Why I Remastered the S*X PISTOLS album

Описание: Many albums from the 60s, 70s and 80s were questionable recordings, certainly punk albums by bands like the S*x Pistols and in the case of their one and only album, Never Mind The Bollocks, the original 1977 release was all mid-range and treble, next to no bass at all and certainly no slam in the bottom end. Even the mids were a bit muddled and unclear.

There have been many remastered versions of this infamous album over the years, notably in 2012 and 2025. The CD I bough recently was the 2012 remastered version and, from my online research, the engineering side of things was handled by Tim Young, overseen by the albums original producer, Chris Thomas. This 2012 remaster utilised the original 1977 master tapes, which were rediscovered in 2012.

However, even this new remaster is hugely lacking in the bass department and the mids still remain a bit muddy. This could be down to several factors. It could, in part, be down to the musicians, the equipment available at the time and the engineers, amongst other things, who knows.

Anyway, when I converted the CD to high quality MP3 files and dumped them onto an SD card to play back in my car I found the recording to be, what we used to call back in the day, a ‘tinny’ recording that sounds like it is coming out of an old transistor radio so I decided to fix it, like I have done with other questionable recordings in the past.

I used Logic Pro on my Mac and made some subtle changes in the EQ to boost the bass, cut the mids ever so slightly and boost the highs. Finally I used the superb Master Plan plugin by Musik Hack as the only plugin on the master Stereo Out. I kept the compression to a minimum (I’m not into Loudness Wars) and made a few other tweaks to try and clear things up a little, while emphasising the bass between 30.0 and 80.0 HZ, reducing the mids at around 350 HZ and trying to reduce the overly bright frequencies at around 12000 HZ.

I did bring the overall volume up by 2.24dB using the Master Plan Loud dial to give the overall sound more volume and kick.

It’s also worth mentioning that although the purpose of remastering older records is to improve the audio quality while also clearing up the sound and improving the tonal balance, adjust the dynamic range, remove noise, as well as increasing the volume – all using more modern technology. The aim is better compatibility with newer high-fidelity equipment and digital streaming formats. However, many remastered albums get criticised for using an overly compressed ‘brickwalled’ sound, often resulting from the so-called ‘loudness wars’ of the 2000s, which reduces the contrast between the quiet and loud parts in any given song.