SH Spotlight I'm asked stuff: Favorite mastering engineer, best BOSTON CD, best TRAVELING WILBURYS CD, etc..

Are you referring to the 2006 Japanese issue or something more recent?

 

Do you mentor any young remastering engineers?
Are there any young remastering engineers?

 

Not the 2006 issue,
but 2016 STEREO SOUND series.

 

A long time ago....

 

Where there ever any plans to release more The Byrds albums in mono for Audio Fidelity. Also where there any plans to release Warren Zevon's self titled album for Audio Fidelity. If there were, it's a shame it didn't come through.

 

I've long wondered why a lot of late '60s-early '70s LPs have an unusually dull, muffled sound to them.

Examples include:
• the first two Nesmith/FNB albums on RCA
• "The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands"
• The Blue Magoos "Basic Blue Magoos"

Why is this the case? Were the mixes or mastering done on overly bright monitors? Were there so many track bounces done that there was a perceived need to reduce tape hiss?

 

It almost sounds like someone is flipping the springs on the snare on and off.

 

The Sammy Davis tape oxide anecdote brings up a question. You often work with very old tapes, and I'm sure that problems inevitably happen sometimes. When a master tape is licensed for remastering/reissuing by a third party (ie: AF), what kind of liability insurance is involved? What happens if a tape gives up the ghost while it's in your possession?

 

God dang hippie!

 

Amazing gate fold of the gold bikini .Still remember it from my dad's records when I was like 10.

 

Actually Steve, your 1962 Buick Skylark should have had an American-made aluminum block engine unless it was replaced at a later date. I bet it was blast to drive. Although it was a great engine, it got too expensive to manufacture so GM sold the design/manufacturing rights to Rover in 1963 and they continued to put it into Land Rovers & MGs for many decades. There's a story on it in it's Wiki page. Makes for a great read.

 

I want to see this quoted when I type your name in Google.

 

I think you mentioned this in some old posts on Joni Mitchell's Blue and Court and Spark. Something about the solid state console at the time sounding very hard. The tube playback on the DCC reissues make a pretty big difference.

 

Why did vinyl become flimsy in the 1980's? Was it to save money? Too many records breaking due to being dropped? Man I took out some of my 80's vinyl like Journey's Escape and it feels like you can bend it in half without breaking. LOL.

 

Great thread.

I didn't think I was going to have a question, but I do. If you're going to master something that you're not familiar with, do you spend any time with it, to learn it or is that not necessary?

Thanks,