Here's a twist on mastering

[Bookumdano2]

Not to go OT on the UAD review thread, here's something I thought of, only to find out, it's already sorta happeniing.

 

I was watching an interview with an ME guy, John Dent. He's from the old lathe cutter days among other things. He has clients who come in to have him master their projects on vinyl, cutting rets to his lathe. For lots of these projects, he cuts the ref and then feeds it right back in to a digital file for later use. The clients don't even bother to duplicate the master lacquer on to vinyl records.

 

Well, that's a cool idea, but Dent goes on to explain that it's gone to even more extremes ....

 

He has clients now who will bring in, for example, just a mono guitar track... or a mono vocal track.. and then cut JUST that to the lathe... and then feed that back in to the computer to start building up tracks for a song.

 

And of course, once you do a few tracks, buiilt up like that by bouncing back from the lacquer, the timing is a bit off (this being analog) and so, they have to then do minor timestretching when all is back on the daw so that everything is in sync.

 

In other words, the ME now becomes part of the tracking process with the lathe. Haha.

 

Man, what an expensive project considering you have to throw away each lacquer after you cut it and play it back.

 

This BEGS for a plug-in alternative. Where's that Celemony guy?

[MikeRivers]

The next step after running your tracks through an analog tape deck before mixing them in a DAW.

 

Who's going to be first with the Lacquer Mastering Plug-in? Simulates mono and stereo, hot and cold stylus, Neuman, Grampian and Fairchild cutters, tracing distortion, diameter compensation, and leaves behind a pile of swarth for the intern to clean up

[philbo]

After that will be the AM radio plugin, which adds 50's & 60's vintage DJ voiceovers (Clark Clifford, or maybe some of the guys from WLS) to the beginning and end of the song, along with static and rolling the freq response off below 300 Hz and above 5 KHz.

[Beck]

 

The next step after running your tracks through an analog tape deck before mixing them in a DAW. Who's going to be first with the Lacquer Mastering Plug-in? Simulates mono and stereo, hot and cold stylus, Neuman, Grampian and Fairchild cutters, tracing distortion, diameter compensation, and leaves behind a pile of swarth for the intern to clean up

 

 

And the plug could have things like different year pennies, nickels, or dimes taped to the stylus to keep it from skipping out. They all have a subtle vintage nuance that can be precisely emulated in digital as we all know, and it could mean the difference between a hit song and a flop, I

[A. Einstein]

To make pop sound really great and 100% natural as in the 18th century, we bought twenty-eight external combustion engines for sound processing. Before converting the pure acoustic live sound to digital data we distill it to 100% Vodka then blend it with 53% water:

 

 

[A. Einstein]

For harder rock we use this Steam Sound Processor (SSP), and then distill to 100% Whisky then blended down to 47% Vol alcohol with pure spring water from Greenland which gives the music an exceptional and unique smooth sound:

 

[A. Einstein]

Quite some architectiral measure had to be taken to install all those analogue processors on the 12 and 13 floor, and the cabeling (tubing) to the twenty-six mastering suites did cost a little fortune. But it was worth the expenditure, maybe one day I get fired for that, but I dont care.

[blue2blue]

I'm sure you guys know that Izotope released their Vinyl plugin early on.

 

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

 

 

iZotope Vinyl   The ultimate lo-fi weapon, iZotope Vinyl uses 64-bit processing and advanced filtering, modeling and resampling to create authentic "vinyl" simulation, as if the audio was a record being played on a record player. You have complete control over the following parameters:   Mechanical Noise: The amount of turntable motor rumble and noise Wear: Control how worn out the record is, from brand new to played a few thousand times Electrical Noise: Internally generated electrical noise, such as 60 Hz grounding hum Dust: The amount of dust on the record Scratch: The number and depth of scratches on the record Warp Depth: The amount of warping and the warp shape for the record

[roomjello]

 

After that will be the AM radio plugin, which adds 50's & 60's vintage DJ voiceovers (Clark Clifford, or maybe some of the guys from WLS) to the beginning and end of the song, along with static and rolling the freq response off below 300 Hz and above 5 KHz.

 

 

T-Racks has a couple good presets for that already.

[MikeRivers]

 

I'm sure you guys know that Izotope released their Vinyl plugin early on.

 

 

I remember that, but I thought it was an April Fool joke. Does it work well?

[Ernest Buckley]

You guys jest but all these silly plugs will be developed and sold eventually. Because you know, there is someone out there who will buy them.

 

Consider the new Waves plug: the Eddie Kramer "Tape, Tubes & Transistors" collection... I have to admit, I am a bit curious... and if the AM radio plug in came out, well, I might be interested in that too.

 

What I`m getting at is, we`re all looking for the Holy Grail and plug ins are part of the journey when deep down we know its about the song & performance.

