Steely Dan CDs Different Masterings: Katy Lied

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mdekoning, Aug 17, 2008.

  1. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Reopened.
     
  2. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Hmm, is that Hoffman 'like' trick working on the Gorts now as well? :laugh:
    Good with the old Japan For US JVC 'Hoffman' mastering for this puppy :)
     
  3. brimuchmuze

    brimuchmuze Forum Resident

    UICY-25038 (SHM-CD) seems to get some excellent reviews in the UHQR thread.

    AP UHQR - Steely Dan - Katy Lied

    Does this map to one of the "Mastering X" in the thread?
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2022
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  4. bmoregnr

    bmoregnr Forum Rezident

    Location:
    1060 W. Addison
  5. brimuchmuze

    brimuchmuze Forum Resident

    That's what I would have thought, so a bit surprised at the raves.
     
  6. Paul P.

    Paul P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    @strippies did for you - see here: Katy Lied: GREAT Album, FLAWED recording. Pick your poison!!

    For the mastering don't bother spending substantial money on one of these Japanese discs. I ran a null test. They are digitally identical to the 1999 remaster.
    Confirmed by @RoyalScam here Katy Lied: GREAT Album, FLAWED recording. Pick your poison!!

    Cheers,
    Paul
     
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  7. mwheelerk

    mwheelerk Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm listening to music...

    Location:
    Gilbert Arizona
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  8. Paul P.

    Paul P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    The quick answer is yes. See here: Steely Dan CDs Different Masterings: The Summary Thread

    Cheers,
    Paul
     
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  9. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

  10. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

  11. mwheelerk

    mwheelerk Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm listening to music...

    Location:
    Gilbert Arizona
    I am confused because his own discography does not seem to claim these...

    MCA Remaster 1999 MCD-11916
    MCA Citizen boxed set MCAD 4-10981
    MCA MCD 01800/DMCL 1800
    MCA Japan for Japan 18P2-2694

    But does claim...

    MCA USA MCAD-31194
    MCA MCAD-37043

    I am not claiming everyone else is wrong. I am claiming I don't understand the inconsistencies in the post in this thread and his discography...
     
  12. Paul P.

    Paul P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    So - the key phrase you need to see is this:

    Mastering 3 & 4 (& 6?) mostly preferred
    “Mastered by Steve Hoffman and used for all original mid 80s CDs. This time not the UK Nimbus but a copy from Switzerland is the one that's slightly turned down. A US 31XXX comes (mastering 6) comes pretty close as well, although somebody would have to confirm that it's really identical.”


    The other masterings are not Steve's.

    Specifically, Masterings 2 and 5 were done by Glenn Meadows in the early 90s

    And Mastering 1 was done by Roger Nichols in 1999/2000 or so.

    I'm not as familiar with Mastering 7 - but it looks suspiciously like a variation of Mastering 1. I'd have to see the data on it to be sure - the 2000-era Roger Nichols masters have a high end boost that's readily identifiable via Audacity.

    We use EAC Peak Values to distinguish between Steely Dan masterings. MCA had a habit of mixing and matching cover art with whatever discs they had in their inventory. This ended up generating a lot of different release variations, which may not all be included here.

    However - EAC can readily distinguish between the various versions. The peak values are a signature we can use to identify discs from the three major Steely Dan mastering passes:
    • The initial run of discs in the 80s - done by Steve Hoffman and Roger Nichols
    • The Citizen Steely Dan box and individual remastered releases - done by Glenn Meadows in the 90s
    • The final remaster done in 1999/2000 by Roger Nichols.
    Running EAC to determine peak values on the copy of Katy Lied that you have would definitely tell us which mastering you have. (Or XLD if you have a Mac.)

    Cheers,
    Paul
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2022
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  13. Paul P.

    Paul P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    What are the peaks for this version?

    Label: MCA Records – MCAD-37043, MCA Records – 250 494-2
    Format:
    CD, Album, Reissue
    Country: Europe

    Based on the number MCAD-37043 and 250 494-2 - it looks to be a German Mastering 3 - which is Steve's.

    But -it could be a Switzerland Mastering 4 as well - which is a level shifted 3.

    So - without the EAC - or even a Matrix number - it's hard to be sure.

    Cheers,
    Paul
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2022
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  14. strippies

    strippies Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    The fact that Steve Hoffman made a digital master in 1984/85 doesn't necessarily mean that it was used to press CDs in the eighties.

