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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is my good friend and mastering engineer Stephen Marcuson. Hey, Bob, Now,

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Speaker 1: you've worked with literally who's who the music business, everybody

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Speaker 1: from the Stones to Tom Petty to Stevie Wonder, I

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Speaker 1: go on and on, and then you're mentioning a new act.

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Speaker 1: You think it's gonna blow up, Ben Platt, anybody else

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Speaker 1: you want to throw in from my audience? Uh? Maybe

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Speaker 1: as we go along, I'll well, M it's literally too

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Speaker 1: many to mention. Let's start from the beginning. What exactly

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Speaker 1: is mastering? You know? Mastering is uh, it's this gray

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Speaker 1: art that people don't really understand. It's do you understand it?

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Speaker 1: I hope so forty years in right, I think I

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Speaker 1: got it. But it's sort of it's your last creative

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Speaker 1: stage of making a record. It's it's a chance to

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Speaker 1: take all of your work and put it together in

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Speaker 1: a cohesive manner. You can change the sound. You can

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Speaker 1: change tempos of tracks, you can enhance centers for vocals.

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Speaker 1: You can do any number of things to get a

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Speaker 1: consistent sound that flows from beginning to end. There various

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Speaker 1: tools you use whether it's you can play it back

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Speaker 1: on tube type tape machines, if you're fortunate enough to

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Speaker 1: see things like that. Uh, files come in mainly these days,

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Speaker 1: but occasionally we see tape. So you can pick and

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Speaker 1: choose how you look at a project. And I shouldn't

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Speaker 1: say you, I should say I and uh I put

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Speaker 1: it up. I listened to it just as it comes in,

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Speaker 1: and I think about what would do, what what I

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Speaker 1: could do to enhance this project and make it make

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Speaker 1: it deliberable to you know, a man us, I should

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Speaker 1: say numbers of ways to play it, whether it's radio,

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Speaker 1: whether you're listening to a c D, whether you're listening

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Speaker 1: to hires files, m fits. So it's I don't know

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Speaker 1: what m fits are. M fits are mastered for iTunes,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know there was an acronym on that

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Speaker 1: there is and it's uh it's interesting because m FIT

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Speaker 1: they tried to set a standard of quality to reduce

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Speaker 1: what they call inter sample overs and uh, well, let's

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Speaker 1: slow down here. What are inter sample overs? I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to get into interstatt a little bit. Well, when

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Speaker 1: you're working in a digital scale, there's zero within the scale.

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Speaker 1: You can have these inter sample overs, which are these

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Speaker 1: spurious peaks that essentially can clip. They don't, but they can.

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Speaker 1: So Apple decided to try to enhance their format. The

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Speaker 1: A C and badget M F I T and it

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Speaker 1: gives the mastering house, or Apple gives the mastering house

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Speaker 1: an Apple it to drop it on. You can measure

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Speaker 1: your inner sample overs, and they don't really want to

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Speaker 1: see hundreds of thousands, which you can on a you know,

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Speaker 1: a hot rock record. They want to see it brought,

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Speaker 1: brought down and contained within a reasonable amount. They don't

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Speaker 1: define a number, they just want you to use good judgment.

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Speaker 1: So an m FANT can typically be as much as

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Speaker 1: a dB, quieter than a c D or a digital

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Speaker 1: file source. So okay, let's just stay with there. If

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Speaker 1: you're mastering for iTunes, that's a downloadable track, do they

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Speaker 1: want the same track for the Apple Music service. That's

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Speaker 1: a very good question and the answer is yes. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm going through something right now because all of these

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Speaker 1: services are looking at different features. Apple has the complete

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Speaker 1: my album feature, Spotify wants it to mirror the CD

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Speaker 1: UM and I literally got the email a half hour ago,

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Speaker 1: so I'm going to start dissecting it. When I'm done here,

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Speaker 1: but they they they want to have a standard that

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Speaker 1: is consistent with their platform. Okay, just going for left

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Speaker 1: field for one second. Prior to these streaming services, there

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Speaker 1: were the loudness wars, which will get back to. But

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Speaker 1: now since these I know they basically I don't know

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Speaker 1: the technical turn off the top of my head. They

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Speaker 1: basically average the sounds or everything is the same volume

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Speaker 1: normalized normalized, thank you, and uh does that affect the

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Speaker 1: loudness wars? It does? It's uh. Loudness is measured on

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Speaker 1: a left scale l ufs, and depending on you know,

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Speaker 1: who's releasing or playing your your your file, they like

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Speaker 1: to target a certain number. The lower the number four

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Speaker 1: point three is louder than seven point two. Our testing

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Speaker 1: has shown that if you bring a CD level down

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Speaker 1: a few dbs, and a few dbs is a lot.

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Speaker 1: Remember six d b s is twice the volume. So

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Speaker 1: if you bring it down three d b s, they're

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Speaker 1: normalizer isn't kicking in as much, and consequently your program

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Speaker 1: sounds better. There's you know, an example that comes to

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Speaker 1: mind is there's a piano vocal track that gets played

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Speaker 1: up against you know, a slamming hard rock track. Well,

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Speaker 1: the hard rock tracks got stack guitars, it's got bass,

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Speaker 1: it's got bombastic drums. Yet the piano and vocal so

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Speaker 1: much louder because it isn't as loud physically in the

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Speaker 1: digital medium as the slamming track. So the normalizer doesn't

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Speaker 1: kick in. Normalizers can really bring your level down. You

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Speaker 1: know a lot of dvs. So in addition, getting technical

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Speaker 1: for a second, if it's normalizer brings it down, obviously

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Speaker 1: it's going to be quieter. How does that affect the

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Speaker 1: sound It's not beneficial. Let's go back to the beginning

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Speaker 1: of our discussion. Theoretically, especially in today's d I Y world, Uh,

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Speaker 1: could you just make a record on your laptop and

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Speaker 1: send it straight to a streaming service? People do every day.

