"Flat transfer" CD list

I have a 2-CD MCA reissue. On each CD is a circle with the letters "NM" inside, standing for "New Master." The story I remember is that this was Pete's original 2-track master. I can't remember the year this came out, but I'm pretty sure it was prior to 1993. I'll check tonight when I get home.

The sound was much, much better than the original Polydor CD issue.

 

Hmm...I used to have that set, and I find that story a bit hard to believe. In particular, there were some *terrible* glitches, notably between Overture and 1921, and between Tommy's Holiday Camp and We're Not Gonna Take It. Large pops...

Unfortunately I got rid of those CDs long ago, so I can't comment on the sound in general, but those pops really stick out in my mind...

 

I'm a little confused about your mention of new converters, Jamie. I thought "The Nylon Curtain" master is digital. What would have to be converted?

 

Someone posted a question earlier on which never got answered as far as I can tell, but I'd like to hear the answer:

How do you know which CD's are flat transfers? Do you have inside information, or are you just guessing because it sounds un-futzed-with?

 

These are the questions I asked at the top of the thread. So far, none of the vocal "flat transfer" advocates has stepped up to the plate. C'mon people!

The only thing I can gather is that "flat transfer" is being used to mean "cd produced sometime in the 1980's".

 

The John Denver Windsong CD came out in 1998 on BMG Special Products.

 

Converters In Digital Mastering

I mix everything to 24/96 but everything I've had mastered has been put back through an analog chain. This is quite common. Very few great mastering engineers use a strictly digital signal path. Most of them want to include some tube processing even if it's just a line amplifier. I have even seen guys pass the audio through a Manley Variable Mu compressor set without any compression just to get the tube sound.

Hank Williams, the mastering engineer I use, masters the first song of a project twice... Once all digital and once all analog. He picks the best of the two for the route he takes with the album. With my mixes he has always chosen analog. In the process he'll pick the converters that sound the best for the project.

 

Thanks Jamie.

 

You can run digital tapes through a reconversion. If you don't plan to do anything to the sound, it is rather pointless, though.

Roger Nichols is the only engineer I can think of that would master entierly in the digital donain.

 

Yeah, you're right. If you're 100% happy with the way it sounds then I would just do a digital transfer to your DAW or whatever you use to compile the master on. I haven't had that happen on an unmastered mix yet. I thought there were a couple of things that were perfect until Hank just ran them through a class A tube line amp and some great converters. No EQ or compression. It sounded markedly better.

Glenn Meadows mastered something of mine completely digitally. Sounded like it too. There was nothing wrong with it. He did a good job. I think I missed the harmonics and color of the analog gear.

I like some tube juice on my stuff and just don't think an all digital chain has been created that is as good as some class A analog gear. Sometimes just running a mix through an old Neve 1073 module or nice tube stage will give it more depth.

 

Not necessarily, Mike. Warner Bros, early on in the CD age, did master many of their albums flat to CD. Yes, I'm sure there are many exceptions, but those first CDs from the Warner companies were by and large flat transfers, and because of it, IMO many sound like crap. Sure, if you have the chops, patience, and gear, you can coax some sweet sound from those early discs. Another giveaway, especially on comps, is when the tracks sound very different from one another. Foreigner Records jumps from pleasant to bright to dull sounding all in the same disc. The album doesn't coalesce well - it sounds like a collection of songs rather than an album.

Other WB discs sound like they've been mastered to me. Best Of The Doobies and The Eagles Greatest Hits sound great in their early incarnations, and each track sounds similar tone-wise.

The target disc thread contains a ton of these discs. Definitely eye candy, but not always ear candy. Dire Straits Brothers In Arms is a great example of that.

Some London discs (Stones in particular) are supposedly flat transfers. I've relied on others observations, since I don't have access to tapes. Steve says they sound like the tapes... FWIW, I prefer the London Let It Bleed to the new remaster, though it does need a little work. The low-level kick drum (I think?) in the left channel on the remaster (beginning of title track) is squashed into oblivion, making me wonder what else they did to the sound. And it sounds like they lightly NR'd it too (though I can't prove that).

Also, it's been said that the aluminum and UD1 MFSL discs are flat transfers. UD II discs are flat in many cases too, but others are mastered usually with additional EQ. I don't know if that's accurate, but I've heard it repeated here a few times. Some of my UD1 discs bear this out - they sound unprocessed and raw (Lynyrd Skynyrd Second Helping is a perfect example).

Anyway, you can more or less tell in some cases. For instance, when I first heard Yes 90125 and Pete Townshend Empty Glass (on West German target CDs), I felt relatively sure that I was hearing a flat transfer. Same with Pretenders S/T (which sounds exactly like the 1st press US vinyl) and Pretenders Learning To Crawl.

Ultimately, I prefer my discs be mastered (not just transferred), of course by a skilled engineer.

 

All of these posts beg the obvious question: what, exactly, do we want our CDs to sound like?

1. As close as possible to the sound the artists and producers heard and wanted when they decided the record was done.

2. As close as possible to the sound created by the magic mastering skills that brought the CD that little bit closer to the artists' intentions.

