[TigzStudio]

Probably the best mastered cd I have heard in a while....everything seems perfect....
 
Looks I will be buying all of his albums soon!  Great music, amazing quality all around.  And the funny thing is I think it was recorded in his own personal garage converted to studio.
 
 
What cd's have you recently acquired that have blown you away by their mastering/quality?  I need more cd's like this!
 

 

[LFF]

Just look at who mastered the album!

 
I actually like the sound of Jack Johnson's CD's. "In Between Dreams" is still one of my favorites and I play it very often.

 

[sonci]

Unfortunately, even the music seems 'on and on', especially the last album..
 
Quote:

Just look at who mastered the album!

 
I actually like the sound of Jack Johnson's CD's. "In Between Dreams" is still one of my favorites and I play it very often.

 

[majestic12]

I consider "On and On" to be one of only two of his exceptional albums.  Everything released after it just didn't have the same quality to me.  I would show off my old stereo equipment using "Rodeo Clowns" -that track sounds amazing with any decent setup.

 

[TigzStudio]

Quote:

I consider "On and On" to be one of only two of his exceptional albums.  Everything released after it just didn't have the same quality to me.  I would show off my old stereo equipment using "Rodeo Clowns" -that track sounds amazing with any decent setup.

Yes Rodeo clowns is awesome!  That is why I bought this cd, I had a live version of it from a cd called Live in Bonaroo....it was epic!  The live version is up there as well with the quality of the on and on version.  
 
What is his other recording that you find to be excellent?

 

[chum_2000_uk]

I personally like the track "Banana Pancakes" off In Between Dreams. The rain dripping off leaves in the background is incredible

 

[majestic12]

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Yes Rodeo clowns is awesome!  That is why I bought this cd, I had a live version of it from a cd called Live in Bonaroo....it was epic!  The live version is up there as well with the quality of the on and on version.  
 
What is his other recording that you find to be excellent?

Brushfire Fairytales!  It was my favorite album about 8-9 years ago.  A lot of the tracks on that album were wonderful. 
 

 

[mark2410]

am i the only one that finds on and on a little hissy?  it just doesnt sound very clean
 
i will however second banana pancakes as fab

 

[non-entity]

Yep, I totally agree. Did you listen to "Sleep Through the Static", too? This one was recorded and mixed with much care using analogue gear, and it really sounds superb. There's another album which comes to mind: Mark Hollis' (ex Talk Talk frontman) solo album. It is his only solo album, and honestly, when I listened to it for the first time, I didn't expect that much. After some minutes though, I realized how DIFFERENT (great) it sounds. While playing back this album my headphones felt like living beings sitting on my head, and I truly sat in my room thinking "holy crap, I HAVE to find out who engineered/produced/mixed/mastered this album!". After reading a little I knew why it sounds so different: it was essentially recorded like jazz recordings back in the day, however in stereo. Great sounding room, a crossed cardioid pair of Neumann M49 mics, an Urei1178 limiter and from then on straight to tape. The same settings for everything, nothing changed (no equalizing). So, basically just what happened in that room. There is actually a lot of tape hiss in this recording, but it doesn't make it feel "lo-fi" at all, it just reminds me how unaltered and "true" this record is. And with all that detail and depth it could never be "lo-fi" anyways. To cut a long story short: GET IT AND LISTEN TO IT!

 

[fatcat28037]

OK, so who's the Engineer?

 

[non-entity]

Phill Brown engineered this album.
 
Quote:

Probably the best mastered cd I have heard in a while....everything seems perfect....
 

Don't quote me on this, but I think that mastering is overrated these days. And please don't get me wrong (since I like his work), but I think this is partly because of Steve Hoffman and his forum. He's very accessible, talks about his output, you can even ask him questions and if you're lucky you get your answer... It's no big surprise that so many people like him. But... since when was mastering such a big deal? Of course it's an important step, but in the end it's "just" the transfer from tape to a redbook-compliant file (or whatever, you know what I mean). What about everything before? Does it not matter where it was recorded? How? Which equipment engineers used? I read so often about "what's the best mastered CD?" and it seems to me like virtually nobody talks about production or engineering, as if it doesn't matter.
 
If the mastertape is bad, not even the best mastering engineer can make the output sound great. If the desired end product would be a CD, and if the raw material is tape, then the tape would be kind of like a fluid and we could think of the CD like an empty vessel. If there's not much fluid, nobody can completely fill this vessel. So, what does the mastering engineer do? Yeah, he or she decants and makes sure that nothing gets lost.
 
You guys probably know all this, but I felt like writing this since the mastering-thing starts to annoy me.

 

[fatcat28037]

I consider the mastering engineers name because I know some engineers will do their very best to get the most from the original tape. You won't find their name on a new release that's been brick-walled or "remastered" for iBuds.

 

[LFF]

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Don't quote me on this, but I think that mastering is overrated these days. .... But... since when was mastering such a big deal?

 
I disagree. It's even more important these days. It's become such a big deal since the mid 1990's when all these crap remasters starting popping up. Loud, distorted, horrible EQ choices, compression, limiting, etc.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by non-entity 
 
Of course it's an important step, but in the end it's "just" the transfer from tape to a redbook-compliant file (or whatever, you know what I mean).

 
No. It's not just transferring from tape to redbook. It involves manipulating a finite set of parameters in an infinite number of way to produce a quality master file for redbook, vinyl, HDCD, SACD, etc. You have to consider the quality of the tape, any defects that might be present such as noise, breath plosives, sibilance, etc. A good mastering engineer will provide another set of ears that are objective and specially trained to listen for many defects which the production and recording team routinely miss and are completely unaware of.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by non-entity 
 
What about everything before? Does it not matter where it was recorded? How? Which equipment engineers used? I read so often about "what's the best mastered CD?" and it seems to me like virtually nobody talks about production or engineering, as if it doesn't matter.

