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In Reply to: RE: AFAIK copying an analog tape to digital is a transfer, not remastering. posted by Rick W on May 09, 2017 at 10:07:02
Why do you think mastering engineers like Doug Sax got so many clients, because they are exceptionally adept at such a simple process as transferring *without alteration* analog tape to digital? That is what I call preposterous.Its blatantly obvious to anyone who actually has some knowledge/experience regarding mastering that mastering engineers are hired based on their ability to ALTER the final mix given to them to satisfy the desires of the producer/artist. Only a f'ing moron would pay the significant fees of guys like Sax/Grundman for a simple transfer.
I'm not convinced that's the case. Here is how I understand it (and as always, I stand to be corrected):
In the pre-digital days, the producer will work with the musicians and sound engineers to record, mix, and master the tracks. Often times the final master was a team effort, but regardless of how it got produced, the salient point is that everyone on the team was satisfied with how the final tape sounded. They all 'signed off' on it, and then went home.
Now, because the mass market was not into purchasing reel-to-reel tapes, the producer couldn't simply set the production line in motion and start making copies of the master tape, packaging them and shipping them to the stores. The producer had to first transfer the signal from the master tape onto the vinyl record.
But that transfer from the tape onto the vinyl record is not a straightforward process. If someone were to simply push the button and send the signal from the master tape into the lathe cutting machine, and then press the record using the resulting matrix, the record would sound vastly different from the master tape. So the special skill needed to cut the vinyl record consists of knowing your equipment, and knowing how to make necessary adjustments in order to produce a vinyl record that would sound as close as possible to how the master tape sounds.
That, apparently, is not an endeavour for the faint hearted. It takes a lot of know-how for an engineer to manipulate the process in order to produce a vinyl record that does not deviate from the sound stored on the master tape.
If we now wish to start selling CDs instead of vinyl records, the transfer from the master tape onto a digital file used for cutting CDs is a completely different kettle of fish. One would assume that it be a more straightforward process, as the digitization of the analog signal is not as finicky as turning the magnetic signal into physical grooves. So my assumption is that it takes less effort to digitize the master tape and produce a digital file that would sound similar to how the master tape sounds.
Now you shoot holes in my theory...
Edits: 05/09/17Follow Ups:
It takes no special manipulation to digitize a master tape. It is simply a straight transfer. You play the tape and record it with a digital recorder exactly in same way that I play a vinyl LP and record it with my digital recorder. The digital copy comes out sounding just like the tape or just like the record.
In another sense, it really shouldn't be a whole lot more difficult to make a master lacquer from a master tape. There really shouldn't be a need for a great deal of manipulation. It should be as simple as playing the master tape while sending the signal through an RIAA amplifier to the cutting head. The RIAA amplifier should provide the required manipulation to put the music correctly onto the master lacquer. Of course, if the master lacquer doesn't sound the same as the master tape, then further equalization will be required to make corrections. However, if the cutting lathe produces correct frequency response, it should be as simple as playing the master tape and sending the signal through the RIAA amplifier to the cutting head. The only other caveat is the use of a special tape recorder with a preview head to control groove spacing.
Think about how direct-to-disc records are made. Any required manipulation or additional equalization must be accomplished ahead of time because when the cutting lathe begins, it is simply receiving the signal from the live microphones after being sent through the RIAA amplifier including any additional equalization and on to the cutting head. It seems like a very straight forward process to me.
I think the most difficult part is doing what it takes to make a master tape that pleases everyone. However, once you have a master tape that sounds the way everyone wants it to sound, it should be a straight forward process of making digital copies as well as making vinyl records. The mastering process should be the work involved in making the master tape that everyone likes. After that, it should require nothing more than a transfer whether the transfer is to digital or to lacquer.