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Speaker 1: That's very common SoundCloud, you know, people that put post

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Speaker 1: their music up on services like that. It's a complete

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Speaker 1: d I Y. In many cases they get a little action.

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Speaker 1: Then they want to actually master it or finish it,

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Speaker 1: remix it, depending also, you know, it just depends on

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Speaker 1: the kind of action they get. So I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of people that are you know, breaking in as

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Speaker 1: it were, go ahead d I Y at if there's uh,

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Speaker 1: if there's notice. They then maybe get get get noticed

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Speaker 1: by a professional and indie somebody that wants to you know,

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Speaker 1: join forces with them, and then they'll go rework the project. Okay,

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Speaker 1: asking something that's not quantifiable in a quantifiable way, what

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Speaker 1: percent can mastering effect attract? Yeah, you know that's that's

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Speaker 1: kind of an impossible question, but I'll attempt to answer it.

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Speaker 1: If you've got a track that comes in and you

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Speaker 1: were working in a studio or just in your own studio,

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Speaker 1: and your speakers weren't giving you reality, reality means the

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Speaker 1: balance of frequencies lows, mids, highs were you know, terribly skewed.

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Speaker 1: You take if you know, you take your track to

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Speaker 1: a professional mastering facility, you're in a room that your

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Speaker 1: engineers worked in for a period of time, in my case,

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Speaker 1: twelve years in my particular studio, I know the room

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Speaker 1: like the back of my hand. I put your track

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Speaker 1: up and I say, this is dull, or this is boomy,

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Speaker 1: or what what what? Whatever the correction needs to be.

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Speaker 1: You take my judgment because you've now come to me

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Speaker 1: for my services, and I say, well, we can open

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Speaker 1: it up. In the vocal now is coming out of

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Speaker 1: the track and clean and clear, and the bases and

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Speaker 1: muddy and you know whoofing out your bottom end. So

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Speaker 1: that really is a big change and well worth doing.

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Speaker 1: Um okay, so since I've known you almost forty years,

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Speaker 1: you're working precision. Then you worked at A and M

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Speaker 1: before you established your own facility. I didn't really work

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Speaker 1: at A and M A and M. I meant to

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Speaker 1: say work in a general term. That's where you your

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Speaker 1: worked reinspired. You did not work four AM and am.

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Speaker 1: You rented the space. But my question is all three

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Speaker 1: rooms are different. Is someone like you so professional? How

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Speaker 1: long does it take you to adjust to a different room.

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Speaker 1: Mastering engineers are nervous types. Uh. To make a shift

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Speaker 1: in just your chain, in your chain as your processing

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Speaker 1: to plug in a new new piece of gear can

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Speaker 1: be daunting because it could change something. And you know,

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Speaker 1: back to the gray area of mastering. If you put

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Speaker 1: something in that you think sounds good, and I can

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Speaker 1: be fooled. Anybody can be fooled by sound. Its sound

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Speaker 1: is an elusive dragon. But you put something in your

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Speaker 1: chain and you don't notice it immediately, and it changes

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Speaker 1: your sounds. So you go from room to room, moving

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Speaker 1: from the place I learned to work to A and M.

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Speaker 1: I took in my own loud speakers. Uh that they

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Speaker 1: were kind enough to let me place in a mastering

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Speaker 1: room and a lot of my own gear. So uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's always scary making a change like that, going

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Speaker 1: from A and M to the first facility I I

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Speaker 1: built for myself. I fell in love with bing W

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Speaker 1: loud speakers and really bought them site, you know, without

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Speaker 1: having evaluated them. I knew that they were good speakers.

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Speaker 1: Then how did you fall in love with them if

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Speaker 1: you hadn't evaluated them? Good point, I had heard them

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Speaker 1: in places I had never worked on them. The you

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Speaker 1: go to a hi fi shop and you listen to them,

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Speaker 1: and you take your favorite CD and you go, oh,

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Speaker 1: I can relate. The center is a little off center here,

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Speaker 1: The vocal sounds this way, the sibilance is what it

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Speaker 1: should be. So, and I've listened to a lot of speakers.

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Speaker 1: Believe me, they were the only ones in a store

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Speaker 1: I could say that's good. Okay, let's go back to

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Speaker 1: the speakers. Forty years ago, there was a transition. There

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Speaker 1: was something called the aura tone, which was one speaker

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Speaker 1: meant to mimic the car dashboard. Then seemingly everybody went

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Speaker 1: to the Yamaha and as ten M and they might

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Speaker 1: take off the grill and put a little piece of

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Speaker 1: tissue paper over the tweeter. But obviously car radios have

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Speaker 1: become more sophisticated and less important. But every mastering room

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Speaker 1: you go to, everybody is using different speakers. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a taste. You know. Some people like a t C S,

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Speaker 1: some people like homemade speakers. You know, there are many

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Speaker 1: facilities that incorporated a woofer here in the mid range

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Speaker 1: here and put them in big, big cabinets. It's really

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Speaker 1: a taste. Okay, let's go just a home audio for

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Speaker 1: a second. You know, the big thing on home audio

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Speaker 1: is these digital testers. Now, Okay, you buy something and

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Speaker 1: it comes with a little microphone. Whether that's good or bad,

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Speaker 1: that's not really my point. Are you so sophisticated that

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Speaker 1: you could set up a room just by ear? That's

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Speaker 1: how I did my last room, and I think it's

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Speaker 1: my best room yet, I mean, I don't think you

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Speaker 1: could get a better place to listen to music loudsoft, direct, indirect,

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Speaker 1: the back of the room, the front of the room.

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Speaker 1: And I've worked with acousticians George Ocksbird namely for decades now,

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Speaker 1: and I brought him in just to help me. Um.

