Bob Weston explains why the Jesus Lizard reissues sound so good

Bob Weston Self-portrait
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Mastering Engineer at Chicago Mastering Service Bob Weston (Shellac, Mission of Burma) discusses what made the reissues of the Jesus Lizard's Touch & Go records, Pure, Head, Goat and Liar sound better and louder.-

Chad Radford: Did you have any reservations about whether or not the Jesus Lizard's records should be touched-up?-

Bob Weston:  Well, "no" is the simple answer. But the question is wrong. We didn't "touch them up." That implies that we took the mastered versions from the original mastering jobs and made some changes to those. Instead, we did an entirely new mastering job from scratch... Like the records had just been recorded and mixed the week before we started.-

There have been major improvements in analog to digital conversion quality, and in digital audio level metering in the years since these records were first mastered. Simply playing the stereo master tapes back through modern mastering-grade analog to digital converters will immediately make the CDs sound a lot better. And then the ability to properly meter the digital audio as it is being converted allows us to take advantage of all the headroom allowed in the digital audio domain. Whereas in the past, engineers needed to be more conservative with digital audio levels in order to prevent any digital "overs" (which would cause the Master CD to be rejected by the pressing plant).-

Even if we had done nothing different from the original mastering sessions in terms of processing the sound with equalization and compression, these new masters would immediately sound better and louder.