SH Spotlight I was asked "What album have I mastered the most?" I had to really think about it..

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Steve Hoffman, Apr 14, 2022.

  1. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Wheels Of Fire was prac. destroyed by this. Take a master tape, play it on to a takeup reel at 15 ips. Nice even packing. Store it that way until next time, tails out.

    Uneven rewind, take that same tape and rewind it at fast speed so it's heads out. The tape is not packed evenly. After being stored like that for 20 years or more, warped, uneven sound, etc. Engineer error. Common but not tragic, just stupid.
     
  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Do you mean "yellow" as in vintage LP promo sent to radio stations and hi-fi stores in the 1950's or do you mean the yellow of the commercial labels from the 1980s? I'm confused. Can you take a photo?
     
  3. Ok, I'm going to say 80s because vintage promo just doesn't fit the description..at least from my memory and it looks too new to be anything else. I'll try to get some photos when I'm home.
     
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  4. thestereofan

    thestereofan Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose
    It is my favorite SACD. So smooth and lively. They really knew how to record back then and it shows on this offering.

    When listening to this my Mom came in and told me a story about when she was in New York in 1957. She had just moved there all alone, met some friends and liked to go to music clubs all dressed up in the smoky atmosphere. So anyway she walked into a small unknown place and sat. This man walked out, got to his piano and started playing with one cigarette after another in his mouth. She said she had no idea who he was, there was no one else in the club really and to her he was just amazing. It was some guy named Nat King Cole. She want back again and again to listen. No band. No one but him alone.

    Personally I think Nat King Cole has the best male voice in all of music. And Karen Carpenter has the best female voice.

    So Steve, we listen to your wonderful recordings together. We sing along with them and it is a great bonding experience for us. Love you brother.
     
  5. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Thank you for that! Much appreciated.
     
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  6. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Looking forward to it.
     
  7. I found this old Canuck-pressed beauty at a flea-market for a buck last summer, stone-mint. Mono-mixed & I'm guessing it uses US metal for the pressing, which you sometimes find with Canadian LPs. Sounds phenomenal either way, just sooooo lush.
    Nat King Cole - Love Is The Thing
     
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  8. thestereofan

    thestereofan Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose
    You are the best Steve. Thank you for this wonderful forum. I come here 3 or 4 times a day. So much fun.
     
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  9. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Glad to have you here.
     
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  10. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    As far as I know (which ain't much) the Canadian version AND the EMI/England version both use stampers made in Hollywood for this important album. That's not always the case, but here, it was... So the sound would match. Could be the German version is also from USA plates..
     
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  11. I also find Canadian LPs pressed with UK metalwork once in a while. Mostly from the mid-1940's to late 1960's, especially classical records.
     
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  12. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    The early Angel Capitol USA releases did one better. They were pressed by EMI/UK and then shipped over here to be put in American made covers. Those records sound great. They stopped doing that by 1968, sadly.
     
  13. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Well, I'm glad it was the Cole recordings...I would have felt bad for you if it were some of those '80s singles you guys released in comps more than a couple of times.
     
  14. LouChang

    LouChang her brother (but nobody's bro)

    Location:
    US
    I still wish you could give Nat's The Magic of Christmas/The Christmas Song album this treatment. The original 1986 CD sounds like crap and the perennially repackaged 1999 remix is Norberg-no-noised. They keep "re-imagining" the album but it simply needs to be properly remixed and mastered.

    I treasure my Love Is the Thing, The Very Thought of You and The Nat King Cole Story SACDs.
     
  15. minkahed

    minkahed Forum Resident

    What an informative, lucid and intelligent post. Thank you Steve Hoffman. It's posts and replies like this why I keep coming on back. :)

    One thing I would really like to know, or if you could recall, if RCA Victor was making so much money on "Stereo" already as early 1956, why were the Elvis Presley sessions all done in "Mono" ???
     
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  16. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Audiophiles of 1956 had no interest in spending $17.50 of 1956 money for Elvis. Classical, pop orchestra stuff. C'mon, you know that.
     
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  17. FlorentinePogen

    FlorentinePogen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin, Texas
    You can't get this content everywhere. It's moments like this that show how much of a force for good the internet can be at times. Here, you have a bunch of audiophiles who are able to ask a master of the craft questions about our favorite master tapes and about their sound. Just unreal. You're the man for hosting us, Steve!
     
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  18. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Okay! Glad someone found this interesting. I usually feel I'm talking to a wall. Glad people are getting something out of this but I don't know what good it can do. What's done is done. Maybe some up and coming engineer won't make that mistake when dealing with vintage analog tapes..
     
  19. indigovic

    indigovic (Taylor’s Version)

    Location:
    North Bend, WA
    Thanks for that. On a related note, have you ever had major issues with magnetic printthrough (https://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/3mtape/printthrough.pdf for those who don’t know what it is)? How bad can it really get, and what do you do about it when it’s present?
     
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  20. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Tape print through? No, I haven’t. Never been an issue but it does happen.
     
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  21. Joy-of-radio

    Joy-of-radio Forum Resident

    Location:
    Central ME
    Magnetic bleeding is strange and thankfully relatively uncommon in my experience. I bought a compact disc two-fer of Ohio Express / Chewy, Chewy by 'Ohio Express' on Wounded Bird Records CAT# WOU 5018 that used a master tape displaying this odd phenomenon. Between songs, one can hear faintly parts of a song playing forwards. It's still a pleasant sounding affair though and good fun!
    [​IMG]
     
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  22. Joy-of-radio

    Joy-of-radio Forum Resident

    Location:
    Central ME
    Yep! Growing up with open-reel machines, I've seen more unevenly wound tapes than I care to recall.
     
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  23. mBen989

    mBen989 Senior Member

    Location:
    Scranton, PA
    Here's what he said.
     
  24. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    What a great voice he had. Sorta like the Claude Rains of jazz.

    Gone far too soon.

    :(
     
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  25. Grego

    Grego Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I wish we got more of these stories and pinned them. Maybe keep them pinned for a week or two to give people a chance to see them. I’ve been a member here for almost 20 years and have purchased almost every digital product Steve has put out since then. Even a few lps, because why not. I love reading about the history of an album then listening to it. I almost always get something new out of the recording and enjoy it all.

    Of course our host is already generous with his time and I wouldn’t want to impose an additional burden, if he felt it was. If Steve enjoys this, please give us more.
     

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