Adventures In Mastering: ALICE COOPER "Billion Dollar Babies" for Audio Fidelity..

I think we're getting some unfortunate insight here as to why the compressed and eq-ed lp cutting master gets used so often for digital reissues. It's not the best way to get the best fidelity, but it raises the fewest questions. It's the path of least resistance.

 

Whether it's Marshall/AF or Warner Brothers making the decision to end these discussions, it's surely not worth Steve's time or effort to argue with them. They pay him to work, not to stir up trouble.

 

Spot On!!!

 

I don't think Bob's response caused this decision... it may have been the proverbial straw and camel, but the suits and legal folks would not recommend the end of Steve's threads, based on this single incident. it's not about offending anyone, or even controversy... unfortunately, legal matters are delicate, and can't be ignored to satisfy our wishes to learn about Steve's mastering process. and the problem doesn't go away by a simple "pm me, let's work it out" mentality... this is real life, solutions are not easy

 

Why would " the suits " stop people talking about a thread? Alice once said " All publicity is good publicity ".

 

From reading all that you had to do it seems that time is a major enemy of all the old master tapes that lie out there waiting to be reissued. Seems to be especially true if a bunch of razor blade edits were done to the masters. This would be worth buying just for the science project to hear how well your work came out compared to the originals.

I've read other stories about how careless storage of tape has also complicated matters for mastering engineers. A sad side to the music business.

 

Mine three! I can't even begin to express what a huge impact this album had on me when I was 14.

 

I was 19 when BDB came out I remember it was a huge success. And one of my fave Cooper albums. It will be interesting to see a SACD of this sounds like it is a perfect album for this process.

 

Question for Steve, did you ever listen to the DVD Audio of this title, and if yes, what were your thoughts on the sound?

 

Steve is probably being wise in ending these "Adventures In Mastering" threads. Too many posters on this site jump to conclusions without knowing any facts and without having any practical experience in the business in general. These kinds of attitudes have already cost us the insights of other talented engineers who used to visit us and now do not. Sure, I'm going to miss Steve's adventures too. But hey, life is full of disappointments. In the grand scheme of things this is actually pretty trivial. It's not as if a gigantic cyclone has just uprooted my entire existence.

In any case, I will be adding Billion Dollar Babies to my A.F. Alice Cooper collection.

Also, even though these threads are ending maybe Steve can still give us a "heads up" on what is coming down the line from Audio Fidelity.

 

"All publicity is good publicity" for a pop star. For a manufactured product, it's a different story. If someone starts a rumor that a brand of sausage contains squid eyeballs, then that would generate publicity, but probably not welcome publicity.

 

Exactly...I may not have even known about this upcoming BDB album if Steve hadn't posted about it. Now I've found myself searching the AF site for other things I might want.

 

Can't wait to CRANK Hello Hurray and Elected.

 

Well Bob Ezrin ( guy who produced the album ) voiced his concerns ( still unaddressed ) so that opens things up for debate. Are you complaining about his attitude?

 

Knock it off, already. You are a troll who simply enjoys stirring the pot. Steve said that he and Bob Ezrin spoke. You have no idea what was said.

 

Yes. You said your piece and we can all read.

 

Really, Bob should have sent a PM to Steve or emailed Marshall privately to resolve things or clear any confusion (on either side of the aisle). THEN if it wasn't resolved, he could have publicly stated the correct masters were not used or whatever. But all that did was cause (I'm sure it was completely unintentional by Bob) public drama.

 

How do you know that wasn't done?

 

The evidence suggests it wasn't. Otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

 

Sounds to me Bob thinks it's his baby and nobody should mess with his baby?

 

I didn't get that impression at all. I think he was genuinely confused and concerned about what tapes were being used.

 

Read post 90 (page 4) from our host. He and Bob have spoken.

 

No, not in the least.

 

Are you even aware of the timeline of this thing? The "we have spoken" came AFTER Bob posted initially. Do we need to post timestamps?