Note from Steve, Tullman isn't happy with me over a recommendation. Your thoughts?

I threw my equalizer out years ago.
I am, generally happy to hear what the artist wanted me to.
Occasionally I feel like they should have done this or that, but I never got anywhere, so who am i.

Most albums sound good in their own context, if they haven't been flatlined

 

late to the thread, but re 'unmastered/mastered/original final mix'.... I've been in bands for 40 years, to varying levels of success. The thing I say to friends who are in 'fun' bands and pay for going into recording srudios is this - all of your favourite records, everything you hold up as sounding great, everything you want to emultate - not one of them is the 'final mix tape' that the band were happy with out of the studio. All of those tracks/albums/singles that you have in your heads are the mastered versions, not the final mix.

It's why i always suggest that they spend a little extra on their hobby/dream and get things mastered by a professional, preferable one who has worked on acts that they like, enjoy and want to emulate.

 

So? Don't leave us hanging.

Matt, as a mastering engineer, how do you answer your own question? I'm especially interested in the tough calls. Use the Tapestry example in this thread. You get to remaster that recording. You could sweeten its slightly funky midrange. Would you?

 

I love this answer because it gets down to the two different kinds of mastering.

There is the mastering for release, which is what we have in this thread. The master tape has a flaw or two. Do you let that come through, doing a flat transfer, or do you fiddle with it a bit to correct the flaws? That's a great question. (There is also the situation of a master tape that has a major flaw, usually in its tonal balance. I think in that case it's "Katy, bar the door." It is OK for the mastering engineer to do what's necessary to come out with an enjoyable CD, SACD, or phonograph record.)

@SebUK, I think you are primarily talking about the other kind of mastering. The band has recorded a bunch of songs, usually over a period of time, sometimes with different personnel, and maybe in different studios. Somebody has to take these disparate songs and make an album that sounds whole. That's another type of mastering. Level matching, equalization and compression often has to be more extreme to accomplish this. All of these different recordings need to sound as one. Somebody needs to turn these songs into an album. A mastering engineer will do what he or she has to do to make this happen. The end product of this kind of mastering is the master tape.

 

Poor Tullman, where’s my tiny violin?

 

For the most part, I prefer a flat cut to vinyl.

But, there are records that I wish Mr Master added a bit of bass, such as the thin sounding Dusty in Memphis.

 

I have only one thought about this. That is that you should not talk about yourself from a third-person point of view.

 

yes, RCA 1980s US CD of Farewell Andromeda is the best sounding of the RCA CDs...most of them are not up to par...the original mastering that is.
: )

 

As an abstract principle, in an ideal world, I would want to just hear the master tape as it is.

However, in the real world, I think the best description of what I really want is that I want to hear it the way I would choose to master it myself if I had the technical skills to do such work well. (I suspect that's what most of us really want.)

What that probably means in practice is that I would listen to the master tape, hoping that it would sound right and I could just do a flat transfer... but if it turned out to have some irritating defect such as (to use Steve's Tapestry example from page 1) too much mids caused by mixing with mid-weak speakers, I'd want to compensate for that. Or if it had transients so extreme that they would clip if mastered at an otherwise reasonable volume level, I might employ just enough limiting to bring those transients under control. But I wouldn't want it to sound like something the original producer and mix engineer clearly did not intend.

I think what that means is that Steve H. is the kind of guy I want mastering the albums I purchase, because his preferences seem to be similar to mine and he's better at this work than I would be. I do love his DCC Pet Sounds.

 

Another CD that sounds very faithful to the original LP that I highly recommend, the Epic CD of Michael Murphey's Blue Sky Night Thunder album:

 

What does a synthfreek need with a violin...? Man-up and get your patch cables out!

 

well, I prefer "the original intent" of the master stereo mixdown.
I've always thought the time, care and money should go to the mixdown.
That makes the decision to "master" or not......easier.

The final decided mix (and the care taken in it) should be the goal.

 

This is the nub of the issue for me. I want as close to the Master tape as we can get digitally. This is not the same thing as being "faithful to the original LP", since the master for LP has been limited dynamically etc. to fit the medium. Making something sound like the original Vinyl is a retrograde step for me - I just want as good as I can get. By definition, this is not necessarily what the original Vinyl sounded like.

 

Carole King's TAPESTRY 5.1

 

I don't want the master tape unless the master tape sounds great with no extra work. As a historical document, the master tape is an incredible thing, but it's often not the optimal listening experience. Why else would there even be mastering engineers? That cherry on top is necessary most of the time.

 

Bumping this thread.

Seems somehow even more relevant now with some "intelligent thoughts on these subjects".

 

I love music. I love finding the best version of music I love, one that sounds incredible to me. I don't know or understand all of the technical jargon. My analogy about remastering and remixing may not be to the point as others might make but I will say it again. Mastering to me is taking a classic book and reprinting it with an updated cover for a better presentation. Mixing is changing the context and words of the book.

 

What about recovery and revelation of what may be deep in the mix.

 

exactly. this was drivin home comparing the new Art Pepper mono release and how sterile it sounds compared to the original which had some eq done according to SH.

 

That is mastering to me. Mixing is an entire different thing in my opionion. Mastering opens up what is within the mix. Mixing again changes the substance of the album in my opinion, to varying degrees of course

 

Sometimes, I find, the choice is between an 'honest' sounding CD (as Steve describes) or a pleasing sounding one. The Beach Boys Japanese Past Masters discs are honest, painfully honest, but for a pleasant listening experience they're definitely not top of the list for me personally. Remasters are, by an large, just specific EQ's and Compression to 'fix' the flaws of the master tapes (at least in theory and according to the ear of the specific mastering engineer). The results either tickle your fancy or not depending on your tonal preference. The 'honest' CDs - I find a lot of early CDs, 1980s releases of classics on CBS (Epic, Columbia) for example, sound very un-futzed with and 'honest'. This includes the original CBS CD of Tapestry which I think sounds terrific (I haven't heard the SACD)

 

I'm just happy and jealous that @Tullman has a whole thread dedicated to him.

 

BTW, a Sony/Legacy Rock Artifacts comp with Wildfire on it goes back to the original Caribou Ranch master tape which had to be baked for remastering and is even better sounding than this original CD of the album but still, this CD is excellent sounding and sounds just like the 1975 Epic LP, the way this was heard back in the day.