Moments of Clarity: Stones’ spruced-up early releases reflect trends in remastering

Spencer Patterson

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2002 | 8:30 a.m.

The Rolling Stones are headed to Las Vegas for a pair of shows this weekend and, for many fans of the band, that means it's time to fill in the gaps in their Stones CD collections.

When they scan the racks at their local record stores, fans might be surprised at what they find. The Rolling Stones' entire ABKCO Records catalog 22 albums covering the band's formative years from 1963 through 1970 has been reissued, taking advantage of modern CD remastering techniques.

ABKCO originally released the albums on compact disc in 1986, when CDs were a relatively new medium. Since then, technology has improved dramatically.

"The thing that is most striking about these albums now is that there is finally a medium that truly represents what the band recorded in the studio," Jody Klein, restoration producer for the Stones' project, said in a telephone interview from his New York City studio. "The Stones as a band, the rawness of their performances and the energy that was on those original albums, are truly captured again."

The remasters present longtime fans, who likely already own such classic Stones albums as "Let it Bleed," "Aftermath" and "Beggars Banquet"on CD, with a bit of a quandary. Do the 2002 editions offer enough of a sound improvement to justify shelling out the cash to replace earlier versions?

With each passing year, that dilemma becomes more common for both serious CD collectors and casual music listeners. Artists from Miles Davis to The Who to the Ramones have had significant portions of their back catalogs reissued, all with the pronouncement that the remasters are definitive.

"Early on, with CDs, a lot of people were trying to get product out as quickly as possible, but digital recording was not really ready yet and we didn't have good analog-to-digital converters," Michael Cuscuna, director of reissues for Blue Note Records and president of Mosaic Records, said in a phone interview from his New York City office.

"Today's CDs sound twice as good as CDs from the mid-'90s and five times as good as CDs from the mid-'80s," Cuscuna added.

From vinyl LPs to cassettes to compact discs, music fans have generally shown a willingness to upgrade their music. But when it comes to replacing CDs with better versions of the same CDs, many wonder exactly what they are getting for their money.

Hunting down masters

For starters, the process of remastering the Stones' early albums meant hunting down the band's original analog masters. Some of ABKCO's 1986 discs had been transferred from second- and third-generation sources, Klein said, allowing additional tape hiss to invade the finished digital product.

Thus began a 10-year search to find the master recordings.

"The Rolling Stones were very adventurous in their recording habits, in that they recorded in London, in Paris, in California, in Chicago, in Alabama ... as opposed to The Beatles, who recorded all in one place," Klein said. "So things were a bit more difficult to find at times."

The Stones themselves were ultimately called in to assist with the search.

"The band was extremely helpful," Klein said. "They helped to identify masters, and actually opened up their own archives as well."

Once the masters had been gathered, it was also discovered that some had been slowed down during the transfer process, others had been slightly edited and several had even undergone an unorthodox stereo separation process.

"During the late '60s someone had this idea of electronically reprocessed stereo, a goofy idea where they'd put all the high end on one side and all the low end on the other side and then say, 'Oh, we have a stereo record now,' " Steve Rosenthal, the Stones project's sound restoration and archive coordinator, said in a phone interview from the New York City studio The Magic Shop.

"So over the years, that had infiltrated its way into the Stones' catalog. All of those have now been removed."

Sound engineers worked to remove some of the hiss and other unintended noise that resulted from transferring reel-to-reel analog masters to 16-bit CDs in the early days of compact discs. They also brought out more of the music's overall depth, making Bill Wyman's basslines and Charlie Watts' drumming sound more compatible with the guitars and vocals.

"One thing people will notice right away is a sense of presence that was missing from earlier releases, and I think that they'll feel more akin to what it felt like when they were listening to their vinyl versions of these masters," Rosenthal said.

Side-by-side comparison

To assess the sound improvements, new and old versions of "Let it Bleed" and "Beggars Banquet" were passed along to Tom Parham Audio Productions, a studio specializing in audio mastering.

