Mastering Vinyl, Myths, questions, discussion Options

[Axon]

This is a split of a discussion Hancoque and I had, which desperately needs to be elaborated on.

First of all, I've dumped my thoughts on the matter into the Wiki: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...Vinyl_Mastering. Please comment on it.

A couple of the points there are explicitly worth starting this topic off:

• There is no consistent, unambiguous way to identify the provenance of a vinyl master. Most methods - but most of all, the zoomed-out waveform plot - are inaccurate in one way or another. Visual examination of clipped samples is fairly telling, but not applicable or effective in all cases. How can a vinyl master be accurately observed as being the same or different as a CD master?
• Even if a difference exists, whether or not it is audible is another question entirely. IIRC, brickwall limiting of 3-4db, correctly applied, may not be audible. If so, Hancoque's Slayer waveforms might not mean anything, because his peaks are all within 4db of the CD peaks. What audibility thresholds exist for clipped signals?

That said, I may be eating a hearty dinner of crow tonight, as I just examined one of the records I thought was of the same master as the CD (Battles - Mirrored), and I was able to observe pretty strong differences in clipping between the vinyl and CD versions. I'll reply later with some visual examples.

[botface]

Nice idea usernaim but trying to generalise like that is pretty meaningless. At any given point in time the equipment used in pressing plants was not standard. So a wide variety of equipment of varying levels of quality and sophistication were in use across the industry. I'm talking about up to the end of the 80's when I left the industry, maybe it's more straight-forward now - and say, since the 90's - with volumes being lower and pressing plants fewer.
Also, while cutting a lacquer is a bit of a black art a cutting engineer would never "sum bass to mono", apply eq, compression or anything else without the OK from the artist or producer. The last thing you want is for your test pressings to be rejected and have to re-cut. Any "preparation for production" like that would usually have been done by the mastering engineer who produced the tape from which the lacquer was cut. That would invariably be a different person, probably working in a recording studio or simlar rather than a record manufacturing plant, though it was not unheard of for last minute adjustments to be requested by the artist or producer at the cutting stage.

Edit : for clarity (hopefully)

This post has been edited by botface: Jul 7 2010, 15:22

[splice]

Also, while cutting a lacquer is a bit of a black art a cutting engineer would never "sum bass to mono", apply eq, compression or anything else without the OK from the artist or producer. The last thing you want is for your test pressings to be rejected and have to re-cut. Any "preparation for production" like that would usually have been done by the mastering engineer who produced the tape from which the lacquer was cut. That would invariably be a different person, probably working in a recording studio or simlar rather than a record manufacturing plant, though it was not unheard of for last minute adjustments to be requested by the artist or producer at the cutting stage.)

Cutting engineer? Mastering engineer? They used to be the same person. Strictly speaking, they still are.
Reflect a moment on the LP production process, and from what part the "mastering" engineer took his name.
If you were in the business pre 1980, I'd have thought you'd remember that. Or maybe you're like me - Memory is the second thing to go with age. I forget what the first one was...

[botface]

Also, while cutting a lacquer is a bit of a black art a cutting engineer would never "sum bass to mono", apply eq, compression or anything else without the OK from the artist or producer. The last thing you want is for your test pressings to be rejected and have to re-cut. Any "preparation for production" like that would usually have been done by the mastering engineer who produced the tape from which the lacquer was cut. That would invariably be a different person, probably working in a recording studio or simlar rather than a record manufacturing plant, though it was not unheard of for last minute adjustments to be requested by the artist or producer at the cutting stage.)

Cutting engineer? Mastering engineer? They used to be the same person. Strictly speaking, they still are.
Reflect a moment on the LP production process, and from what part the "mastering" engineer took his name.
If you were in the business pre 1980, I'd have thought you'd remember that. Or maybe you're like me - Memory is the second thing to go with age. I forget what the first one was...

