Adventures In Mastering: DIO "Holy Diver" AF Gold CD version: PHOTOS at post #8..

Quite a fun day working on HOLY DIVER. It was nice to finally hear this album minus the years of built up bad EQ and compression on all the released media. It's such a relief to be able to hear the album with some dynamics for a change. It makes the listening experience more enjoyable, y'all!

After baking (and salting to taste, uummmm, good) I used the original SOUND CITY STUDIO 1983 analog 30 ips AES half inch non-Dolby original stereo mixes (does everyone know what that means now?) and Steph Marsh and I meticulously mastered the album directly from those original work parts. These tapes haven't been used in many, many years, they are essentially the "DO NOT USE" work parts. They sound great after baking. Most everything was mastered with the EQ Cutting Masters down through the years. NOT THIS VERSION We bypassed those tapes after reviewing. They could kill insects at 30 paces..

I gave Ronnie a human voice, made him sound more 3-D and everything else just fell in to place. Tremendous drum sounds and galloping guitars sound pretty lifelike. No treble was added by me and no treble was removed by me. No need to. This is what they were going for in the studio before post production tampering made the sound thin and mean. Not our new version! I'm happy.

Our two SH Forum guests took a lot of pictures of everything and when they recover from the music and the Brontoburgers we had, they will post some great pictures, I'm sure.

All in all a fun Metal day. I'll be listening to the check disk in a day and when this baby is put to bed, it's off to the plant so you can hear our efforts.

Hope you like it!

PHOTOS STARTING AT POST #8..

 

These photos by Rajeev Talwani.

In the last one I'm feelin' it, double lighters lit!

 

Pic two: Air guitar
Pic three: Ampex ATR-100 analog playback deck, 30 ips 1/2" tape.

 

First pic: Brontoburgers!

Second pic with Roger Nilsson.

Photos by Roger Nilsson:

BURGER CLOSE UP, yumm! Our "Good Luck Burgers", had the same for every "out of the park" mastering done at Marsh. Can't change now!

Last shot: The Ampex ATR-100, haulin' butt!

 

Full of Telefunkens, yes.

 

Both Marsh and I did our homework for the past two weeks. We were ready for each other today. Took about four hours to do the final mastering.

 

These tapes haven't been used in many, many years, they are essentially the "DO NOT USE" work parts. They sound great after baking. Most everything was mastered with the EQ Cutting Masters down through the years. We bypassed those after reviewing. They could kill insects at 30 paces..

 

It was great having you and Rajeev there. You can say to your grandkids "I lived through the DIO mastering adventure and had a great burger!"

 

Thanks for the update and the great pics

 

My ears.