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

And my favorite Cream song Crossroads which sounds incredible.

 

That sounds nice. It has some body to it.

 

What was the very special project you hinted at a while back? It's understandable if you can't say, but hopefully you can expound... Maybe a sneaky hint?

 

This is the Joe Palmaccio mastering of the same "Crossroads" song.


If the first I posted is by Steve Hoffman it sounds very detailed with a sort of crispy clarity with very little warmth.

But the Palmaccio version has the dreaded 2.5kHz gain in the male vocal which I've discovered in my own DIY remastering is a VERY hard frequency range to detect when it gets too hot as it is buried/blended in male vocals and spikes harshly in loud vowel sound crescendo's. I have to walk away and let my ears adapt. And as usual I went too far and have to pull down this frequency with my 31 band AUGraphic EQ. It's a nasty sound where it can hurt my ears if played too loud listening on studio monitor headphones.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's "What's Your Name" lead vocal is a perfect example of this. I still can't get it balanced right in order to bring out the background instruments.

 

Yes, that is from the DCC.

 

Thanks for the confirmation. Been having a hard time finding an A/B example from our host on YouTube. I only have the one Ray Charles instrumental CD that Steve mastered but I don't know what it sounded like before his "Golden Touch".

I wonder why our host doesn't present more examples to A/B against. I've been participating in these forums for at least a year and I can't understand why he doesn't seem to want to toot his own horn by showing how he thinks an album should sound.

YouTube is crawling with DIY folks who are glad to oblige. Most of them sound like crap!

 

He's a professional and he doesn't want to shame other engineers. Notice that even when he mentions an engineer whose style he dislikes, such as Bill Inglot, he has equal or greater praise for his work. Very classy. It's easy to say "this sucks" but when discussing your colleagues it gets dicey - especially when you're the host of a forum that's often about mastering.

 

Wait: this is the edited version.
I don't have the DCC Wheels Of Fire. Is the edited version on that, too?

 

I can't confirm, but the video description does say it was edited by the uploader. However this could just be referring to the video.

 

Sorry- missed that. Thanks.

 

I'd say wait for an expert to confirm! I didn't even know there was an edited version of "Crossroads". I just saw "edited by" in the video description.

 

The DCC is not edited. It was edited by the uploader:

"Edited by Music Planet for guitar players."

 

And you know this from what authority?

I mean really, I saw what our host was quoted on his thoughts "without permission" about RSV sound quality in his early recording of Jazz greats article.
Oh and let me add that I totally agreed with Steve even though I was laughing at his specificity.

 

Perhaps in an interview (and I know he is outspoken about his issues with jazz recording). But I read through this entire thread and he specifically abstained from naming mastering engineers in a negative light and the ones he did name he said many good things about - even if he doesn't like their style. I've seen posts where he discusses meeting audiophile unfavorite Vlado Meller and had nothing but kind words for him.

Yes, I'm sure he does name engineers and take them to task for bad work. But he is often very professional about it. If he commented on this Palmaccio remaster, I'd guess he would word it along the lines of "maybe not what I would have done - I'd take out X dB of Y range - but I'm sure he was getting orders from above blah blah blah."

 

There isn't. I just didn't read the description in YouTube. I thought there might be an edited 45- like "Sunshine Of Your Love"-, but doing some quick research, there isn't any 'official' edited version. I know that some "oldies" stations would play a shortened one (back in the day when there WERE "oldies" AM stations!). So disregard my post!

 

Ah, gotcha. I love Cream but I haven't followed the discography of edits and mixes like I do for my favorite artists. In the '60s, they would edit ANYTHING!! So an edit of this 4-minute song wouldn't surprise me.

 

But I wasn't specifically asking Steve to criticize another engineer. I was asking why he doesn't provide A/B examples of his work. There's not a lot of folks here including myself who know what he thinks something should sound like. I mean saying he wants the singer to sound like a human doesn't really give me an idea what that means.

 

Okay, I see what you mean now. But I still think he doesn't want to disparage other engineers. He might not be saying Billy Jones mastered X album, but if he puts a comparison mastered by Billy Jones against his own work and says "this is what SHOULD be done", everyone can fill in the blanks and, by human nature, it will be interpreted as "Billy Jones did it wrong". Mr. Hoffman is very outspoken about many things but he's very respectful of his peers, even if their work is as bad as Billy Jones's. (If there actually is a mastering engineer named Billy Jones, forgive me, I just made up the name. This Billy Jones seems like the kind of guy who would goose the 8k range by about 6 dB and suck out all the mids though. Damn it, Billy!)

 

All anyone has to do is describe a sound they hear which is what I did between Steve's DCC Crossroads vs Palmaccio's . If someone hears something different that isn't meant as a criticism or insult. Within copyright guidelines it's considered as fair use anyway.

From the album sales of what suffices for the general public's sound quality demands no one gives a rat's patootie about what frequency is too hot. IOW no sales are going to be affected except the small group of audiophile enthusiasts.

Talking about this and showing with examples actually can increase sales because it helps take away the black ops suspicion that a label just want's to sell the same album again for the tenth time.

 

The first one that you posted actually to my ears has a little more warmth and the sound is more rounded and full.
Air with a little bit something extra to reinforce what could have been done in mastering the many times
the master has been previously done. Everything sits right.
Who knows what SH did to it, but it's the nicest I've ever heard the song.
Way more musical interplay is easily detected. Sounds like tape and the live sound is correct.

I get what you're saying about the Palmaccio one.
My ears get standoffish really quick with some certain enhanced frequencies also.
Also with some compression on some masterings.

 

Yeah, and your reasoning for wanting that is fair. I just don't think our host would want to do so for the reasons I gave.

When he does offer EQ recommendations, though, it's a real treat. He offered advice on how to beef up the "ugly pink" Kinks CD and how to de-Ryko the Ryko sonic character. Monumental information for someone like me who until just recently struggled mightily with EQ.

I think our host is too polite and respectful toward his colleagues to do that regularly, though.

 

In some interview years ago Clapton said he is embarrassed because his guitar solo of Crossroads is one beat off. He didn't hear the others but that's in my opinion makes solo interesting. It took me quite many hours to understand and to find what he meant. Lucky mistake, I'd say.

 

You're right about the warmth in the first one. It's there but I had listened at a lower volume and first zero'ed in on Clapton sounding distant and thin with his guitar sounding very detailed for the room it appears to be recorded in.

Raised the volume on my MacMini and it scales perfectly in bass, guitar and natural live reverb with Clapton more up front. So if it is our host's mastering then he masters so it can be heard correctly (with realism) at any volume.

On Palmaccio's when Clampton sings "DOWN" to the crossroads" I have to wince when I crank it up to max volume which isn't that loud for the rest of it, so there's some balance issues. They both sound good overall.

 

Also it's a recording from 1968. So it's gonna sound like a recording from 1968.

But that's the cool way SH masters. He's not gonna take a 1974 recording and try to propel
the sound of it into the future. He's gonna take you to 1974.

I get it. I get a lot of stuff now; being here for awhile.