What Constitutes a "Different" Mastering?

In the case of Targets, didn't they usually come out first, ahead of the non Targets of the same album?

 

Absolutely. I think the 'Target Era' ended in 1986-1987.

 

Hi Jamie,

But they're the same mixes aren't they?

Just kidding pal.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Hi George,

For the very earliest CDs, this is true. By '84 or so, I would say is isn't necessarily so. Some of the Eagles masters I did, as spoken of in the other thread, were sent to Specialty first. In other instances, it might have been another plant. And in still others, I sent clones out simultaneously.

We don't know though, if those original CDs, regardless of plant, were not the altered ones. As I mentioned in the other thread, we didn't have the tools then that we have today, which make catching the smallest changes fast and easy.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Would it have been more likely for the pressing plants to have made the adjustments in 16-bit mode in the 80's than if they were to do the same thing today?

 

We just ended up with 701 "same but different" versions of Who's Next...

 

Hi LesPaul666,

I'd think the mastering engineer might know.
Of course, having the mastering notes would be a great help (assuming they contain sufficient detail). For those older CDs, I'm afraid there isn't much we can do.

Nowadays, it is easier. At least for me. I would think this would be true of other mastering houses as well:
Since I create CD masters on my hard drive nowadays, I have the CD master right here, for anything I've worked on. (I also keep digital copies of the originals and other copies made at each step of the mastering process, including a copy of the DDP file set sent to the plant.)
I can compare a pressing (or a file extracted from a pressing) with the source itself, both via loudspeakers and by sending both through some quite cool analysis software (SpectraFoo) that looks at the file nine ways to Sunday.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Not to mention Buddy Holly FTOMT...

 

If so, that and 16-bit recording would also account for the thin, metallic, sound on many old CDs.

 

Hi RussellG,

I think that's a very good question.
My bet would be any plant that takes it upon themselves to make a change to an already approved master will most likely try to do this as quickly as possible. That means 16-bits.

Further, based on my discussions with dozens of plants when I was seeking one to press Soundkeeper CDs, I would say that better than 99% of them would argue that nothing is being lost on their "perfect" pressings.

If they feel, as better than 99% told me, their pressings are indistinguishable from the masters from which they're made, I don't know what percentage of them would take the time to save files at longer word lengths, process, then use a carefully selected dither algorithm to decimate to 16-bits again (much less upsample for the process, then downsample as well).

Perhaps the real question is why is a manufacturer making what is really a creative decision? They receive masters that are approved by the producer and record company and their job is to replicate those masters, not take production decisions upon themselves.

Perhaps, with all the competition there is today, they'd be less likely to mess with what they're sent. I'd like to think so anyway. (In any event, the tools to catch such shenanigans easily are now widely available.)

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Thanks Barry, I guess what I was driving at was both is there a greater awareness nowadays of the need to work in longer word lengths when adjusting, and also would they even have had the tools on hand to work at higher resolutions at pressing plants in the 80's? CD Audio was nearly a 14-bit spec after all wasn't it

 

Hi RussellG,

As to greater awareness, I'd say it is there among some folks. I don't think it has moved into the area of "general" though. There are still folks out there, including at some plants, who claim 16-bit is all that is needed for "perfect" sound.

To my knowledge, the earliest of the tools became available close to 1990.
If a plant had a reason to want a level changed, despite this being outside of their purview, the right thing to do was (and is) to contact the producer and record company and ask them. If the folks whose record it is agree, a new master should be created by their mastering engineer. I'd never trust a plant that took it upon itself to change a finished master. And I'd always bet the ones that do, will sonically damage the product.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

I am 100% with Barry on this subject, and so seems to be the majority of forum members (acc. to the poll results).

You can vote right here in the poll (original thread):

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=128207

 

I guess you could always say "it sounds the same to me", or "it sounds different to me" (e.g. pressing differences perceived by some). But that is subjective.

If you want to be objective, I feel like you can only call digital identical CD's as the same mastering (i.e. same peak levels, no level change).

 

This is just a big "words game"... right?

 

You do that once... it's one mastering.
You do that wice... it's another different mastering.

And so on

 

To say the least.

 

The more expensive and rarer disc is always better. Got an OBI strip? Even better yet.

 

What if it has an OBI, target, *and* smooth sided jewel case?

 

Thanks for that link. Interesting stuff.

 

But it occurs many many times. For example, there are 3 variants of the original EMI-Harvest mastering of Pink Floyd's "The Wall": Japan, UK and West German. They are obviously sourced from the same digital transfer, because they are 100% in snych, and they are "identical" except for a volume shift and the resulting low level rounding errors. Are these 3 different masterings?

 

Hi Andreas,

Well, they're not the same.

I don't think it fair (or honest) to whoever mastered the original, to suggest the massacred ones are that engineer's work.

As I said earlier, they may have been sourced from his work but in the end, they are not representative of the decisions that engineer made at the mastering session. I consider this (i.e. "sourced") a critical distinction.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

In my opinion, they are three different masterings.

For one, the UK Harvest has exactly twice the peak level of the Japan Harvest, but since the Japan Harvest has a few tracks just a little over 50% (like 52% or so), the resulting UK Harvest has some tracks peaking at 100% and these are very slightly clipped. You could consider these one of the first forms of very slight compression, but the dynamic range of these tracks is slightly reduced.

The WG Harvest has increased levels compared to the Japan Harvest by a factor of approx. 1.9, so that no digital clipping occurs, but that the CD uses the full dynamic range of the format.

This is a quite drastic volume change (not the 0.2 dB which can be found on some other CD's), and to me the Japan Harvest sounds noticeable different from the WG Harvest, even when I compensate for the volume (not in the digital domain, but on the volume knob on my amp).

The almost 100% volume increase is not a subtle change by any means, and we all know that these three CD's were all originated from the same original analog to digital transfer, some mastering engineer thought that the levels on the Japan Harvest (the first of these versions) were too low and needed to be raised. This is a mastering decision, or you could call it the first remastering of this album. Just because that mastering engineer decided to use the original analog to digital transfer, and made no EQ changes, and used no digital compression (a wise decision), he still made a change and created a new mastering (in my opinion).

By the way, I think there are more remasterings out there than we think which are based on a previous analog to digital transfer, with just making some level changes and maybe some slight EQ changes.

A new mastering for CD does not necessarily need to include a new analog to digital transfer. I can use an existing transfer and apply some EQ and use some compression and thus create a new mastering.