Remastering is one of the most commonly misunderstood terms in music, and the confusion is understandable given how freely labels and streaming platforms apply it to everything from deluxe anniversary editions to basic digital transfers. At its core, a remaster means a new final master has been created from an older recording, typically so the music translates better on current playback systems or a new release format.
The critical distinction is what the mastering engineer actually has access to. In a strict remaster, the engineer works from an existing stereo mix — a single combined audio file rather than the individual tracks that made it up. That means they can adjust EQ, dynamics, stereo balance, noise, peak level, loudness, and delivery format, but they cannot isolate a vocal, reposition a hi-hat, or turn down a bassline. Those elements are already baked together. The moment an engineer goes back into the individual recorded parts to rebuild a balance, the work becomes a remix, not a remaster. And if performances are recorded again from scratch, that is a rerecording — a separate process entirely.
Where things get genuinely complicated is in archival releases, where restoration, reconstruction, and editing often happen before the actual mastering stage, yet the finished product still carries the “remastered” label. Magnetic Magazine points to producer Giom as a clear example. When revisiting his back catalog for Giom Classics Part 2, he located the original session in Ableton and discovered wrong notes in the bassline and out-of-key material, which he corrected before the mastering stage. Those corrections technically constitute mix-level work, but the release was still presented as a remaster. That does not make the framing dishonest — it reflects how archival projects often involve multiple stages before a final master is produced.
A separate example comes from the 1991 album The Seven Stars by Quazar. Marco Antonio Spaventi remastered the original album, while Gert van Veen simultaneously created a 2024 recreation of the title track with a new mix by Olav Basoski. Both pieces of work were happening around the same catalog, but they were entirely different processes — one a remaster, one a new production.
Another persistent misconception is that remastering automatically makes music louder. It does not. A remaster can result in a version that is louder, quieter, brighter, darker, less compressed, or nearly indistinguishable from the original, depending entirely on what the engineer and artist are trying to achieve. The goal, particularly with electronic music being brought back to streaming or pressed to vinyl after years out of circulation, is typically to improve how the record translates across modern playback systems while preserving the musical decisions already made in the original mix.
Cambridge Dictionary defines remastering as making a new master of an earlier recording to produce copies with improved sound quality. That definition is accurate as far as it goes, but it leaves out the practical reality that the word now covers a wide range of archival work. Reading the credits on a release will almost always tell you more than the label itself.
Source: Magnetic Magazine