Best regards,
John Elison
I think the most difficult part is doing what it takes to make a master tape that pleases everyone. However, once you have a master tape that sounds the way everyone wants it to sound, it should be a straight forward process of making digital copies as well as making vinyl records. The mastering process should be the work involved in making the master tape that everyone likes. After that, it should require nothing more than a transfer whether the transfer is to digital or to lacquer.That was exactly how I envisioned the whole process. But then I started hearing different opinions coming from professionals who know these things much better than I do. Hence my confusion.
As I mentioned in my previous reply, I am not interested in discussing how does the master tape get produced. One way or another, we eventually end up holding the master tape in our hands. Now we want to use it as a blueprint to mass produce the sound carrier that can be sold on the market -- be it an LP, a CD, or a digital download/streaming to subscribers.
I can only compare it to how I am producing music. I have a home recording studio, where I record, overdub, mix, and master my music. I have a fairly good pair of ears, and I know what kind of a sound am I aiming for when producing my albums. I use all the usual suspects when I'm mastering my mix-down stereo tracks -- EQ, compression, limiting, the works. Eventually I get to the point when I am satisfied with how my material sounds. I listen to it on my big stereo, on my iPhone, in the car, etc. I want to reach a compromise where the songs sound good enough in various circumstances. You can call that process 'sweetening' or 'compromising' or anything else, doesn't matter.
Finally, when I'm done with the sweetening of the master 'tape' (in this case it's a digital file), I am ready to cut the CD. And like you said, cutting a CD simply means burning it on a blank CD I pop into the CD burner. No magic, no chanting during full moon, simply pressing the "Burn" button will do.
When the CD gets produced that way, it does not sound any different from how the original digital file sounds. If I take that CD to a friend's house and ask them to play it, the CD will sound approximately the same as it sounds in my house etc.
So here is where I get confused: what is this 'mastering for the CD' mumbo-jumbo I keep hearing? Why would 'mastering for the CD' be any different than regular mastering? Obviously, when you produce a master file, it gets faithfully burned onto the CD. I don't see any point in doing anything else 'after the fact'.
Help me out here -- what am I missing?
Edits: 05/10/17 05/10/17
"Finally, when I'm done with the sweetening of the master 'tape' (in this case it's a digital file), I am ready to cut the CD. And like you said, cutting a CD simply means burning it on a blank CD I pop into the CD burner. No magic, no chanting during full moon, simply pressing the "Burn" button will do.When the CD gets produced that way, it does not sound any different from how the original digital file sounds. If I take that CD to a friend's house and ask them to play it, the CD will sound approximately the same as it sounds in my house etc.
So here is where I get confused: what is this 'mastering for the CD' mumbo-jumbo I keep hearing? Why would 'mastering for the CD' be any different than regular mastering? Obviously, when you produce a master file, it gets faithfully burned onto the CD. I don't see any point in doing anything else 'after the fact'.
Help me out here -- what am I missing?"
What you are missing is this,
If you had the money you would want to take your digital master file to a professional mastering engineer for further sweetening. There is a good chance that the changes he would make to your master file would be viewed by you as improvements.
What I'm trying to say is a professional mastering engineer will know how to further sweeten it just right and he will make it better than you could ever imagine.
But here's the thing, if you took it to 5 different professional mastering engineers for further sweetening you would get 5 different sounding mastered master files back but chances are you would view each one to be an amazing improvement over what you started with and you would have a hard time choosing which one to go with. Not a hard time hearing the difference but a hard time deciding which one is "best".
When we grow up with an original pressing of an album and then are presented with a re-mastered re-release, a lot of the time we prefer the original mastering job, the one we are accustomed to.
Again, every time a album gets re-mastered it will sound different, even between very good mastering engineers, because different mastering engineers have different ideas of what "sound good" is. They should all sound good, if done by professionals, but different.
That was my point at the beginning of this thread.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 05/10/17 05/10/17 05/10/17
What you are missing is this,If you had the money you would want to take your digital master file to a professional mastering engineer for further sweetening. There is a good chance that the changes he would make to your master file would be viewed by you as improvements.
What I'm trying to say is a professional mastering engineer will know how to further sweeten it just right and he will make it better than you could ever imagine.