3. As close as possible to the sound created by the magic mastering skills that made the CD sound better to our ears but may or may not have been in line with the artists' intentions.

4. As close as possible to the sound we personally enjoy most.

If Jamie wants tube juice on his masters, should we want the CD to sound like what he hears and wants, or should we look for a tweaked mastering that has more juice, or less? If Steely Dan, Gary Katz, and Roger Nichols sign off on a master that has a midrange notch, do we want a CD that matches that sound, or one that "fixes" the midrange notch because that sounds better to us?

I'm reading a very interesting book right now called Behind The Glass, in which a group of articulate and accomplished record producers talk about their work. Given the astonishing time and energy these people put into the sound of a record, and the extraordinary attention to detail, and most of all the artistry of *their* work with the recording artists, I'm thinking I want to hear what they did, not what I think they ought to have done. My way may be a "better" way, to me, but not all art is participatory. Sometimes I just want to learn what another human being wants to say.

So I guess that means 1 or 2 for me, and that's what *I* would mean by a "flat transfer." Help if help is needed--that is, if the original master tape has obvious problems, as in the case of the Mamas and Papas recordings--but by and large just a clean window onto the sound the artists wanted.

So, within the limits of our knowledge, which CDs seem to you to be a faithful representation of the original recording, without revisionary EQ or compression or limiting or no-noising?

 

I think you're exactly, 100% right on target with your assessment. I see music as a time capsule. If you see a movie from the 30's you'd expect it to look like it was from the 30's. That's why we got dinked off at Ted Turner for colorizing all those old movies. Music is the same way. If I create something in 1966 (when I was -5) then it should sound like it. I want all my influences to be represented and that's where it should stay. If I re-did the music or even re-mixed it today there will be new influences which will make me make different decisions as to how it will sound. I know this is a pretty philosophical point to be making but from what you've written you agree with it too.

In my examples, I created the product with the artist. Part of what they heard in their head was something that I brought to the table with my mixes, musical ideas and arrangements. That's why they gave me the gig. And I trust my mastering engineer so much I allow his input to make the most of what I give him. It's very important to me to have that outside opinion of a great engineer like Hank or Steve or whom ever you're working with. I would never expect anyone else to have the same criteria or influences for their projects. That's the human element that makes music so special.

 

One more thought on this. As part of the creative team you never know if what you're creating will be played for a month or 200 years so we have to get it as close as possible to the final product as possible so when the inevitable remaster comes out (without any input from the original creative team) they will have a master that represents the intentions of the artist. No saving it in the mastering. That usually winds up as killing it in the mastering.

So when Steve remasters an album like the Zombies Greatest Hits he doesn't have to guess what the group would have wanted. All he as to do is put a spit shine on the tapes and present it as clean and clear as he can, which is a hard enough job. The master tapes are represented without any additional "production" ideas from the mastering engineer. This is why Steve is so good. He even references original releases to see what was first heard and presents it to us as pure and unaltered as he can.

 

Re: 80's CD's

Why 1993? Any special reason?

 

That's when digital limiting became popular although it started appearing earlier than that.

 

Digital limiting is a GOOD thing?

My understanding of that comment is that the CDs made after 1993 are somehow better.

 

Oh sure. If you want to actually read it and understand what he was meaning.

Then I have no idea why post 1993.

 

Well, some might argue (certainly not me) that such things as digital limiting actually ARE good...but I would guess that those people aren't too interested in this board, or this topic!

 

No need to guess, as a former MoFi employee confirmed that they were indeed flat transfers.

Note that many/most UDII discs that had a UD counterpart are simply clones of the UD originals.

 

(Circa) 1993 because that's when (to my ears) CD's started to sound fairly good. Most discs prior to that seem to lack dynamic range and always sound very thin and/or clouded.

Naturally, there are always exceptions.

 

Oh.I can see your point. That seems to be around the time when remastering started.

 

Lack of dynamic range? I'd say if anything, older discs would generally have *more* dynamic range...

I've heard plenty of old CDs that are anything but thin.

 

I'd agree here with Luke. Somehow the "flat-transfer" albums sound more musical as opposed to the over use of eq./overly compressed remasters that sound artificial and very, shall we say overly enhanced.

Dean, to answer one of your questions.....yes, the more improvements that you make on your system, the better these flat transfers sound and the worse the remastered versions seem to sound, at least that's MHO and please don't think I'm speaking about "every" album as there can be exceptions to any rule.

 

Don't get me wrong. I despise some of the abominations that pass as "remasters".

The WB Van Halen remasters sound horrendous compared to the original WB issues.

Don't even get me started on John Astley's work.

I prefer a nice smooth sound as much as the next guy, but I think some of these older discs just sound horrendous. The engineer grabbed any safety copy lying around and just dumped it down to disc.


BTW, Luke, the London Aftermath blows the ABKCO remaster out of the water. No idea how or why that album that sounds so much worse on the new disc when things like Beggars and Satanic sound gorgeous.