Could "Digital Remastering" have caused this?

farss wrote on 9/22/2004, 6:16 AM

I have many hours of vintage recordings to rip from CD to mp3 for a client, done this for them many times in the past without a problem.
This time I'd assumed given its vintage it had to be mono so I figure if I use the mono settings on the encoder bandwidth can be used for better things.
Problem is the result sounds like it's had the guts knocked out of it. I probably should look at it in SF to give a more accurate description but that'll have to do for the moment. Anyway I figure the mono conversion in the encoder is doing something odd so I first convert to mono in Vegas and it still sounds empty even before it's encoded.
I encoded to mp3 as Joint Stereo and it's just fine. Then I remembered the CDs boast "Digitally Remastered" so I'm wondering is it possible that process added some form of 'stereo simulation' to the original which has introduced phase shifts causing cancellations when mixed back to mono?
Not a really big issue now I've worked my way around it but I'm curious as to how it got into this state and also the guys who did it surely should have checked how it sounded as mono.

Bob.

Comments

tmrpro wrote on 9/22/2004, 7:48 AM

I would suggest that your assumption is exactly correct.

Sometimes labels will also mark releases as "Digitally Remastered" even when the tracks were both remixed and remastered. So, the phase problem may have occured in a remix (unless this stuff was cut prior to multitrack).

The issue that you are experiencing is phase cancellation & it certainly can occur from a stereo simulator, because this is precisely how stereo simulation works; by applying frequency relative phase adjustments.

I would suggest under any circumstance to leave the files in stereo if that is the way the client provided them to you.

You could try to knock the stereo files down to single mono tracks, bring them back as two individual tracks (discreet left & right) and phase invert one side to see if this resolves the issue. Although this may resolve the cancellations you are currently experiencing, it would most probably create new and different phase cancellation issues.

Another thing that you can try after creating two mono tracks is to do a track offset:

Expand your horizontal view to a very close zoomed view and slide one side to the right by the smallest allowable increment. This will definately make the stereo tracks sound bigger and should elliminate the cancellations that are occurring. But you and the client may not like the new way the tracks will sound.

Whether any of these suggestions work, I would still keep the files in stereo as they were provided to you.

This is a very good fundamental informative .....ALWAYS remember to check your stereo files in mono for cancellation issues.

farss wrote on 9/22/2004, 3:22 PM

tmpro,
thanks. You're pretty much confirming what I'd suspected.
Kind of funny, I read Jay Rose's book a few weeks ago and he makes plenty of noise about always checking everything in mono.

Bob.