But here's the thing, if you took it to 5 different professional mastering engineers for further sweetening you would get 5 different sounding mastered master files back but chances are you would view each one to be an amazing improvement over what you started with and you would have a hard time choosing which one to go with. Not a hard time hearing the difference but a hard time deciding which one is "best".
When we grow up with an original pressing of an album and then are presented with a re-mastered re-release, a lot of the time we prefer the original mastering job, the one we are accustomed to.
Again, every time a album gets re-mastered it will sound different, even between very good mastering engineers, because different mastering engineers have different ideas of what "sound good" is. They should all sound good, if done by professionals, but different.
That was my point at the beginning of this thread.
Point taken (and I think I heard and understood you the first time, but let's continue refining our dialogue ;)
If you'd recall, I did mention on more than one reply here something like "one way or another, you finally end up with a locked-down master tape" (or something to that effect). What I meant by that is regardless of whether you reached the final version of your master tape by relying on your own means, or by contracting a superstar hired gun, one way or another, you got yourself a good master tape. That much we all agree on, and that much we should all be clear on.
What I'm still not clear on is whether there is anything else, any other expertise that needs to intervene during the process of using that master tape to mass produce the sound carrier (be it LP, audio cassette, CD, or digital download)?
It would appear to me that if one is using the master tape to cut the lacquer for the vinyl pressing, one needs to MANUALLY preside over the cutting in order to adjust certain parameters. Why is that needed? Because of the LP geometry -- grooves are not the same length at the beginning of the LP than they are toward the end on an LP, so this geometry is very finicky.
So my question is: who is doing that, and what kind of a skill set is needed?
Furthermore, I will now comment on the need/recommendation to send your final tape to a professional mastering engineer for further sweetening. I'm not fully on board with that, for the simple reason that if I were to do that (assuming money is no issue, maybe this mastering engineer is a buddy of mine and offers to do it for free for me), I'd be in effect admitting that I basically don't really know what I'm doing. To me, when I set to produce my own track, I have a certain sound that I envision in my head, and I'm working toward achieving that particular sound. How can a professional mastering engineer know better than me what kind of a sound am I after?
If we were to concede to the know-how of professional engineers when creating our music, why should we stop there? Why not also hire professional musicians to perform and record that music? Heck, why not also hire professional songwriting team to write the music and the lyrics? In the end, it's not really our creation if we are to outsource everything to hired guns, no?
Edits: 05/11/17
Cutting a lacquer and pressing a vinyl record causes losses and those losses have to be compensated for. (I'm not referring to the RIAA curve, all records require this)
Originally this was the ONLY job of the mastering engineer, not sweetening.
Now to the issue of "professional mastering engineer for further sweetening".
Your point it taken but the fact is even the best of the best (producers, engineers, mixers) send their best efforts to a mastering engineer for further sweetening without having any problem "admitting that they basically don't really know what they're doing".(see what I did there?) :-)
As to the rest of it, in the 60's the instruments on most hit records were not played by the band but by "The Wrecking Crew".
On almost any hit song you can think of (I'm exaggerating here) with a piano, that piano was played by Leon Russell. All those great bass lines.....Carol Kaye.....etc.....
To some extent artists still do this. They have a touring band and a separate studio/recording band.
I guess we each draw the line somewhere.
I think you have a good handle on the subject now.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
I think you have a good handle on the subject now.
Awesome, thanks :)
I guess you're missing the same thing I'm missing: Professional recordings are not done the way we would do them. ;-)
nt
They don't know what I know and that's all that matters to me.I don't master recordings for anyone other than myself. However, I obviously prefer to do it differently than they do.
To each his own!
Edits: 05/10/17
close,Yes, in the early days the job of the mastering engineer was to make the record sound as close as he could to the master tape but that changed.