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Speaker 1: Just you know, you're building a new room. You've got

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Speaker 1: a lot of things on your plate, so it's good

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Speaker 1: to have professional help there. But by and large, you

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Speaker 1: set the room up to please yourself. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've got good equipment. I built a phenomenal room. George

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Speaker 1: designed the room. It's trapped properly. It's incredibly for the

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Speaker 1: people who don't know what it's contained, the low ends contained.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't boom. It's uh, it's natural. It decays naturally.

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Speaker 1: It's not splashy. There are no reflections from left to right.

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Speaker 1: You know, imagine a loudspeaker playing loud in a barn.

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Speaker 1: That wouldn't be a good room. Uh. You put a

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Speaker 1: loudspeaker in a room similar to what we have here,

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Speaker 1: you can see their sound dampening on the walls. It

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Speaker 1: just breaks up reflected sounds so that you can, you know,

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Speaker 1: focus on the direct sound in my case, the direct

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Speaker 1: sounds coming out of loudspeakers. Okay, Now, there's been a

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Speaker 1: big transition in the Internet era. Back prior to the

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Speaker 1: year two thousand, there were a limited number of professional

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Speaker 1: mastering engineers. Literally you could count unless than five fingers

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Speaker 1: people in Los Angeles, and there were people in New York.

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Speaker 1: But suddenly, since the digital revolution, everybody thinks they're a

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Speaker 1: mastering engineer. There's a good amount of that. Okay, and

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Speaker 1: I know I'm trying to think of way Roy would

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Speaker 1: ask this question, But is basically all the newcomers, or

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Speaker 1: any of them, any good. There's always going to be

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Speaker 1: somebody younger, hungrier, and better. So I'm glad I asked that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: whether or not they're discovered remains to be seen, but

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Speaker 1: don't discount anybody that's young and trying hard. Okay, let's go.

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Speaker 1: There's Lander. Why do you explain for the people who

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Speaker 1: don't know what lander is. I'm not fluent in lander,

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Speaker 1: but to the best of my knowledge, lander is a

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Speaker 1: computer algorithm that looks at your sound, analyzes your sound.

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Speaker 1: You say you want it to sound like X y Z.

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Speaker 1: I think you can actually plug that criteria into the computer.

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Speaker 1: It will look at the frequencies, it will look at

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Speaker 1: the level, and it will make sonic adjustments to your track.

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Speaker 1: But let's to be over, I should have put it.

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Speaker 1: Lander is essentially automated mastering. Right. I think there are

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Speaker 1: actually a couple of programs out there that are doing

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Speaker 1: automated mastering. I think there's another unit in Florida. I

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Speaker 1: don't really keep up with that. Would any professional use

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Speaker 1: one of those automatic I mean professional act Would anybody

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Speaker 1: use one of those services? I would doubt it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. Now, you've had quite

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Speaker 1: a peripatetic life. You were born in Africa and a

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Speaker 1: country that no longer exists. Well, it exists, it's just

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Speaker 1: changed its name. Okay, So how many years did you

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Speaker 1: live in what was then Rhodesia. I left Rhodesia at

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Speaker 1: a very early age. The pattern was we we left

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Speaker 1: Rhodesia moved back to Northern Europe. As my parents were

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Speaker 1: Northern European British and Danish. Realized that what they had

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Speaker 1: experienced in Rhodesia was very different than being in Northern Europe.

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Speaker 1: Northern Europe where Denmark and England, and they sort of

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Speaker 1: followed the sun, if you will. So living in Rhodesia,

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Speaker 1: it's it's beautiful. It's like California. The climate's magnificent. You

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Speaker 1: can grow anything. It's a marvelous place. California was in

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Speaker 1: my in my parents sites, and so we we flew

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Speaker 1: to well, let's just go a little bit. So you

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Speaker 1: were in Rhodesia to what age three or three and

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Speaker 1: a half, okay, and then you moved to northern Europe. Correct.

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Speaker 1: We floundered there for about a year, six months in

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Speaker 1: uh in England, six months in Denmark. We arrived in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles on my fifth birthday. Okay. They were literally

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Speaker 1: following the sun, they were, and that was their last destination.

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Speaker 1: They never left, okay, but they sent you different places.

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Speaker 1: I was sent to boarding school in England for my

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Speaker 1: formative years. And so when did you start boarding school

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Speaker 1: in England? I started when I was ten and a

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Speaker 1: half and I left England when I was I think

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Speaker 1: just about fifteen, maybe just fifteen. And was there anything

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Speaker 1: good there? It was everything good there. It was a

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Speaker 1: great time to be in England. Uh. From four it

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Speaker 1: was fantastic. We turned onto music and I went to

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Speaker 1: a very progressive boarding school and we one of my

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Speaker 1: classmates got a cassette, which was a portable way of

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Speaker 1: listening to music. It was mono, but we taped out well,

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Speaker 1: he taped albums and we would be out, you know,

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Speaker 1: in in the fields just with music and hanging out

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Speaker 1: with people. I mean, music was a really really big

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Speaker 1: part of my life. And this boarding school was were

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Speaker 1: a relative to London. It's forty miles southwest of London.

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Speaker 1: Did you go to London? Like? Positively? London was an

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Speaker 1: hour train ride from Frensham, and uh, we we get

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Speaker 1: to London as often as we could. You have to

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Speaker 1: remember we're boarding school. We don't We didn't have unlimited budgets.

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Speaker 1: Once you're in London, you know, we'll see these cost

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Speaker 1: money and you could bum around London and we did

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Speaker 1: and stayed, you know, dropped in on people that we knew.

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Speaker 1: But it was just a marvelous time to be in

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Speaker 1: London people, you know truly, you know, think of Austin

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Speaker 1: Powers and Carnebie Street and that's really what it was. Like.