    According to my research the 'Katy Lied' initial eighties discs, the 1993 'Citizen' box remaster and the 1999 'remaster' disc all used the same digital transfer as a source.

    I guess it's possible that Glenn Meadows and Roger Nichols used the Steve Hoffman digital master as a source for their edited versions and put their name tag on the resulting product. This would be extremely fishy but we're talking the recording industry here, the world were the grown-ups do their business.

    Anyway, we can't beg Glenn Meadows and Roger Nichols for a response anymore but it seems more likely to me that the eighties discs were not mastered by Steve Hoffman.
     
  15. Paul P.

    Paul P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    It's always good to hear from you, @strippies . Your research is always well thought out and makes sense.

    I've had some questions about this myself. I think the key is in Glenn Meadows' recollections: Article: The Best Version Of… Steely Dan’s Aja - provided here for clarity:

    The story actually starts at the original transfer of the analog masters to CD. At that time, the CD masters were initially prepped/mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk in NYC. Many days were spent matching master tapes to different brand analog ¼” machines to get the best transfer possible One album (don’t know which), was missing the alignment tones, and took quite some time to get the playback EQ and level properly matched to the noise reduction used on the master tape. It was also realized at that point, that the analog tapes were in VERY poor condition due to continuous use for cutting master lacquers to keep pressing records.​

    At the end of the mastering, it was also decided to do a 1 pass FLAT transfer of the analog masters (after each album was mastered for CD), would be made to the 3M 4Track digital recorders. This was in the VERY early days of Digital recording. The masters that were created for CD were done with the Sony PCM 1600 system. 1 master tape of each album was created, and MCA delivered those to the CD plant in Japan.
    So - reading further in Glenn's post, definitely the Citizen era and 2000 era are from the 3M digital safety copies. The original pass of Katy Lied has some questions though:

    From our host: Katy Lied

    The tape I used (the DBX original master) sounded fine to me, but you know I like that thuddy dry sound sometimes. Anyway, I just added some "body" to the music by dialing in a little 3K, 6K, and 8K and let it rip. Came out great (to me). When Roger N. did his "remake" a little after mine, he just left it flat and dead. Could never figure out why.
    So - is Mastering 3 unique? Maybe.

    The song I use for comparison is Bad Sneakers. On the original 1985 CD, there's a sample missing at the start of the track. Listen between the lines "I can see the ladies talking" "How the times are getting hard" - it's missing a beat.

    Now - compare it to the same track on Roger's A Decade Of Steely Dan. On that corrected version - which seems to have the same audio characteristics and also has the missing sample - you'll hear a slight "tick" on the missing sample - easiest to hear in the left speaker. This sounds like tape static, and might be why it was clipped out of the original CD.

    Now - listen to it on Citizen Steely Dan and again on Showbiz Kids - representing the two following mastering passes from the 3M safeties. No tick.

    This makes the initial mastering seem like a separate mastering pass to me. I do realize that one track does not a definitive determination make. :)

    And, of course, there's the question of who did Mastering 3. We know Steve did one. We also know that Roger took the tapes and may or may not have done one. (See here for Steve's explanation: Steely Dan CDs Different Masterings: The Summary Thread ) We have Glenn's recollections, too.

    I'd be interested to see if Mastering 3 time aligns with the subsequent remasters. @strippies - am I correct in assuming you've already done some of these comparisons?

    Thanks for keeping us honest on this!

    Cheers,
    Paul
     
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  16. strippies

    strippies Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Sorry for the late response.

    Yes, the 1985 mastering #3 of 'Katy Lied' time aligns with the Meadows remaster, though not to the sample exact. Possibly because of an (non-analog master tape) analog step between them.

    For proof: Use your favorite editor to zoom in to the individual sample level and align mastering #3 and the Meadows exactly to the same random time sample. Now scroll exactly 1 minute forwards or backwards and measure the speed difference. Repeat the process a few times with other random samples. You'll find that the two masterings have always drifted exactly 34 red book samples per minute out of sync for the side one tracks and 30 samples for the side two tracks. So the speed difference is always less than one millisecond per minute and consistently amounts to the same number of samples.

    Now, I have never touched a professional analog tape machine in my life but it seems to me that such precision would be impossible to accomplish with two separate analog tape transfers, and in this particular scenario done on different tape machines. Ergo, they both must have been made from the same digital source.
     
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