 
What about it? The mastering engineer assumes the role, ideally, of quality control. Ideally, the mastering room is equipped solely to master music, not to mix or record but strictly to master. Production and recording is very important but none of that matters if you have a tin eared mastering engineer at the end who will compress it to crap or add duophony processing. Likewise, the production and recording could be crap but if you have a talented mastering engineer at the end, a mediocre performance can be polished up and made to really shine. There are many famous recording engineers out there, you just have to do your research or hang out in the right circles. Ever heard of Roy DuNann or Keith Johnson?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by non-entity 
 
If the mastertape is bad, not even the best mastering engineer can make the output sound great. If the desired end product would be a CD, and if the raw material is tape, then the tape would be kind of like a fluid and we could think of the CD like an empty vessel. If there's not much fluid, nobody can completely fill this vessel. So, what does the mastering engineer do? Yeah, he or she decants and makes sure that nothing gets lost.

 
That's the thing...few master tapes are ever great. A vast majority of control rooms aren't tuned properly enough to show the flaws that are on the original master recording. One example I know of is the master tape for Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me". The original stereo mix has a ton of problems one of which is the distorted strings. Every single stereo release has this problem. If you heard Steve Hoffman's unreleased stereo version, you would notice that the soundstage is three dimensional and that the distortion problem is gone. Another example is Bill Evan's Portrait In Jazz. A couple of the tracks have a high pitch tone running through the entire song. Almost every single CD and vinyl release has these tones present except for 2 (and both mastering engineers who caught and fixed that problem are below). These are both old albums but even modern records suffer from these problems and many other problems which are much, much worse.
 
Now, let's say the master tape is perfect. It also takes a well trained and knowledgeable mastering engineer to recognize that such a tape needs no major work and then proceed to transfer such a tape with the cleanest signal path in order to degrade the sound the least amount possible. Some master tapes, like some from Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Elton John, etc, don't need anything except a good, flat transfer.
 
So what does a mastering engineer do? The answer really depends who you ask. Some mastering engineers (Bob Norberg, recent RVG remasters) muck up the sound beyond belief. Others (Joe Tarrantino, Alan Yoshida, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Bernie Grundmann, Doug Sax), as Fatcat28037 mentioned, pretty much ensure you will be getting a quality product with the best sound they can provide. When I see one of their names on a CD, I know I am in for a sonic treat.

To me, good mastering is just making sure that the original master mixes sound the best they can without mucking up the original sound - no loudness processing, unnecessary no-noise, bad EQ, bad compression/limiting or fake stereo if the source is mono. Good mastering should be as unobtrusive as possible. When I am working on a master/remaster my goal is that the listener should never even be aware of what I did unless he/she directly compares with another person's work.

 
Just my 2 cents.
 
EDIT: Listen to Head-fi podcast No. 2 for more information:
 
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts/36807
 

 

[fatcat28037]

^ Very well explained, sticky note quality information.

 

[non-entity]

@LFF: First of all, thank you for your detailed reply - I appreciate this!
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I disagree. It's even more important these days. It's become such a big deal since the mid 1990's when all these crap remasters starting popping up. Loud, distorted, horrible EQ choices, compression, limiting, etc.
 
 
What about it? The mastering engineer assumes the role, ideally, of quality control.
 

 
Well, you certainly are right about the mid-nineties and the loudness insanity. We all know that everybody tried to be as loud as possible way before, but since there was a physical limit to this, the whole thing wasn't such a big problem. I agree that the mastering engineer is a very important person in the long making of a record, but what I wanted to say (and possibly wrote quite mistakable) is that ideally, a mastering engineer should not even be noticeable - like you wrote. I guess that most horrible remasters sound horrible because record labels wanted them to sound this way, not the mastering engineer who is credited. If you are a mastering engineer and keep saying "no, I won't do it this way" you'd probably realize pretty soon that you are running out of customers these days. This is just sad, isn't it?
 
 
Quote:

No. It's not just transferring from tape to redbook. It involves manipulating a finite set of parameters in an infinite number of way to produce a quality master file for redbook, vinyl, HDCD, SACD, etc. You have to consider the quality of the tape, any defects that might be present such as noise, breath plosives, sibilance, etc. A good mastering engineer will provide another set of ears that are objective and specially trained to listen for many defects which the production and recording team routinely miss and are completely unaware of.

 
Nicely worded, but even though it sounds understandable, I can't fully agree. Sure, a mastering engineer should have great ears and such a person simply ought to be capable of sensing problems, but the part "[...]which the production and recording team routinely miss and are completely unaware of" makes me kinda shake my head. Maybe you mean it the way I do below, but the way you wrote it sounds to me like you mean that the recording staff simply isn't capable of sensing such problems. And I might be wrong, but as far as I know, most mastering engineers did something else before, like audio engineering. Bob Ludwig would be a good example if I'm not misinformed. You kind of wrote a similar thing, but this is the way I see it: a mastering engineer should be like a watchdog. He or she takes care, nothing more and nothing less. This person was not involved in the recording sessions, did not hear the raw, early mix, does not know anything about the guitarist's divorce, ... We're talking about fresh, highly motivated ears that do their best to keep the music alive on the final product. What I can't stand is the fact that so many people seem to think that audio fidelity is solely a thing that has something to do with the mastering process, which (in my opinion) is just wrong. Do you understand my point?
 
It certainly seems like you know what you're talking about, and again, I want to state that I'm thankful for your reply. I just downloaded this podcast and I'll listen to it in the near future.