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Speaker 1: Let's go back. Your father was a butcher, right, correct.

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Speaker 1: So he moved to Los Angeles and where does he

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Speaker 1: go to work? Uh? He went to work for a

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Speaker 1: supermarket chain. And uh, you know, my my parents really

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Speaker 1: didn't have much to be to begin with. We came

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Speaker 1: to America having left Rhodesia, um with not a lot

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Speaker 1: because Rhodesia was in a downturn, so selling your house

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Speaker 1: it wasn't you know, it wasn't easy for them to

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Speaker 1: literally uproot and come here. My father worked at a supermarket.

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Speaker 1: My mother worked as you know, they referred to people

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Speaker 1: like my mother in those days as secretaries. You can't

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Speaker 1: say that anywhere, um. But she worked for a company

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Speaker 1: called the American Gem Society, which was a standard. It

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Speaker 1: was a company put in place for standards and jewelry.

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Speaker 1: She worked the balance of her work life there. My

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Speaker 1: father ended up migrating from one chain to the next,

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Speaker 1: ultimately landing it a shop that I'm sure you remember, Jorgensen's,

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Speaker 1: which is a very high end grocery store. And I

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Speaker 1: was forced into an early retirement. Okay, but a couple

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Speaker 1: of questions. If you're going to school in England during

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Speaker 1: the winter, spending your summers in Los Angeles, I would

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Speaker 1: come back twice a year. I'd come back for the

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Speaker 1: Christmas break and I'd come back for summer. Now, the

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Speaker 1: English school year was divided differently than America. You got

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Speaker 1: a month off for Christmas and you only got seven

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Speaker 1: eight weeks for summer. So did you make any friends

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Speaker 1: when you were in l A over the summer. Well,

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Speaker 1: I had my friends that were here, but England was

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Speaker 1: a very, very uh changing experience. I left as a

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Speaker 1: fairly straight child and came back with my eyes opened.

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Speaker 1: And you come back to l A and you go

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Speaker 1: to high school in Lafe. I negotiated my way through

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Speaker 1: high school from boarding school. I had my eyes set

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Speaker 1: on being in the music business. How did that revelation

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Speaker 1: there was? I think it's the third Yes album called

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Speaker 1: Close to the Edge, and there's a picture on the

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Speaker 1: back cover of Eddie offered in front of a console

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Speaker 1: and you know, we we love music. I saw that

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Speaker 1: and I said, this is for me, this is what

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Speaker 1: I want to do. So I finished high school. You

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Speaker 1: say you negotiated your way What does that mean? Because

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Speaker 1: of the English education and l A Unified, there was

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Speaker 1: no way to access what where I really was in

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Speaker 1: my education. So they brought in specialists from u C.

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Speaker 1: L A to evaluate me and uh. I was actually

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Speaker 1: going to graduate when I was fifteen and a half,

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Speaker 1: but they couldn't allow it, so they forced me to

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Speaker 1: stay an extra semester. I I did the one semester.

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Speaker 1: I then did summer school to take care of some

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Speaker 1: required courses government in history, US government history, and then

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Speaker 1: my last semester I had to take the the early

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Speaker 1: course for the advanced course I had already taken just

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Speaker 1: to fulfill. So I made an arrangement with the teacher

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Speaker 1: that I wouldn't show up and take the final. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: I was working in to nine in grocery stores. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but then you do graduate, you have a dream of

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Speaker 1: being in the music business. What's the first step in

337
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: when um, I was working in a grocery store. I

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Speaker 1: then decided I wanted to be in the music business

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Speaker 1: and had to get out of that and had to

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Speaker 1: pound the pavement. I found, Uh, never a thought to

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Speaker 1: go to college. I went to college j C to

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Speaker 1: really fill time because I was at loose ends and

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Speaker 1: I had to get out of my parents house because

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Speaker 1: I couldn't be hanging out. UM. So I did that.

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Speaker 1: I I took some electrical engineering courses, but I pounded

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Speaker 1: the pavement and got a job at a radio commercial duplicator.

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Speaker 1: So I think it was a J. Walter Thompson was

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Speaker 1: a big ad agency McDonald. So literally we stuffed a

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Speaker 1: two cards which were like eight tracks, except they were

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Speaker 1: thirty second or one minute spots. And from there one

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Speaker 1: of the guys I worked with had I should say,

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Speaker 1: he came to work there. He had just left what

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Speaker 1: was Richard Perry's studio, which was studio on Melrose. I

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Speaker 1: heard that and I thought, well, that's the door I've

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Speaker 1: got a knock on. So I noticed that there was

356
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Speaker 1: a studio across the street called I think Radio and

357
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Speaker 1: Records or something. It's still there on Melrows is gone.

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Speaker 1: I knocked on the door. The receptionist had been involved

359
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Speaker 1: in a car accident, and the Carol Child's who ran

360
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Speaker 1: Richard's publishing company at that point, let anybody in because

361
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Speaker 1: it was seventy four it's a great time. And I waited, waited,

362
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Speaker 1: and the studio manager interviewed me and then called me

363
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Speaker 1: back and started, you know, from from the toilet up

364
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Speaker 1: and okay, So the first job, I'm sure there was

365
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Speaker 1: not a job description, but it be what janitor? There

366
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,879
Speaker 1: was a job description. Really, you were the janitor, truly,

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Speaker 1: you had literally had the foot in the door. Had

368
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Speaker 1: the foot in the door, couldn't have been happier. And

369
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Speaker 1: that was the job of the guy was working to

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Speaker 1: the grocery store janitor. No it was. He wasn't working

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Speaker 1: in the grocery store. He was working at a T

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Speaker 1: and T. That's I think that he had played his

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Speaker 1: cards wrong and said he was qualified and he wasn't.

