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

You prefer Moonbeams SACD to the XRCD?

 

Was the XRCD on the table? I thought that was a OJC or SACD thread.

 

That's why I asked ‘the best’.

 

That's what I am saying, in the context of the thread, those were the best.

No, if you mean the best of any mastering, that would be something different. Is that what you meant?

 

I meant to have asked the absolute best.

 

CD please.

 

Just found this:

That list was helpful one day when I found a bunch of XRCDs in a local used shop.

 

For sure.

 

Steve,

Why do we have no quality CCR releases with the single mixes? Would love to see your take on ‘Chronicle’ or ‘Gold’ done right.

 

Who selected the Palbo titles for APO 45 that you mastered? You or anyone else?

 

Steve, he may have meant "the original mono single mixes", which were all released on a 2-CD set some years ago now on Fantasy called "The Singles Collection", which sadly in my opinion, was mastered badly with no real bottom end, thusly leaving the songs sounding terribly flat and lifeless.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - The Singles Collection

 

Also needlessly digitally compressed.

 

I don't think there were many dedicated mono mixes. All of the mono CCR 45s I've heard sound like fold-downs to me.

 

How does one design a stereo mix that's intended to be folded? What considerations are there?

 

By NOT doing this?

You take a stereo mix and combine the channels L+R to make mono. This throws the mix out of whack because whatever music information is in the left or right channel goes down 3 db while what is in the center stays at the same volume.

Your mix goes to hell.

Imagine a song that the music track is on the left and the horns are on the right and there is singing in the center. When you combine the channels (or "fold" them into each other) the crucial music drops in volume leaving the singer out there with his weenie in the wind. Bad news.

 

So I guess that tells me what not to do.

My original guess was that you would want to make a fairly "narrow" mix to begin with, without anything panned too hard to the right or the left, and without (obviously) any sort of modulation that pans from right to left.

Is there more to it than that?

 

Start with a mono mix and then spread it out to make stereo?