The Petra Zone

Does anyone know if the Star Song Greatest hits releases that were released in the 1990's Petraphonics, Petrafied, Power Praise etc.... Were these tracks remastered for those releases? They definitely sound "brighter" to me, and they "crank" a little better on the JDB tracks...just curious if anyone knows for certain

Petrafied, Petraphonic, Power Praise and Rock Block have mastering credits.
Petrafied was mastered by Tom Baker at Future Disc, the other three by Hank Williams at Master Mix.
Most of the original Star Song albums were mastered by Steve Hall.

So, yes, remastered, but it doesn't state whether they were remastered from the original masters or from the previous CD masters. I believe the former, but I don't think we can be sure.

p-freak wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:04 pm

Petrafied, Petraphonic, Power Praise and Rock Block have mastering credits.
Petrafied was mastered by Tom Baker at Future Disc, the other three by Hank Williams at Master Mix.
Most of the original Star Song albums were mastered by Steve Hall.

So, yes, remastered, but it doesn't state whether they were remastered from the original masters or from the previous CD masters. I believe the former, but I don't think we can be sure.

Steve Hall- that was my grandpa's name! I never met him though. He died when my mom was 4. Sorry for the random bit of information : )

According to Richard Green, all of the production master assets are in the label vault. I don't know if he meant the analog or Sony 1630s that were so prevalent back then. The 1630 was the actual digital source pressing plants used. If the budgets were low, they could very well have used the CD or DAT copy of the CD master. That has been done. Records have been cut from those and they sound like crap.

All remastering means most of the time is more compression, more volume, and more EQ. Louder doesn't always sound better.

Diehardpetrafan:) wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 7:48 pm

p-freak wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:04 pm

Petrafied, Petraphonic, Power Praise and Rock Block have mastering credits.
Petrafied was mastered by Tom Baker at Future Disc, the other three by Hank Williams at Master Mix.
Most of the original Star Song albums were mastered by Steve Hall.

So, yes, remastered, but it doesn't state whether they were remastered from the original masters or from the previous CD masters. I believe the former, but I don't think we can be sure.

Steve Hall- that was my grandpa's name! I never met him though. He died when my mom was 4. Sorry for the random bit of information : )

well that's interesting that they have the same name

brent wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:19 pm

All remastering means most of the time is more compression, more volume, and more EQ. Louder doesn't always sound better.

The Loudness Wars were one of the worst thing to ever happen to music.

One of the worst example I've personally heard was "I Love Rock n' Roll" by Joan Jett. The original recording has a prominent bass drum that kicks you in the gut all throughout the song. A later "remaster" compressed the crap out of it so that everything was loud to the point that the bass drum was barely audible and completely changed the song's character.

Mountain Man wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 16, 2020 8:04 pm

brent wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:19 pm

All remastering means most of the time is more compression, more volume, and more EQ. Louder doesn't always sound better.

The Loudness Wars were one of the worst thing to ever happen to music.

One of the worst example I've personally heard was "I Love Rock n' Roll" by Joan Jett. The original recording has a prominent bass drum that kicks you in the gut all throughout the song. A later "remaster" compressed the crap out of it so that everything was loud to the point that the bass drum was barely audible and completely changed the song's character.

That's a great example. I have the I Love Rock n' Roll vinyl LP. Back in the 1980s, I used to crank this song at home because of that bass drum. However, when I hear it on the radio nowadays, it just sounds okay.

What's even worse is when albums are originally recorded this way. Rush's Vapor Trails is a case study of great music that has been ruined by the need for loudness. I love the songs, but find it exhausting to listen to even half the album in one go. They released a remixed version later that was an improvement, but there was only so much that could be done with the brickwalled original recordings.

Rusty wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:13 am

Does anyone know if the Star Song Greatest hits releases that were released in the 1990's Petraphonics, Petrafied, Power Praise etc.... Were these tracks remastered for those releases? They definitely sound "brighter" to me, and they "crank" a little better on the JDB tracks...just curious if anyone knows for certain

Let's not forget "War and Remembrance."

rexreed wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:16 pm

Let's not forget "War and Remembrance."

Petra Means Rock mentions the original mastering credits per albums, so definitely not remastered.
War & Remembrance doesn't have any mastering specifics mentioned, so I think it's unlikely that the songs on there were remastered.
The Early Years also doesn't mave mastering credits listed.

They probably just used the CD tracks from the original albums for these three collections.