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Speaker 1: So I knew that there was a void, So okay,

375
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Speaker 1: so tell the people that didn't no longer exists. The

376
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: history of studio Studio fifty five was I think it

377
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: was Decca where being recorded White Christmas. We always said

378
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Speaker 1: the ghost of being resided in the attic there. Um

379
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Speaker 1: Howard Steele, who was Richard's engineer, had owned it with

380
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Speaker 1: and Howard, by the way, it was a part of

381
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Speaker 1: a console manufacturer called quant him. He had you may

382
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: remember the name Vanjie Carmichael. She did all the jingles.

383
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 1: He was married. Howard was married to Carol, so Carol's mom,

384
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Speaker 1: Vanjie sort of funded this studio for Howard and it

385
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: just didn't happen for them, and somehow another Richard got involved,

386
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Speaker 1: and part of the agreement was that Howard would be

387
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Speaker 1: Richard's engineer, and Richard so that as a benefit because

388
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: he knew the room and and all of that, and

389
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: Richard developed the studio. He rebuilt the big control room

390
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: A made a beautiful studio out of it, and there

391
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 1: was B which was a smaller room. Both had quantum consoles,

392
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Speaker 1: and it became an incredibly successful studio. Toto came from

393
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 1: that studio. There was just a lot of great music

394
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: made in those rooms. Okay, so you started out as

395
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: the janitor, how do you get out of the ship hole? Well,

396
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: Howard was He was interested enough to ask me to

397
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 1: come and assist him on on some demos he was

398
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: doing on a weekend session. So I'll never forget this.

399
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: I knew nothing of what I was doing, and I

400
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 1: mean nothing. I didn't know that you had to tell

401
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: him microphone was in number sixteen or any of that.

402
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: So we we get this whole thing going. And in

403
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: those days you ran a tape machine and he says, okay, record,

404
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: I didn't know how so that so I, you know,

405
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: I just started assisting Howard and uh then you know,

406
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,719
Speaker 1: you just get more gained more and more experience. In

407
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 1: those days, you could hang out in people's sessions and

408
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: observe and people weren't offended by that, and so I

409
00:26:56,320 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: made myself useful. And still still cleaning up, still cleaning up,

410
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 1: still go fering, go you know. So, Okay, if you're

411
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: working there, theoretically you have janitorial hours, how much do

412
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: you working there? Are you essentially living there? I was

413
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: essentially living there. I'll I'll put some numbers in place

414
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: for you. When you're in the union and you're a

415
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: checker in the supermarket, which I was, you make incredibly

416
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: good money. I left that job to go work for

417
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars a week. I worked over eighty hours

418
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: a week and took home seventy six dollars on a

419
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: paycheck and was thrilled to do it. Okay, so what's

420
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: the next step of the ladder there? Um? I started

421
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 1: second engineering, then I started first engineering. And when you're

422
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: first you're running the session, you're doing the vocals, you're

423
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 1: tracking the drums, you know, whatever it is. Um, how

424
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: long did it take to go from janitor a first engineering?

425
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: That's a good question. It wasn't that long, relatively speaking.

426
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: Maybe a year and a half, a couple of years. Um.

427
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 1: I remember, my my first real date was working with

428
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 1: earth Window basically earth Wind and Fire as the band

429
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:22,360
Speaker 1: without Maurice. We're doing uh, was it Denise Williams demos

430
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:25,400
Speaker 1: or something? It was really it was like as completely

431
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: out of my league, but you know, you just wing it,

432
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: and that's what I did. So from there, I uh

433
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 1: got involved with a producer, Bob Asteen. We made a

434
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: lot of disco music. He was part of Neil Bogart's

435
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: camp and Neil treated him really well. And over the

436
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: course of making disco music, we would start mastering and

437
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: you couldn't really get the sound of what was on

438
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,479
Speaker 1: the tape on a phonograph record, which was the medium

439
00:28:56,520 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: in those days, and there had to be a re reason.

440
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: So the people I was working with, we we were

441
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out, and we discovered that there

442
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: was a lathe, which is what you cut phonograph records on,

443
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: was made locally. It was a unique machine because with

444
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: a phonograph lathe, the computer needs to know what it's

445
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: going to cut before it cuts it, because it's turning

446
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: a lead screw and moving a cutter head across the disk.

447
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: This lathe didn't need that, so suddenly you could use

448
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: a better tape machine. The next part of the equation

449
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: were the cutting package, which was an order phone package.

450
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: I'm using one today. Actually, I would do a lot

451
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: of work with Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welsh when we're

452
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: committing their catalog into vinyl. So the order phone could

453
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: cut what no one else could cut, very delicate system.

454
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: UM but ended up hearing that Steve Wonder, Stevie Wonder

455
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: was having some problems mastering hotter than July, and people

456
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: I was working with had the wisdom to send him

457
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: a brail letter and Steve was interested and we cut

458
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: a ref for him. Okay, let's go a little bit slower.

459
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: So you were working at studio bybe Bestie and you

460
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: have this problem with mastering, do you then commit yourself?

461
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: I'm on the mastering dream or is just like a

462
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: side project, a side project. It's totally a side project.

463
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: The lathe and the cutting amps were set up at

464
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: the back room at fifty five. It was on a table.

465
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: You know, we were just learning, learning, learning, but we

466
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: knew there was something good about it. Okay, so you

467
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,479
Speaker 1: had one of these leaves. You said it was made

468
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,719
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Did anybody else have one? There were

469
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: five in the world. UM one that was at the

470
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: place that made it so that they could keep it running.

