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In Reply to: RE: Why are CDs digitized from master tapes? posted by magiccarpetride on March 19, 2017 at 10:22:19
I wonder how many people would prefer the master tape (digital or analog) to the CD or LP?When the master tape gets "mastered" to either LP or CD it's not just transferred. It's manipulated.
In the old days the mastering engineers were technicians in white lab coats.
The artist and producer had nothing to do with the mastering process.
The technician's job was to make the LP sound as much like the master tape as they could. Period.
Then guys like Doug Sax can along and made the LP sound "better" than the master tape. The "mastering engineer" becomes part of the artistic process.
This is not mastering in the technical sense.
This is sweetening. I have sweetened many albums myself.
It's interesting to hear the master tape without the sweetening.
It's also interesting to hear different engineer's take on just how to sweeten a master tape.
The only way to get a handle on digital vs. analog is to do a straight transfer (no sweetening) to digital from a analog master tape and a straight transfer to the cutting lathe to make a vinyl record.
The transfer to the lacquer will take some EQ,etc.. to make up for the losses in the cutting and pressing processes but should be done old school technician mastering. Just make the LP sound as much like the master tape as you can.
If you could do all that and then compare the CD vs. the LP vs. the master tape itself, then you would know something.
Here is my point, we both like the sound of our LPs vs. CD.
How do we know that we aren't just liking the "mastering job" done on those LP vs. the mastering job done for the CD?
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 03/19/17Follow Ups:
James Boyk's Performance Recording of Pictures at an Exhibition came as a comparison package. You had the LP cut directly from the analog master tape and the CD which was directly transfered from the analog master tape and the digital master tape. So you could compare the LP to the CD sourced from the same analog tape and the CD sourced from a digital recording all from the same exact microphone feed. Zero processing anywhere along the chain.
.
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
I prefered the vinyl on my system. But the great thing is anyone can buy this comparison package and compare for themselves. It was a great idea.
> I wonder how many people would prefer the master tape (digital or analog) to the CD or LP?
I have a good friend who repairs and restores Studer tape recorders. He has a reputation of being one of the foremost authorities for the repair and restoration of Studer tape recorders in the North-Western United States. He is also heavily into digital and he convinced me to buy a TASCAM DA-3000 digital recorder a couple of years ago. Anyway, to make a long story short, he sent me a digital copy of a high-speed analog master tape made on his TASCAM DA-3000 and it was the best sounding digital recording I'd ever heard.
I firmly believe that digital is accurate and can therefore copy both vinyl and analog tape transparently. I know digital can copy vinyl transparently because I've been doing it for years; therefore, I have no doubt that it would copy a master tape transparently, too. At any rate, the digital recording from the master tape that my friend made sounds absolutely outstanding to me.
Based on my experience with digital over the past 25-years, I can't understand why the record companies don't make better sounding CDs. I nearly always make better sounding CDs using my own digital recorders than anything I've heard from record companies.
Go figure!
John Elison
Exactly my point that I have made many times on the Asylum. While most of my CD's that are rebaters of LPs are inferior to the LPs, I have some that are superior. West Side Story comes to mind as a CD that blows away the LP (I have both). It is not enough to have the CD and LP and say that because the LP sounds better that analog is superior. I am heavily invested in both, because I go where the music is and now the music is in both digital an analog medias. While I prefer to have excellent sound, I listen to both bootleg LPs and 78s, because the music is there. In my pursuit of music, I am still not convinced that either medium is superior. Greatness is found in the gestalt that come from the totality of all aspect of the recording/mastering/media processing.
Dave
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