Even back in the days of vinyl, guys like Doug Sax (who opened the Master Lab in 1967, the first company dedicated to mastering) purposely made the record sound different than the master tape by use of compression, EQ, etc. The idea was to make the final product (at the time, the vinyl record) sound "better" than the master tape. I call that "sweetening".
And you are right. In the digital age one could just make digital copies of the master tape and sell those but that almost never happens.
It also almost never happens when making CD's from digital recordings (digital master files).
The idea of making the final product sound "better' than the master tape has continued to this day.
Today it's still called "Mastering" (not to be confused with what mastering engineers did in the old days ie; make the record sound as much like the master tape as you can) and artists pay big money for "mastering" engineers to put the final touches on their master digital files.
Again, I call that "sweetening" because the old definition of mastering doesn't apply to a digital to digital transfer, but sweetening does.
I hope that made sense.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 05/09/17
Even back in the days of vinyl, guys like Doug Sax (who opened the Master Lab in 1967, the first company dedicated to mastering) purposely made the record sound different than the master tape by use of compression, EQ, etc. The idea was to make the final product (at the time, the vinyl record) sound "better" than the master tape. I call that "sweetening".Thanks for clarifying.
Wow, that doesn't make any sense at all! So here we have a bunch of professionals, the acclaimed artists, musicians, sound engineers, producers, people who are world wide famous, working diligently on a new album, spending months in the studio pouring over the minutia, until finally one day they collectively produce a jewel in the crown of their art -- a master tape they all sign off on. They're all happy with how the final product sounds, and they can't wait to put it into the hands of their eager fans.
Then comes along some asshole with an inflamed ego and pooh-poohs all over that precious jewel, and starts compressing the shit out of it, messing with it, destroying it.
How do these idiots get away with murder? And to hear that they even get paid big bucks for destroying other people's work? Holy shit that's really terrible. If I was a famous artist, I would sue the living daylight out of these self-procaimed 'experts'.
Edits: 05/09/17 05/09/17 05/09/17 05/09/17
First of all, not every recording/mixing engineer is highly accomplished. The same can be said for producers and artists when it comes to technical issues related to achieving desired sound.A guy I used to master one of my cd's (Alan Silverman at Arf Productions) is not normally hired as a recording engineer, and the engineer I used to record and mix (Gary Chester) is not normally hired as a mastering engineer. Actually, I'm unaware of either of 'em doing the other one's job. Guys like Sax/Grundman specialize in mastering, others specialize in recording (some also mixing), and still others specialize in mixing. This often explains why different engineers (often different studios too) are listed for each category - recording, mixing, mastering.
"Then comes along some asshole with an inflamed ego and pooh-poohs all over that precious jewel, and starts compressing the shit out of it, messing with it, destroying it."
No, that ain't how it works. No mastering engineer is gonna do anything contrary to the wishes of his/her employer unless he/she is inept. That employer may be a producer or an artist or an independent like me who is both. Blame producers or artists who control production for bad results - unless the mastering engineer is incompetent. Of course it can happen that a less than great mastering engineer is hired, the producer/artist is unhappy with the results but doesn't have the bucks to redo the mastering with a different engineer, and the result is that the final product satisfies neither the producer/artist nor the consumers like us. I think complaints we have about mastering like compression and the "loudness war" are more often due to conscious "business decisions" made by producers, not because the mastering engineer fucked up and didn't give them the sound they were looking for - especially for pop releases.
You are concentrating on NEGATIVE results. Sax/Grundman and other good mastering engineers are obviously not sought out due to fucking up the final mixes they receive. They are hired because the results of their mastering are excellent, and achieve the fine tuning ("sweetening", as Tre calls it) producers/artists desire.
I spent a lotta time mixing my cd's. But mixing is often so intense that subtle details relating to EQ'ing are missed, and/or the best equipment for that purpose is not available in the studio used for mixing. Additionally some excellent mastering engineers like Sax/Grundman have exceptional ears as well as exceptional knowledge/command regarding how to achieve fine tuning desired by producers/artists - more so than many recording/mixing engineers.