471
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: UM two went to a company called Future Disc that's

472
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: now gone and Precision had the other two. So they

473
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: were finicky, delicate and really a miracle that they went

474
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: from day to day. So it was again it was

475
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: a learn while you earn experience. UM ended up building

476
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: Precision well before you. But first you got ahold of

477
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder before Precision. No Stevie came at Precisions. Okay,

478
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: So you ended up building Precisions. So you say, we're

479
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: going down this path. We're committed, We're committed. There were

480
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: three partners in on it. One was an experienced mastering

481
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: engineer that ended up not not coming through in ways

482
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: that should have, and so it was really it fell

483
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: on me, so you were learning on the job by

484
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: the seat of my pants. Fortunately, Richard started his record

485
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: company at that point, Planet and Michael Solomon, who I've

486
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: just reacquainted with, put together one of the very first

487
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: compilation records of punk bands. It was called Sharp Cuts,

488
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: and you know, we were all in the family and

489
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: Michael came to me and, uh, you know, the plim

490
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: souls were I don't remember who all the acts were

491
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: on it, but Michael came to me and, uh, to

492
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: master it. And I really didn't know what I was doing,

493
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: but it sounded pretty good. At the end of the day,

494
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: the equipment wasn't so great, the meaning the lathe, but

495
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: I mean, truthfully, there was there was a lot of

496
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: tears for me on that because it just it was

497
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: frustrating knowing that the potential was there, but I just

498
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: couldn't get get it going right and it took a while.

499
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: But Michael worked with me. He brought me Mark Saffin's

500
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: next So I got a little education doing that. But

501
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: the best education I got was your friend Harold Bronson,

502
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: who had Ryan before we do that. This is before

503
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: or after Stevie Wonder. This is actually after tell us

504
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: to Stevie Wonder story. Stevie was interested. There was a

505
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: gentleman by the name of Arnie Acosta that was brought

506
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: into Precision to help teach me to master um. Arnie

507
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: it was really a gifted mastering engineer, and I mean

508
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: a really gifted mastering engineer, and Arnie helped put that

509
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: all together. Arnie though did not live in Los Angeles,

510
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: he lived in San Louis Obispo, so he would commute

511
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: down for four days a week and we'd work so

512
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,719
Speaker 1: the other three days in the week because in those days.

513
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: You know, it was a seven day haul. It was

514
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 1: me and so I would be in there on the

515
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: weekends just trying to figure it out, and you know,

516
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 1: slowly people would come and well I finished the story

517
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: with Stevie Wonder though as well. We Steve came in.

518
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: We mastered Hotter in July. Um, he was he's a

519
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: critical customer. He really knows what he wants. Um, I

520
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: should say he didn't come in at that point, but

521
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: we kept sending refs to him. And this, incidentally was

522
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 1: the infancy of digital audio. Stevie worked on these Sony

523
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: systems called sixteen hundreds, and Sony built Steve a braille editor,

524
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,399
Speaker 1: forum and stuff like that. So it was a lot

525
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: of pioneering on my part, Sony's part, Steve's part. Uh,

526
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: it was it was just um, it was really the

527
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: order phone system that really spelled the difference. And Steve

528
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: could hear that. So he was ultimately happy that you

529
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: were doing a better version. Thrilled, thrilled. And we cut

530
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: the parts for the world. We you know, in those days,

531
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: you cut lacquers, you cut who sets for Portugal, Spain,

532
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: South Africa, you name it. We cut Stevie Wonder till

533
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: the cows came home. There would you'd get at the

534
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: end of the day, there'd be a stack of boxes

535
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: to be picked up by motown and careered off to

536
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 1: the to the regions. Okay, so then okay, so then

537
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: you do Stevie Wonder and you were telling this story

538
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 1: with Harold Bronson. Another thing, well, Steve sort of put

539
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: Precision on the map, Harold who was one of the

540
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: co founders of Rhino correct Harold. I don't know how

541
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: Harold got to Precision, but he did. And this was

542
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: really at the beginning of his reissue world. He was

543
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: coming off the wild Man Fisher stuff and the Barnes

544
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: and Barns, and he struck a deal with Precision that

545
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: we would work together for a rate. But meanwhile, you know,

546
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:05,399
Speaker 1: I'm doing naz nas nas nas nas nas off off

547
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: of the master tapes with Harold, and it was really, uh,

548
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: it was a great learning experience. I mean, Harold, who's

549
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 1: a fantastic music fan. You know, he would have all

550
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: the originals to reflect on and then look at what

551
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: we were doing and he'd make corrections and it was

552
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: really it was a great vehicle for me to learn

553
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 1: how to master okay, so go on. I was gonna say,

554
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: when I was learning to master, it's about a ten

555
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: year process until I think you were okay to good.

556
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: I mean, let's be real. You start something, you're never

557
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: great at it unless you're gifted. And Harold worked with

558
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: me through that. And I did a lot of work

559
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: with Harold over many years um mastering his catalogs, and

560
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: I think it made me better. It certainly gave Harold

561
00:36:55,440 --> 00:37:00,720
Speaker 1: a good product to sell. And uh also now, because

562
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: of the Stevie Wonder connection, those days, people would look

563
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 1: at album credits and by the way, we were so

564
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: late in the game. On the Stevie Wonder credit, they

565
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: had to put it on the actual disc label as

566
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: opposed to in the artwork in the package. But they

567
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: credited us, which was the main thing. So I started

568
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 1: doing a lot of Solar Records, Gap Band, just a

569
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: lot of really great music, and again learning as I

570
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: went along. I mean, it was in those days reading

571
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: the album art sort of helped your career tremendously. So

572
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: you weren't working at you were waiting and you're waiting

573
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: to pick up the phone, right, We're waiting for the

574
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,439
Speaker 1: phone to ring. I mean, that's I've never been good

575
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: at selling myself, and uh, it was just word of

576
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: mouth that just you have the soul records, then how

577
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 1: do you break into the rock records. Well, as I'm

578
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:06,280
Speaker 1: transitioning out of engineering, I'm really full time mastering. Jimmy

579
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: Ivane and Shelly are coming to Los Angeles. That Shelly yakus.