Well, where I used to work a tape would arrive in the cutting room that had already been mastered elsewhere. The cutting engineer would then cut the lacquer from that tape. The "mastering engineer" was so-called because he produced the master tape. Maybe you called the cutting engineer the mastering engineer because he produced the master disc - well, he didn't really it was actually grown by electrolysis from the lacquer but maybe that's spitting hairs

[splice]

Well, where I used to work a tape would arrive in the cutting room that had already been mastered elsewhere. The cutting engineer would then cut the lacquer from that tape. The "mastering engineer" was so-called because he produced the master tape. Maybe you called the cutting engineer the mastering engineer because he produced the master disc - well, he didn't really it was actually grown by electrolysis from the lacquer but maybe that's spitting hairs

You weren't at the "master plant", then.

Step 1: Recording (tracking), with optional processing (eq, compression).
Step 2: Mixdown to stereo, with optional processing at track and bus levels.
These two steps were often done by the same engineer. For big productions, there could be separate tracking and mixdown engineers.

Step 3: Cut to lacquer (and process as required to make it cuttable and trackable).
Step 4: Make several copies of the tape with cutting processing included and distribute to other plants.
Step 5: Each plant would then cut from the tape, make a safety copy and pass the tape on to the next plant in the chain.

(But what often happened was that the plant would keep the original and pass down the safety copy. Several generations later, the result at the end of the chain often sounded nasty.)

Note that the processing in Step 3 had to be done using a lathe. It was an iterative process - set up the processing via best guess and experience, cut, examine the result. If not satisfactory, adjust the processing and try again. Some mixdown engineers did have a good understanding of what was needed and could deliver a tape that required little or no processing.

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

Step 1: Recording (tracking), with optional processing (eq, compression).
Step 2: Mixdown to stereo, with optional processing at track and bus levels.
These two steps were often done by the same engineer. For big productions, there could be separate tracking and mixdown engineers.

Step 3: Cut to lacquer (and process as required to make it cuttable and trackable).
Step 4: Make several copies of the tape with cutting processing included and distribute to other plants.
Step 5: Each plant would then cut from the tape, make a safety copy and pass the tape on to the next plant in the chain.

To clarify:

Step 1: Recording (tracking). Sometimes eq and/or dynamics processing would be applied here, but usually not so much.
Step 2: Mixdown to stereo, with optional processing (eq, dynamics) at track, bus and stereo mix stages of mixing. Create stereo mixdown master, evaluate, tweak.
Step 3: Create cutting master by applying additional eq and/or dynamics processing to ensure cuttability and tackability

Step 4: Check cutting master to see if it requires additional tweaking to correct problems that only showed up after cutting the lacquer. If needed, go back to step 3
Step 5: Tested cutting masters are duplicated at the central production facility. Safety copy is kept there and other duplicates get sent to pressing plants.
Step 6: Cutting masters are used to cut laquers at pressing plants as they are needed.

none of this is cut into stone, but this is the baseline path from which everybody deviaated if they deviated.

[analog scott]

Step 1: Recording (tracking), with optional processing (eq, compression).
Step 2: Mixdown to stereo, with optional processing at track and bus levels.
These two steps were often done by the same engineer. For big productions, there could be separate tracking and mixdown engineers.

Step 3: Cut to lacquer (and process as required to make it cuttable and trackable).
Step 4: Make several copies of the tape with cutting processing included and distribute to other plants.
Step 5: Each plant would then cut from the tape, make a safety copy and pass the tape on to the next plant in the chain.

To clarify:

Step 1: Recording (tracking). Sometimes eq and/or dynamics processing would be applied here, but usually not so much.
Step 2: Mixdown to stereo, with optional processing (eq, dynamics) at track, bus and stereo mix stages of mixing. Create stereo mixdown master, evaluate, tweak.
Step 3: Create cutting master by applying additional eq and/or dynamics processing to ensure cuttability and tackability

Step 4: Check cutting master to see if it requires additional tweaking to correct problems that only showed up after cutting the lacquer. If needed, go back to step 3
Step 5: Tested cutting masters are duplicated at the central production facility. Safety copy is kept there and other duplicates get sent to pressing plants.
Step 6: Cutting masters are used to cut laquers at pressing plants as they are needed.

none of this is cut into stone, but this is the baseline path from which everybody deviaated if they deviated.