The final mixes I gave Alan Silverman to master were pretty good. I did not want much altered. But there were spots where (for example) I felt the trumpets were a tad harsher than they sound live, and I asked if Alan could something about that specific section. I also gave him a basic instruction for the whole cd which fortunately he understood -- make it sound a bit warmer, a bit less "digital". These are subtle EQ issues that good mastering engineers deal with all the time. The final mix given to mastering engineers often is not exactly what the producer/artist hoped for, and this can be addressed in mastering to some extent.
Obviously the end result varies according to the desires of the people employing the mastering engineer, equipment used and the ears/ability of the mastering engineer.
Edits: 05/09/17 05/09/17
Hmm, we seem to be talking past each other. Let me try to boil down what I'm getting at:One way or another, the production team (the musicians, engineers, producers, whathaveyou) finishes the work on the album. The deliverable of their effort is the so-called 'master tape'.
It don't matter for the purposes of this discussion how did the team get to the point of holding the final master tape in their hands. Maybe they did it all by themselves in one sitting, maybe it took them years of back-and-forth with some super duper fancy chief sweetener of master tapes, maybe it even took them decades of back-and-forth, shipping the tapes across the continent, then shipping them back until that precious moment when they all got satisfied (or ran out of money, or both).
Whatever the case may be, the entire charade occurs UPSTREAM from where our discussion begins. So once that magic tape is good and ready to go, it needs to be packaged for sale. Meaning, somehow the signal that is stored on the tape needs to be magically transported into the vinyl grooves. So the jist of this discussion is: how to do it?
Of course, you need to send it to some alchemy lab. Some mysterious alchemists will be cutting the lacquer while manipulating the EQ, twiddling some knobs. No one knows how are they doing it, but we do know that they specialize in making the grooves sound the same as the signal stored within the magnetic particles on the tape.
So the question is: why would, at that point, the owners of the product want the final deliverable (i.e. the vinyl record) to sound any different than the super precious master tape on which they've already spent untold hours and thousands of dollars? It absolutely doesn't make any sense that at this last, final stage, it would be all left to some bozo alchemists to do whatever they please with it. It would only make sense that the quality control at that stage be adamant that the resulting vinyl grooves produce the sound that is almost exact replica of the sound they hear when playing back the master tape.
So please, let's forget about sweetening and all the other bullshit that may or may not be happening upstream from the delivery of the master tape. I want to focus on how does the master tape, being the 'blueprint' for the vinyl record, transfer its signal into the vinyl grooves?
Edits: 05/09/17 05/09/17 05/09/17 05/09/17
Ya know I originally replied to something John Elison said, and it related to digital and mastering, not the mechanics and vagaries of vinyl lathes, cutting heads etc. which is something I'm not well versed in.As for non-vinyl cutting mastering you still don't seem to get it. You apparently think all the so-called "sweetening" occurs before mastering and is included in the final mix handed to a mastering engineer. Both Tre and I have explained that is not the case. You can either re-read my posts above or ignore them. I don't have anything further to add other than..... calling mastering engineers who make alterations to the EQ-ing etc. at the request of their employers "bozos" is lame.
Edits: 05/09/17 05/09/17 05/10/17
.
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
again, you're almost right."Then comes along some asshole with an inflamed ego and pooh-poohs all over that precious jewel, and starts compressing the shit out of it, messing with it, destroying it."
That asshole is hired by those "professionals, the acclaimed artists, musicians, sound engineers, producers, people who are world wide famous, working diligently on a new album, spending months in the studio pouring over the minutia, until finally one day they collectively produce a jewel in the crown of their art -- a master tape they all sign off on. They're all happy with how the final product sounds, and they can't wait to put it into the hands of their eager fans." to further sweeten it.
Take a look at the liner notes on your CDs. Most great albums were produced by great producers and recorded and mixed by great engineers and then handed off to a "mastering engineer" for final sweetening.
Those great producers and great engineers have confidence in great "mastering" engineers and are willing to pay big money to hire them to put the last bit of sweetening on the project.