580
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: Shelly his father was in the business, and Jimmy started

581
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: out as Shelly second, and then Shelly ended up working

582
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: for him, right, I think that's the way the story goes.

583
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: But they were coming west because Jimmy was doing Stevie's

584
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: first record, Stevie Next, and uh, Shelly was staying in

585
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: New York finishing up. I think it was damn the

586
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: Torpedoes of Tom. Jimmy needed an engineer. I got thrown

587
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: in for two weeks with Jimmy, which is just great. Um,

588
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: and we started tracking the Belladonna record I was mastering,

589
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: but needless to say, I wasn't swamped with mastering work,

590
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: so I could do this work with Jimmy Stevie Nicks,

591
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: and uh it was time to do a single stop

592
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: dragging my heart around. By this time, Shelley had come

593
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: in and I had shown Shelley the studio and what

594
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: we were doing, and I'm not sure where they mixed that.

595
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: I think they may have mixed that in good Night

596
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: l A. I don't really remember, but it wasn't mixed

597
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: at fifty. But Shelly and Jimmy gave me the shot

598
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: at mastering that track. Um, I'm fairly certain it had

599
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: been mastered at the facility they were used using up

600
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 1: to that point. Once again, the order phone came through

601
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: and put on the disc what was on the tape,

602
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: and Jimmy and Shelly both heard that. So that was

603
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: the beginning of a great run with Jimmy and Shelley

604
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: and you know, which led through Jimmy's work with Tom

605
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 1: Stevie obviously, and then Jimmy started his label and I

606
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:07,240
Speaker 1: did a lot of the really fun stuff on Jimmy's

607
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: label before he really got deep into the urban world.

608
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: So I did a lot of work with him over

609
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: many years. I it was a good run. So at

610
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:22,839
Speaker 1: what point does it's to turn where you've got not

611
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 1: enough time to do? Everybody's looking for you, you know,

612
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 1: I never said no. So I can remember doing three

613
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: albums in a day, which was unthinkable. Um, But I

614
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 1: was hungry. I was eager. I really loved what I

615
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: was doing, and it was great. It was so okay.

616
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: But now let's say if you go to a regular

617
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: recording studio, of which are limited number these days, they're

618
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: loaded with equipment. Okay, you go into a mastering room,

619
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 1: there's a lot less equipment. Well yeah, because first of all,

620
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: you're only dealing with two tracks. You're dealing with the stereo,

621
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 1: so you don't need all the limiters and the pre

622
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: ampts and the microphone, this, that and the other. Excuse me.

623
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: So it's you know, I think I use the word

624
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: chain a little earlier in this conversation. Mastering engineers like chains,

625
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: and the chain is I come in off the tape machine.

626
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 1: I like this wire, I like these connectors. I mean

627
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 1: it gets really pretty minutia. Like I like to go

628
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: into this piece of gear first. I like to have

629
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: this piece of gear come in second. I like to

630
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,919
Speaker 1: have and that's a great place to start. You may

631
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: change it up, but you're using the same stuff all

632
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: the time. It's not like, okay, we want to a funk,

633
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: distorted guitar sound that all those types of pieces of

634
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: gear don't really apply. In mastering master ring is you

635
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 1: know David Manley, who's a name a lot of people

636
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 1: will know built equipment. Now Havanna's running the company. But David,

637
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: David really taught me a lot. He said, if you

638
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: don't have a clean chain, you've got nothing. You can

639
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: always make a dirty chain. And he's so right. You

640
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: know you you don't need to turn something down to

641
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: turn it up later in the chain. You have to

642
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 1: figure out a series of equipment of tools that you

643
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: work with and that worked for you. So the question

644
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: was why so little gear? Well, in my opinion, there

645
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: aren't that many good sounding equalizers. So it took me

646
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: three years to find the last piece of gear I

647
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,799
Speaker 1: I wanted in in an analog world. And it wasn't

648
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: for lack of trying. So now, if I remember correctly,

649
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: you met David Manly because you came in he said,

650
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: I have special wire, right this wire for those people.

651
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: This is something that's debated in the Stereo magazine that

652
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:10,879
Speaker 1: infinitem to what degree is why are important? Um? I'm

653
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: going to take a very unusual position on this. If

654
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 1: wire is making a big difference for you, you've got

655
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: a big problem. Okay, I believe that. But for someone

656
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: like you or someone like Stevie wonder, can you hear

657
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 1: the difference in the wire? You can if there's a problem.

658
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:33,919
Speaker 1: If if you're working with gear that's really good. I'm

659
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 1: not saying a piece of zip coord from a lamp

660
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: is what you should be using. But whether if you're

661
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: using a Macgami wire or a Belden wire or you know,

662
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: what are the quote studio standards, can you pick the difference?

663
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 1: I'm not sure this is this is a big problem

664
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: in our audio world. People think they can pick the

665
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: difference until they do a double blindfold and then they're surprised.

666
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: Stunned is the word I to use. Okay, So once

667
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 1: you have your chain established, what are you actually working

668
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: on on each record? What are you changing on each record? Well,

669
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: it's it's on a case by case basis every terms

670
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: in terms of equipment. Well, I'll talk about a project

671
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: I just I'm in the middle of right now. I

672
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: had probably not the right take on the project. I

673
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: thought that they may want something that was a little

674
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 1: more forward commercial loud, if you will, But that's not

675
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: what they wanted. And so the producer I spoke to

676
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: on Monday said, and we've worked a lot together. He said,

677
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 1: it just seems like maybe the attack time on your

678
00:44:55,840 --> 00:45:00,839
Speaker 1: compressor needs to be you know, slow, or to let

679
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: more of the transience through. Well, that to me, men,

680
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,919
Speaker 1: there's you know, I have my favorite pieces of gear

681
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 1: that I like to use. I knew exactly what he

682
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:14,560
Speaker 1: was talking about. I said, no problem, I'll take that

683
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: piece out. I'm only getting a dB out of it,

684
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: and I'm just actually in the middle of finishing that

685
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:27,280
Speaker 1: record right now. But I completely understand what he was saying.