The Las Vegas business cleans up analog masters using computer equipment and audio components, and transfers the material to compact disc for both independent and major label acts nationwide.

"I master a lot of stuff for the first time for people coming out of the studio, and then there are guys with masters that aren't very good that want me to do surgery," Parham, the shop's owner, said. "We make it the best it can be from what it was."

Parham popped in the 1986 "Let it Bleed" CD, then compared it to the remastered disc. To his ears, Keith Richards' slow-building guitar intro to "Gimme Shelter" sounded similarly hissy on both.

"I'm surprised they didn't take out more of the hiss," Parham said.

Moments later, however, when Wyman's bass and Mick Jagger's vocals kicked in, Parham seemed impressed.

"It's more in-your-face, you can tell that," Parham said. "And there's a lot more low end on the new one."

The upgraded "Beggars Banquet" met with even more approval from Parham, who pointed to the improved dynamic levels registering on his machinery during "Sympathy for the Devil."

"This is so much hotter," Parham said. "You can turn the volume up without distorting the music."

Parham replaced his own Led Zeppelin CDs with remasters several years ago. But ultimately, he conceded, most listeners might not hear a significant difference between old and new versions of their favorite albums on CD.

"The average guy isn't going to be A-B-ing it like this," Parham says. "But if we put an unmastered CD in a jukebox with a remastered CD, the levels are so low on the unmastered one it's crazy."

Preserving intent

Klein and Rosenthal agreed that, at times, engineers can go too far in an effort to clean up older masters.

"I've done work on restoring the Alan Lomax collection -- that great collection of folk and blues and world music -- and when we started using some no-noising, we no-noised out the crickets from a field recording," Rosenthal said. "The lesson I learned is not to use technology in an intrusive way.

"At some point, hiss is a function of the record. At some point, the distortion on the guitars is a function of a Stones' record, for them to be rocking-sounding and raw-sounding. So those things you don't want to change. You don't want to rethink those records. You just want to restore them."

For the same reason, the Stones' remasters also don't feature many of the trappings offered by other CD upgrade packages: bonus tracks, extensive liner notes or new photography and artwork. Instead, the CD sleeves match the original LP jackets, and all music on the discs can also be found on the original vinyl releases.

"It was all considered, but this is a restoration as close to the original as possible," Bob Merlis, media relations consultant for ABKCO, said.

Cuscuna, who supervises Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder jazz reissue series and also oversees Columbia/Legacy Records' massive Miles Davis remasters project, prefers to add to the overall product whenever possible.

"You should always use the original liner notes, but the second version should also be improved with bonus material, artwork, more liner notes, something," Cuscuna said. "If it's a record you love, that helps justify buying it again."

Eyeing the future

ABKCO's new Stones CDs do offer one significant addition, however. Each disc features two complete versions of the album -- one for regular CD players and another for high-end Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) players.

Along with DVD-Audio, SACD is being hailed as part of the next generation of music technologies, one which allows consumers to continue playing their current stash of CDs while upgrading sound quality on future purchases.

"The public is getting the best-sounding CD that can be made today, and at the same time, they're getting the best-sounding SACD, and that's the disc of the future," Klein said. "They're ahead of the curve. It's like buying Windows XP with all the patches included."

And what of music fans who balk at the concept of buying yet more versions of their favorite albums?

Merlis contends that upgrading CDs is really no different than replacing any other personal item, be it a computer or a car, as technology marches on.

"I bought a 1984 Ford Taurus and it only had one airbag. Then I bought a 1994 Taurus with two airbags," Merlis said. "Technology advances, and the public has the option to move ahead with it."

And for Cuscuna, when it comes to remastered CDs, hearing is believing.

"I'm very sensitive to the idea of buying albums you already love, and I'm not into the idea of gauging the public with new technology," Cuscuna said. "But when the leaps and bounds are justified, I think you can't ignore it."

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