Bernie Grundman thoughts on mastering BLUE NOTE Rudy Van Gelder master tapes

Nice resurrection!

 

The best example I know of is the last track on John Coltrane's "Lush Life" splatter city! I remember Steve you said that was a difficult track to master to vinyl. When i play some RVG cuts, i often wonder if he had problems cutting some of those. How did he keep his cutter from not burning out with tracks with that high freq overload.

Peace,
Jake

 

Ah. I should of known that! Thanks Steve.

Peave,
Jake

 

Very nice thread and discussion. Wondering if in case of APO releases of BN titles for SACD and CD layer is it the same mastering, but just different output format or it's the same transfer and mastering?

 

Is it safe to say that if a Contemporary stereo master has pre-recorded echo, the mono master of the same title has it, too?
(And did Dunann and Holzer record dry in the mono-0nly period?)

 

Yes, and RVG's limiter is very audible as all hell. Not to mention that limiter was closer to an oscillator than it was a limiting amplifier. That limiter needed to be repaired if not outright replaced many, many years ago. I've heard better clapped out, abused in their past old Gates Sta-Level and Level Devils which sounded a lot less nasty in small town AM station service. And needed repair if not outright replacement. Those old Blue Note classics quite often were very splattery and less than .1 db away from burning up a cutting head with all that HF overload distortion if not outright out of band oscillation nasties, that heavy filtering above 10k is the only thing which had to have kept him from killing off cutting heads.