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| From | "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: lp speed vs cd speed |
| Date | Fri, 28 Feb 2003 01:00:24 -0500 |
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At Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 14:36:44 Ralph Alfonso wrote:
>actually, I just went through all this with my upcoming katrina & the waves
>reissues where the vinyl was faster than the master tapes... >apparently,
>it was not uncommon at the lacquering/mastering stage to >speed up masters
>slightly for extra oomph....
The vari-speed of as much as a half-tone was used to give guitars more
crunch and the cymbals more sizzle.
>what does a re-issuer do? we matched the vinyl speed since that's what we
>were all used to hearing...
>
>so, a word to the wise.... best to compare the analog masters to the vinyl
>for speed and mastering issues...especially if no mastering ?>notes/tones
>are on the tape box...i am also finding that, from talking >to various
>re-issue engineers... in a lot of cases, it's actually >better to transfer
>from vinyl for an exact re-issue...very >interesting...so, sometimes,
>actually getting a master tape is not >really better.... weird...
Master tapes, aside from the rotting age issue, were initially recorded
specifically to match the mastering specs -- of vinyl. When the major labels
first scrambled to re-issue their entire catalogues on CD in the late '80s
they didn't bother "digitally" remastering the albums...they merely took the
analog tapes (sometimes EQ'd for vinyl with varying volumes, tonal
variations and a cauldron of other pre-mastering blemishes) and made glass
masters out of them for replicating. The CDs overall volume, warmth and
sonic impact were washed away because nobody bothered bringing them up to
the audio standards for the digital domain (more volume saturation
headroom).
So, when you take vinyl of the same performance that has the music EQ'd,
compressed (usually for radio and the average stereo from the 1970's or
1980s), and pushed to the limits of vinyl's capacity to hold sound (before
distorting) and transfer THAT to a digital mastering process, you're getting
a real good approximation of what the album has probably sounded like to
audiences for years. Basically, you're doing one less mastering step -- as
opposed to an un-EQ'd to digital which forces you to recreate the vinyl
mastering just to get where you want to go before pumping it up a notch for
the digital domain. However, some people prefer going back to the original
non-EQ'd masters because then other elements of the songs might be brought
out in the digital mastering process (alas, with added *hiss* in many
cases).
We discovered our own set of hurdles with the Klaatu master tapes for the
25th anniversary re-issues of '3:47 EST' and 'Hope'. For the first album we
were able to return to the non-EQ'd original master -- but had the EQ notes
from the mastering facility to follow (and primarily recreate or ignore
depending on preference)...allowing us to not only uncover subtleties that
were long-lost in the lacquer-to-vinyl version of the album, but we were
also able to give the volume a 7db punch....making the record
LOUDER....something that was crucial in bringing out all those subtle
dynamics. It also gave us a superior re-issue than all other re-issues from
the early '90s where analog EQ'd masters had been used to poor effect.
On the 'Hope' album the non-EQ'd masters were lost back in 1977 and we were
stuck using the production masters that were already EQ'd for vinyl...it
didn't give us much room to work with because the tapes were saturated with
hiss and once we started tinkering with dynamics and volume the songs began
to distort...and a whole wack of other uglies. We may very well have had a
crisper sounding reproduction had we used a pristine vinyl copy like you've
done.
As for tape speed....well, we had notes indicating that the tapes had been
varied to give that extra oomph as you'd described.
BTW - For RUSH fans out there....the band's albums were vari-speeded by
producer Terry Brown to give those productions extra punch as well...right
up until "Moving Pictures"....meaning that Geddy Lee's voice was pitched
higher on record than it was in real life (as hard as THAT is to
believe....)
Jaimie Vernon,
President,
http://www.bullseyecanada.com
#1 West Hill Dr., Toronto, ON
M1E 3T4 Canada (416) 284-7067
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