish-mash of frequencies that we got on the original 1/4" analog 
>mixes that I like better. However, there were some songs that were 
>technically unfinished (due to my being infernally broke at the time) that 
>have been resurrected and finally sound like finished masters with the aid 
>of Pro-Tools.

Thats why we love that old sound! Theres something about analog sound that
shoots to the right heart, from a old tape, vinyl or on a cheap lo-fi radio or
jambox. I dont know why but it still connects with me in a way that hearing
them digitalally sometimes doesnt.

Billy
http://listen.to/jangleradio