What is a remaster?

[elviscaprice]

What is a remaster? Is it not a reinterpertation of what the original recording should have or could have sounded like with current technology available? Unless the original artist is overlooking the remaster and even then, is it not safe to say that more than likely the remaster is a reinterpretation of the original works. I understand the remaster premise as to only enhance a recording to make it better in its original intention. But is this really possible? Not saying I don't like many remasters, but I think one has to put it in perspective.
What say you?

[elviscaprice]

I probably should have added that the sound engineer has alot of leeway in creativity at times in many recordings and that their input often can make or break the success of a recording. Now add on a new sound engineer that has to reinterpret what the band intended and the original sound engineer.

[Luke]

Remastering is the process of making a new master for an album, movie, or any other creation. It tends to refer to the process of porting a recording from an analogue medium to a digital one, but this is not always the case.

Master tapes, or something close to them, can be used to make CD releases. Better processing choices can be used. Better prints can be utilized, with sound elements remixed to 5.1 surround sound and obvious print flaws digitally corrected. The modern era gives publishers almost unlimited ways to touch up, doctor, and "improve" their media, and as each release promises improved sound, video, extras and others, producers hope these upgrades will entice people into making a purchase.

Many remastered CDs from the late 1990s onwards have become casualties of the loudness war, where the average volume of the recording is pushed ever higher at the expense of dynamic range, making the new remastered version sound much louder at regular listening volume than an uncompressed version, making it sound very different from the original one.

[Sean]

Did the loudness war start with the Depeche Mode 81-85 and 86-98 Singles? That was the first time I noticed a sound difference from my old cd's compared to the new cd's. I'm probably totally wrong. [:D]

[Luke]

I experienced the loudness wars 2 years earlier with the 2nd album of Electronic (Raise The Pressure, 1996). Especially the single For You (2nd single).

[Andee1970]

defintely not Spandau Ballet