max: I just spent the last 10 mins looking for my build receipts for those guitars. I just saw them last week! I have no clue what pups they are...MD something maybe? Sorry man...it's been years so I really have no idea but I know I didn't choose the ones that come stock. I paid a few extra dollars and got the best ones thet had and talked to the guy on the phone telling him what style I play. Whatever he recommended, they sound incredible. I need to find those receipts though...so when I do, I'll tell you what they are.

I got 3 Carvins....each with different pups as they came out with new stuff each time I bought a guitar from them. I'll get back to you on this!

Mike: Thanks bro! Yeah, soul soloing is really nice. But with the VH stuff, I try to keep the important parts in when I can. The rest is me doodling around with a VH tone...so it's like at that point, anything you do sort of sounds like Eddie unless I start sweeping arps and doing Malmsteen stuff. It's funny, when I do my own stuff, I nail it all note for note because I feel I have to. It's rare for me to alter my path there...but every once in a while, I may get a little pumped up and do the real solo and then improv some stuff after it and make it a little longer. I always tell my guys "watch me...if I get in the zone, I'll turn around and flick my tongue at you." That's our signal. LOL! So they know to keep on vamping that section until I cue them.

I actually like when artists play a different version of a solo live....but it MUST be better than the original! And if a solo is sick enough on record, they HAVE to nail it or I'm depressed. LOL! :)

-Danny

A few years back I was listening to one of my old cassettes. As everyone knows, tapes do tend to degrade with time and this one was sounding like it was under a blanket.... bass was not distinct, and highs were all muted by several db.

I copied it from cassette into Cake and used Ozone on it. Just a mild touch on the highs and low end as well as using the multiband compression and just generally experimenting. 

The results were a huge improvement. I do believe it sounded better than the original on the day I bought it. It was from the 90's and country rock so as Danny said, they were not doing much in the way of mastering back then like we do today.  Country and country rock didn't really have the punch in it back then, nor the fat earth shaking bottom end like some of it does today. 

Yes... it's totally possible to get a re-mastering of older stuff, and have it sound better when it's done correctly than it did originally. 

ozone rx is one of the most powerful tools ive ever used.
I only re-master oler projects from bands that will drop in there 1980/1990's , 4.8 and 16 track demos for re mastering.
I own a 16 trask Tascam so I see some business from clients who need someone who has one.
my prices are also probably half of what it costs to send it out or bring it somewhere and have it done by a professional company,not that I think im not professional im just saying.

ive used ozone rx to clean up rotten tracks,i mean really rotten tracks.
I did a project where the lead singer pluged in to an old roland jazz chorus guitar amp and sang through that to get the effects of chorus,what a mess.

Hey Red.
Started a great discussion here! Yes, I remaster old stuff as well. I think the trick is NOT to get too crazy with the enhancements, i.e. too much high-end and bottom-end, which get too easy to go overboard with.
But hey, there's no rule against experimentation! Right? Therein lies the fun in it all!

I think iZotope's products, especially Ozone 5, are wonderful mastering tools! I however use Adobe Audition for mastering/remastering, mostly; as well as Sony Sound Forge. But yeah, I need to give Sonar a try as a mastering/remastering tool.
If you really want to get crazy with remastering older stuff, check out the latest offering from Sony - "Spectral Layers Pro". Can do some really cool stuff with that.

If you want some REAL fun and challenges (and you have a surround sound system available), convert stereo mixes to multi-channel surround sound. That's my specialty!

Have fun, bud!

JT

Hey Chuckebaby - 
Do you "remaster" (rescue) 4-track cassette? I had a Tascam Syncaset from the 80's that I was going to use to transfer stuff into Sonar, but, I dropped the machine and it broke!!
I have several 4 track cassettes (3-3/4 ips, and DBX NR) I'd love to get transferred into Sonar (X2a)...... Can you do that, and for how much?

Danny, probably M22SDs. No need to look them up on my account. I like my Carvin gear, so when you mentioned Carvin, I just wanted to know more :-)

WRT mastering, is the biggest difference, do you think, between what we here today and like, have more to do with the switch to digital or better mastering tools? Or are people just better at mastering now because of collective experiences?

I have cleaned up some old cassettes, but I wouldn't mess with a commercial CD. I want to hear the original sound the way it was released. That's just me though. 

I have done this to most of my older works from Cassette, but by the time we were printing to CD via DAT Masters things were pretty good Eq and sonic quality wise.
 The only thing I have done is make them Louder. :) 
 One song I added some reberb at the end because the original got cut off suddenly as the Multi track ran out of room. Adding reverb made a new longer ending. Little things that bugged me. 
Yesterday I copied an old Tape from 1973 over to digital. I didn't touch it as I don't think it would do much good. It sounds like an old tape, so what. Just recorded it to Wave Lab and Normalized to -2db. 
I'm not in this band yet until 1982, Curt the banjo player and me are working on a project that includes some of these songs. 

http://soundclick.com/MonasheeMntnBluegrassBand

I routinely remaster vinyl records after digitizing them. These records tend to be hit and miss: some are too bassey, some are too tinny.

JTMusicVA


Hey Chuckebaby - 
Do you "remaster" (rescue) 4-track cassette? I had a Tascam Syncaset from the 80's that I was going to use to transfer stuff into Sonar, but, I dropped the machine and it broke!!
I have several 4 track cassettes (3-3/4 ips, and DBX NR) I'd love to get transferred into Sonar (X2a)...... Can you do that, and for how much?

yup.sent you a message detailing everything man.
16 bucks a song for transfer to .wav files.
these load in to sonar easy as pie  !!!
 
Charlie