And which particular masterings of which particular titles can we actually cite as having gone through this specific pathology? Can we name any specific titles? Recording engineers with first hand accounts of the eq and/or dynamics processing? First hand accounts of the creation of the cutting master? First hand accounts of the duplication of the cutting masters at a specific central production facility? Any first hand accounts of duplicate cutting masters being stocked and used to cut masters at pressing plants as needed? What about the equipment used? What specific equipment was used with any specific titles we can trace? These are the questions that need to be answered if we are going to say anything about how any particular LP was mastered. One can find a lot of info in the dead wax that will tell much of the story but even then we need a lot of info from the mouths of the proverbial horses to even begin to know what processes went into the mastering.

And of course many of these questions are just as relevant to a vast number of CDs out there. I highly recomend the Dennis Drake paper about the work that went into the mastering of the Mercury Living Presence CDs he mastered with Wilma Cozart back in the nineties.

[greynol]

These are the questions that need to be answered if we are going to say anything about how any particular LP was mastered.

Do you have any evidence to suggest Arnold is not right in saying:

this is the baseline path from which everybody deviaated if they deviated.

???

To me it seems you're just trolling again.

This post has been edited by greynol: Jul 9 2010, 18:55

[analog scott]

These are the questions that need to be answered if we are going to say anything about how any particular LP was mastered.

Do you have any evidence to suggest Arnold is not right in saying:

this is the baseline path from which everybody deviaated if they deviated.

???

To me it seems you're just trolling again.

1. Why would you ask for evidence for something I have not asserted? Axon was talking about getting "down and dirty" in citing the differences one can find in mastering. Remember this from Axon? " Regardless, I think it's very important to explain to people the down and dirty of what goes on in the vinyl signal chain, precisely because of misapprehensions from both sides of the debate - some people think that there's any sort of purity in what goes on in cutting a record, and others think it's some ridiculously dirty sausage-grinding fest that is wholly unsuitable for the reproduction of audio. The truth is obviously well away from both, and I think that even if only a subset of detailed differences are discussed, all readers will benefit."

So my point isn't to question the baseline path Arny has outlined. My point is to try to make some connection between that outline and what actually went into mastering real world LPs. If one really wants to get "down and dirty" then one has to get specific and gather actual facts. Axon does talk about "detailed differences." What is the connection between this baseline path and the detailed differences in mastering of any real world LP? Without some attempt to make that connection we are not addressing that which Axon is trying to cover in his wiki article.


Now I can actually give you fact filled pathologies of the mastering of several hundred of my own LPs. For the most part there is a substantial disconnect between the actual pathologies of the mastering of those LPs and Arny's baseline path. But that is not meant to say that this baseline path is not the path that many other LPs have followed. Most of the LPs which have a well documented pathology of mastering are of the audiophile/audiophile reissue flavor. Many of the others are from various labels that have gained favor among audiophiles and as a result have been well documented through out the years. I am talking about labels like the Mercuries, London Deccas and RCAs of the golden age of classical recording and other labels like Blue Note and other notables in Jazz. At least we can get "down and dirty" with facts surrounding their mastering and maybe make some corolation between their sound and the mastering that went into them. How can we do that just with Arny's baseline path? If you want to get down and dirty you have to get down and dirty and disect these things individually based on gathered reliable intel. As it is, Arny's baseline path really tells us nothing about the mastering process of any given LP.

[greynol]

If one really wants to get "down and dirty" then one has to get specific and gather actual facts.

Do you have any reason to believe that the information provided to you by splice and Arnold (two people I believe are far more intimately associated with the music business than either you or I) about how masters for vinyl were typically created is not actual fact?

Now I can actually give you fact filled pathologies of the mastering of several hundred of my own LPs. For the most part there is a substantial disconnect between the actual pathologies of the mastering of those LPs and Arny's baseline path.

Then why not provide us with a typical example from your vast wealth of information to move the discussion along?

At least we can get "down and dirty" with facts surrounding their mastering and maybe make some corolation between their sound and the mastering that went into them.

So what is keeping you?

This post has been edited by greynol: Jul 9 2010, 19:53