SH Spotlight Recording and Mastering Questions---Answered here. Any more?

When mastering or remastering a live concert, is it ever difficult to decide as to where the next track should begin on the CD (0:00), as some have applause that continues right to that track.

 

Steve, in a July 2005 sh.tv thread titled "Mastering CD's as if they were vinyl," you wrote;

>>Other than summing the bass under 70 cycles, I master everything the same,
>>LP or CD mainly.

Can you describe the process and equipment used to sum the bass for LP cutting? Is it a capability of the cutting lathe? Are there any problems (with phase, etcetera) caused by doing it?

Thanks,

John
Vancouver BC

 

That's very easy to do. You just listen to the whole concert and watch your timer. Write down where you want track breaks. So, it will look like,

1. 3:04
2. 6:31
3: 12:01
4: 21:33
5: 25:51

Until your program is done. Then just write up a cue file and test it. Use EAC to burn?

 

I'd say it's just a judgement call. Whatever seems right at the time...

 

Steve, I asked because I noticed that your Sinatra Seattle '57 has slightly differing track intros than the unofficial 1995 Ed O'Brien CD.

 

Actually I was thinking of what I understood to have happened on one of the Who's Next remasters done over in London last decade, where certain tracks are supposed to have been remixed and the whole album remastered. Would one having access to multitracks be applying EQ to a particular one or ones in preparing it for dubbing to a master, or would that be reserved for adjustments during the mastering?

Re. EQ being changes to tonality: when one "turns up the bass" on a EQ are they not raising the volume of that end of the spectrum?

Thanks, Steve, for this thread!

 

At what reference level to 250nw/m?

I've had problems with printing at the suggested +9/250. Ampex 499 used to take +4 or +5 very well but these newer tapes at +9 just compress the hell out of things.

 

Steve,

What do you do about aligning azimuth when remastering? Are those old tapes usually on when played back on a properly aligned machine?

Also, what about tape speed? How do you make sure it's right? Do you use a tuner? strobe light of some sort? Compare it with other issues of the album?

 

Steve, Would you mind answering a question about record pressing in this thread.

When the lacquer is cut on the lathe it is then plated up to form a positive metal copy of the lacquer. I believe this positive metal copy is called the metal master (MM). Is it true that for very small production runs the MM is used as the stamper? For larger runs I believe a metal negative copy of the MM is made and then that metal negative copy is used to make the metal stampers (which are positive copies). Is this how it works and what is the intermediate negative metal copy called?

 

Well here's another, what happens with those wonky old 60's mixes where they go mad and pan the bass all over to one side and drums the other, for example?

No point in summing the channels here, do you have to just cut the sub 70Hz bass altogether.

This is a great thread, BTW, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

JJ

 

Yes, I have a mastering question. This may sound odd but why do I have to turn up the volume on cds you've mastered. I'm serious as a heartattack. Things you've mastered are consistantly better sounding but require more volume than....those other peoples stuff. Why so?

 

For an extreme example of this listen to Mother's Little Helper on the Aftermath SACD. Listen to the right channel only. Notice how there's all the bottom end from the rhythm track in the left channel?

Now listen to the right channel of the London CD - total separation.

Most instances of this on LP aren't quite so extreme, but that one is easy to spot.

 

Sput, I believe it's because Steve doesn't compress the music to death when he is mastering. Most new Cds are as loud as they are due to excessive limiting and compressing. The modern mode of thought with Cds is "louder is better" but the music will suffer from over use of compression and limiting.

Frank R

 

Steve, can you elaborate further on what you said before about bad bass response with faster tape speeds? I've never really understood why this would be so; seems like the only real change would be in the high end (for the better, in that case -- additional "headroom" in effect to more accurately accomodate that part of the signal, plus the benefit of much less noise on that generation of tape). Why exactly would that change the way the bass portions store and/or reproduce on those faster tapes, or are there other unrelated factor(s) that attribute to that?

 

Luke you're right,

I compared both when the SACD's came out, you can hear some weird bass effect going on there, especially on the SACD Paint It Black.
Although with all the screwing around that occured with Aftermath, its difficult to tell quite why we hear what we hear.

Is it simply narrowed stereo or is just the low bass centred by filtering and combining with the opposite channel, or a bit of both. Who Knows?

Im half sure when cutting the original vinyl, they didn't filter the low bass and pan it to the opposite channel to achieve mono bass did they?? (although I dont have a Decca stereo to refer to)

Cheers,
JJ

 

Even when I do studio stuff with crossfades, it's a judgement call.

 

This is what we, on SH.tv, always gripe about...the lack of dynamics in todays CDs. A tape with a lot of dynamics will sound that way on the CD if steps to alter that are not used. So, the CD will be quieter because the quieter portions will be quieter in contrast to the louder spots. Did that make sense?

Todays CDs are typically boosted with compression. Steve does not do this. Be glad.

 

Thanks for doing this Steve -- I have ALWAYS wanted to ask you the following:

You advertise that your work on The Eagles Greatest Hits and Ronstadt etc are from "the origional master tapes" But isn't that a misnomer? -- how can there be a master tape for a greatest hits package? -- it would assume that some engineer pulls the "hits" off of the origional masters and assembles a new tape -- but it's all 2nd generaltion, at least. AND -- who knows that when preparing the greatest hits package that the origional tapes were used in the first place? -- a greatest hits package could easily be assembled from 3rd or 4th generation tapes thereby creating a greatest hits master that is far from the origional source.

Isn't it true that the only way to do a greatest hits package properly is to revisit the actual masters of the actual albums?

 

I believe that's what Steve did.