SH Spotlight Hey gang, guess what? Some of your most favorite albums in the world use tape dubs as masters..

Waiting For The Bus / Jesus Just Left Chicago ?

 

Steve, I get that the "masters" sometimes are a blend of multiple other tapes recorded onto the new "master tape". But at the end of that retaping and blending process there is a discrete master that is used to make the lacquer. A copy of that tape, is not a master....

 

Thanks for the info Steve. It makes sense.

I don’t even want to think about this in relation to Moody Blues albums.

 

It’s late here and I’m too tired to imagine what was going on with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.

 

Those of us who started out recording to cassette, and later 4 and 8 track cassette (!) understand this implicitly. I hear cassette is coming back.

 

That’s incorrect. The segue is a recording of a cross fade between the two masters recorded on a third machine, then that clip ONLY is insert-edited between the two cuts. only for the duration of the cross-fade.

How so many can be so sure with so little experience.

CBS doesn’t throw out the originals.

Dubs are not masters.

 

I struggled with the language. I'll try again. You are saying, I think, that a master tape can be a rerecording of two or more discrete tapes to blend multiple and unique recordings onto one tape. That copy of tapes, is the finished album, and the "master tape". And it is that master tape that is used to make the lacquer that ultimately results in records that are copies of that master tape. However, a copy of that master tape, is not a master....

Is that clear?

 

As I understand it, there were so many generations involved with a typical all-analog production chain that one more or one less isn't really all that significant.

You start with original recordings on multi-tracks. In the '60s, maybe you bounce down tracks to make room for more, in which case you have one or more generations of loss before you even get to the final mix.

Mix down to stereo or mono (or worse, mix to stereo and then fold to mono, two generations of loss).

Safety copies are made from the master mix tape.

Lacquer is cut from whatever tape the cutting engineer is given, usually a copy, sometimes not even a first-generation copy, of the master tape.

Stampers are made from the lacquer after it's plated. (Not sure, should the plating count as another generation?)

Record are pressed with the stampers.

So what is that, something like six generations? Maybe only five in the best case if you cut using the original master rather than a safety? Maybe more if you cut from a tape that was actually a copy of a copy of the master?

And then there's the additional problem that as more records are made, the stampers wear, and as more stampers are made from the lacquer, it wears also.

With all this, should I really be worrying about whether the tape called the original master is actually a dub to facilitate cross-fades between songs?

 

On Close To You by the Carpenters, "Mr. Guder" fades into "I Kept On Loving You." "I Kept On Loving You" appears as a clean start on the flip side of the "Close To You" 45. It appears that this is one instance where a tape of the clean intro does still exist in some fashion, as the clean intro is intact on the Carpenters Complete Singles comp.

I do have to wonder about "Maybe It's You," as there is a repeating piano note played over the outro of "Love Is Surrender," segueing into "Maybe It's You." When "Maybe It's You" was included later on as the flip side of the "Hurting Each Other" 45, it was included with a clean opening, but without the repeating piano note intro.

From what I've read, there was so much overdubbing on those early Carpenters albums anyway for the harmonies and all (I believe they were 8-track in the early days) that it probably doesn't make that much of a difference. But a very interesting point for sure, Steve! Something I never really considered!

 

There are some great cross-fade moments on many classic analog albums and knowing how they’re made doesn’t diminish my enjoyment one bit. I like hamburgers too but I have no desire to visit the meat processing plant.

 

I don't think they "blend together"... one just starts immediately after the other. I could be wrong.

 

I got it. That's what I understood. Sorry I couldn't articulate it.

 

That's what I recall too. It's a sudden cut, not a cross-fade. Though whether they created that effect by splicing or dubbing, I don't know. You could do it either way, I think.

 

Yeah, but by the time it dawned on me, my 30 minute window had closed.
I remembered how even live, Billy and Dusty came to a dead stop...split second...Jesus begins.

 

The album rips. All that matters.

 

For the cutting master, since the mastering moves are built in, does that mean the cutting master cannot be used as a source for remastering, since you cannot undo the moves that are baked into the tape?

 

Every Moody Blues record ever, then?

 

Another example is "Ride My See Saw" by The Moody Blues. The single has the clean drum intro, where the album fades "Departure" into it.

edit: I just listened to the single, it starts after the drum intro but I have heard a version with the clean drum intro. But regardless, Departure continues well past the drum intro.

 

Wow.....I never ever gave this any thought. Incredibly interesting!! Curious though, other than the tape dub aspect, is there any other reason you dislike one sing fading into the other? I'm kinda mixed on it...it's great when you're listening to an uninterrupted album side but very annoying when you're programming on a CD. But now I'll be conscious of the tape dub thing forever.

 

The version with the drum intro is from the 1974 "This Is The Moody Blues" compilation album.