[Bookumdano2]

Izotope vinyl though is basically an emulation of a record player. Dunno how it does with that task, but I'm interested in something two steps before that , where you're actually cutting the lacquer with a really knowledgeable cutting engineer. There is such a huge range of what you can sonically create at that point. Especially in my major interest of the sound of 45s.

 

Which as of today, doesn't exist in plugin form and maybe never will (just like a great mixing engineer in plugin form)... but hey, if someone brings one out... I'll try it if there's a demo. It's soooooooo expensive to do now ... and that's just for the raw materials without considering the ME fee.

 

I've even considered buying a lathe and learning the craft myself for my own amusement, but again, the raw materials costs are even way beyond the lathe price itself...too pricey for experimentation.

 

Where's that celemony guy?

[Zooey]

 

I was watching an interview with an ME guy, John Dent. He's from the old lathe cutter days among other things. He has clients who come in to have him master their projects on vinyl, cutting rets to his lathe. For lots of these projects, he cuts the ref and then feeds it right back in to a digital file for later use. The clients don't even bother to duplicate the master lacquer on to vinyl records.

 

 

The latest Arcade Fire album was "processed" that way. It's their best sounding album, but whether that has anything to do with introducing cutting lacquer masters, I cannot say. It could also be explained by having a bigger budget for tracking and mixing.

 

The album sounds wider, a little softer in the high end and a little tubbier in the bass than many other albums from 2010. I have to wonder if that same sound could have been just as easily achieved through conventional mixing.

[blue2blue]

I remember that, but I thought it was an April Fool joke. Does it work well?

Well, everyone's purposes and criteria are potentially quite different, but, yeah, it seems like it does a pretty decent job adding everything from a little discreet surface noise to really mangling with wow & flutter. Now... because of the nature of that latter beast, I'm sure there will be those who might rush to criticize the execution but... well, as they say... Whaddya want for free?

 

I was actually reading an article somewhere about Izotope and the interviewee (head honcho at Izotope, I seem to recall) seemed to feel that it was the free release of Vinyl -- which flew off the servers apparently -- that put them on the map and it has some sort of honored place in the history of the company.

[blue2blue]

Izotope vinyl though is basically an emulation of a record player. Dunno how it does with that task, but I'm interested in something two steps before that , where you're actually cutting the lacquer with a really knowledgeable cutting engineer. There is such a huge range of what you can sonically create at that point. Especially in my major interest of the sound of 45s. Which as of today, doesn't exist in plugin form and maybe never will (just like a great mixing engineer in plugin form)... but hey, if someone brings one out... I'll try it if there's a demo. It's soooooooo expensive to do now ... and that's just for the raw materials without considering the ME fee. I've even considered buying a lathe and learning the craft myself for my own amusement, but again, the raw materials costs are even way beyond the lathe price itself...too pricey for experimentation. Where's that celemony guy?

Well, if the ME really knows what he's doing, the results should be pretty transparent. If you think about it.

[A. Einstein]

You simply transfer your master tapes to digital with your original, or same model Ampex or Studer machine it was recorded with.

 

That's all. Everything else here is nonsense.

[Anderton]

iZotope's Vinyl basically emulates the player, not the platter

[A. Einstein]

My inflatable doll emulates a women.

 

Who the heck wants to make a contemporary recording sound like a vinyl record, or a digital recording sound like an analogue recording. The world heard that, it was done, has a time stamp on it, history, pass

[Bookumdano2]

 

My inflatable doll emulates a women.

 

 

Inflatable? That's so 20th century. Time to upgrade-

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvtskTIQYZc&feature=related

[roomjello]

What the consumer wants is someone with something new to SAY. That isn't a sonic thing.

The building blocks of audio are not going to change. What is said is the only variable.

[A. Einstein]

New music is also sonically new, or it isn't anything new in the music.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

My inflatable doll emulates a women.

 

 

You go, Rudangeleinstein!

 

 

Who the heck wants to make a contemporary recording sound like a vinyl record, or a digital recording sound like an analogue recording. The world heard that, it was done, has a time stamp on it, history, pass

[roomjello]

 

New music is also sonically new, or it isn't anything new in the music.

 

 

so are you saying there is nothing in music but sonics?

[A. Einstein]

 

And personally, I want the best production possible to capture the artist's vision and emotional statement. And if that's an "old-timey" sound or a sound evocative of another era or analog or digital or whatever to best capture that statement, then that's what I'll do.

 

 

I didn't knew that you have a Studer 24 Track, a Harrison 32c and a large studio with worldclass ambience.

[A. Einstein]

 

so are you saying there is nothing in music but sonics?

 

 

i wanted to say that new music is also in its sonic aspects new, a novelty, not always but most often