[mbself]

Originally Posted by AAR.oner

alot of folks feel you should leave the recording unaltered, other than to normalize & remove any DC offset...mainly because 99% of the people who use filters/gadgets/etc have absolutely no idea what they are doing and have not "helped" the recording...i've eq'd a few of my recordings before, but for the most part i leave em untouched...

that said, if its yer recording you can do whatever you want with it...but unless yer a professional engineer with years of mastering experience, i'd say leave em alone... if you do use any sort of filters/EQ/comp/etc, you should atleast give the details in the info text with your lineage ["toys" is not sufficient ]

I agree with AAAR.oner. The only problem with pushing your' master through a bunch of analog equipment is that each component colors the sound in ways that you may not intend. Even an EQ rack set to flat-- all sliders at 0--the combination of circuitry, additional power transformers, additional cable patches, etc... do nothing but add to noise levels and potentially take away from the clarity of the information on the tape.

I recommend using the best tape deck you can find---adjust azimuth--into the best AD converter you can get your hands on--connected with the best cables you have. Once you have a good transfer of what is on the tape--torrent the file and let all of the remasterers out there do what they wish with it.

In a professional setting with professional engineers there is a lot of stuff that is probably better off being done in the analog domain before capture to digital. But at this level, I think you are better served by doing a raw transfer and letting the source find its way to an experienced remasterist (what is the correct term for that anyway?).