They believe the final sweetening is an improvement so they would not sue the mastering engineer. They love the mastering engineer.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Edits: 05/09/17
:)
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
(Re)Mastering doesn't HAVE to involve the tweaking of anything. The "best" mastering can be NO mastering at all - it is up to the producer. However the production of a vinyl cut ALWAYS involves some sonic change to the master - mainly in the HF region. Towards the end of a side, the recorded wavelength decreases (the record spins at a constant ANGULAR velocity so the speed of the groove decreases) and the bandwidth necessarily drops off on the inner grooves. The bandwidth is deliberately limited especially with high amplitude signals in order to prevent the cutter "damaging"/overwriting previous cut signals. Also, higher frequencies require increasing power and when cutting a wide bandwidth signal, the cutter heads are easily damaged by excessive heat dissipation. Consequently, a cutting engineer will limit the HF extension in order to protect the heads. Also, lacquer properties can vary so a cutting engineer will adapt the EQ.
To be honest, when you consider how far removed the final vinyl product is from the master, it is somewhat unreasonable to expect it to sound identical to the master... EQ notwithstanding!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
However the production of a vinyl cut ALWAYS involves some sonic change to the master - mainly in the HF regionJust to be sure I understand what you're saying -- production of a vinyl cut always involves some sonic change to the COPY of the master, not to the actual master tape, correct? The master tape is sacrosanct, it is what the entire team worked hard on until they agreed that it sounds perfect (or as close as perfect) to how they envision it should sound. No one should be messing with that tape.
I do realize that it is nearly impossible to replicate the sound of the master tape when cutting vinyl. However, that's the INTENTION of the crew cutting the vinyl. The final commercial product should sound as close as possible to how its authors prefer it to sound. Otherwise, if that were immaterial, why would the team ever even bother mastering it?
Edits: 05/09/17
Yes that's right. However, the vinyl is mastered in the sense that cutting is a live process and the cutting engineer will be adjusting EQ according to the target audience. For example dance 12" singles are one obvious example where the 12" is cut very deliberately to suit the club environment and also adapting to the playback equipment (i.e cartridge replay characteristics).
In this case, HF is pulled back and bass is boosted given the high amplitudes cut on the disc as well as the playback volume. These days, I'm convinced that given the way vinyl is marketed, that it is mastered to give a "vinyl" sound.... whatever that means to the average punter!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
"No one should be messing with that tape."
Correct and no one does.
But when that tape is used to cut a lacquer the signal going from the playback tape deck to the cutting head is altered to make up for the losses inherent in the cutting/pressing process but that doesn't alter what's on the master tape.
"I do realize that it is nearly impossible to replicate the sound of the master tape when cutting vinyl. However, that's the INTENTION of the crew cutting the vinyl. The final commercial product should sound as close as possible to how its authors prefer it to sound. "
In the old days the intention was to have the vinyl record sound as close to the master tape as possible but those days are long gone.
From the late 60s on, the intention is to have the final product (LP or CD) sound "better" than the master.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
From the late 60s on, the intention is to have the final product (LP or CD) sound "better" than the master.
So if that's correct, does that mean that LP or CD have certain properties, as the sound carrier medium, that the reel-to-reel tape lacks? Does that mean that tapes are incapable of storing the sound that would be as good as the sound one can find on an LP or a CD?
These things absolutely make no sense to me. If the aim is to make something sound "better", why not make it sound "better" upstream, on the very master tape?
"Better" is a matter of opinion.
It's not like the goal of a recording engineer or mastering engineer is to make it sound real.
They are going for "cool", not real.
R to R tape is great but the sound from the master tape is messed with (mastered) just like anything else. You will not get a direct copy from the major labels.
There was one company in New York, years ago, that made direct, un-mastered copies from the master tape of known albums. They were made them at normal speed. That is, they weren't high speed dups (like cassettes).
Those were very expensive to buy.
Now days we have The Tape Project.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
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