686
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 1: I completely understand what the artist was saying. It made

687
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 1: it too different than what they gave me. And so

688
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: what they gave me was excellent to begin with. And

689
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: so you know, my my my task is to put

690
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:49,399
Speaker 1: a little frosting on this cake. Okay, generally speaking, I've

691
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 1: certainly been in the studio with you where at one

692
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: point you had a box that was basically, you know,

693
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: push it up for a little of this sound, push

694
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: it down for a little of that sound. Is that

695
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: general what you're doing? Absolutely? But you know, if um,

696
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 1: just from a creative perspective, some people want to eq

697
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: before they compress. Some people want to EQ into a

698
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: compressor and EQ afterwards too. So these are all choices.

699
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 1: There's not a right or wrong. It's how you want

700
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: to set up your workflow and how you or how

701
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: I think I can achieve my best result for the

702
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 1: criteria in front of me. Um At every tape that

703
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: comes or every file now that comes in, it is different,

704
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,799
Speaker 1: and I mean it's different. Some of them come in

705
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: they haven't used a limited on the recording at all.

706
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: I just did this record for this isn't any thing,

707
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: and it was incredibly great music. Uh, and the guys

708
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: really really talented. He doesn't even know what a limitter is.

709
00:46:56,520 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: I saw his files and I thought, oh my goodness,

710
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: this is gonna be hard work. And it really was

711
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: hard work. But it was putting the right pieces to

712
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,879
Speaker 1: put the good color in place for him preserve what

713
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: was great that he presented, which was the fact that

714
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 1: it was really dynamic. It was full of transients. But

715
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: he also wanted to compete. You know, in a modern

716
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 1: ish rock world, it's not the loudest record in the

717
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: world and it shouldn't be. Well that brings us to

718
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:34,280
Speaker 1: the loudness wars, which I really think of being the nineties. No,

719
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:40,240
Speaker 1: it's ongoing still ongoing never ends, okay, So explain what's

720
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 1: going on there and how you address it. People do

721
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: their mixes, mixers a mix and at the last part

722
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 1: of the process they'll strap a plug into plug ins

723
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: in to mimic a CD. That does two things. It

724
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: makes it super loud, but it now becomes part of

725
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: the sound that the artist hears. So whatever their choices

726
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: are of tools to make it loud, I think, become

727
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: integrated into what really is the master. So somebody will

728
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: come in with a file that's good to go. It

729
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 1: takes a lot more knowledge to know good to go

730
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 1: than it does to touch it. So it just depends.

731
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: It's some of them come in so loud you can't

732
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: do anything. You just literally can't do anything. Doesn't want

733
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: to go through an analog chain, it doesn't want to

734
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: go through a digital chain. It doesn't want to go

735
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: through a plug in chain. You try them all and

736
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: at the end of the day you think, well it's

737
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: got It's a little harsh the high end, but this

738
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: is part of the sound that everybody's married too, and

739
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 1: they may hear it, they may not hear it, but

740
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: if you change it, they for sure hear it. Okay,

741
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: but the way the customer would look at it is

742
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: the loudness wars were based on making your record as

743
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: loud as possible, so it would jump out on radio.

744
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 1: No go back a little further, so it would jump

745
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: out on the jukebox. Okay, So we've all been in

746
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 1: bars with jukeboxes and a great Motown come track comes

747
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: on and it's just loud and fun and boisterous, and

748
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: then something that's uh a folk California, it's not as loud,

749
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: and suddenly you know you can talk over it. So

750
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: loudness wars started there where you got noticed if you

751
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 1: got a loud you know, they called him a hot

752
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: track coming in on a jukebox. You heard it made

753
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:59,919
Speaker 1: you want to go buy it. So that is translated

754
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 1: for sure into radio and now streaming as well as

755
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 1: c d s and the all important feature called shuffle,

756
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: meaning one when you put your library or take your

757
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 1: library on shuffle and here comes you know. But based

758
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:24,839
Speaker 1: on an earlier part of the conversation with this normalization, well,

759
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:28,239
Speaker 1: there's an off switch for that, and I suggest you

760
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: use it. Most people don't dig deep enough to find it,

761
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: but there's they all have an off switch. Okay, so

762
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 1: in other words, the loudness wards are forever seemed to

763
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: be but the loudness wards were amplified both metaphorically and

764
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: literally when we went to the c D, because the

765
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 1: c D could hold a whole bunch more stuff, right,

766
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: It wasn't a question of holding a bunch more stuff.

767
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 1: There were tools that we will call brick wall limitters

768
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:04,919
Speaker 1: that would stop you from going over so you could

769
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: push it to the point of distortion. And we can

770
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 1: all cite distorted records not gonna um, but people were

771
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:20,840
Speaker 1: found that sound pleasing, so um, what was unusual became usual.

772
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 1: So now suddenly you've got a lot of really loud

773
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: records out there. And again, the shuffle feature really makes

774
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: an artist not want to be quiet. Artists are competitive

775
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: in in strange ways, so this is as about a

776
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:44,760
Speaker 1: problem as ever. It's not improving. Let's switch it to vinyl. Okay,

777
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: what do we know. There's a Vinyl gets a lot

778
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:51,839
Speaker 1: of ink, even though literally the number of sales are

779
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: small and a lot of people are paying them on

780
00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:57,719
Speaker 1: crappy systems. You obviously started out in vinyl. I'm still

781
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 1: doing vinyl. But let's start with raw sound. Okay, assuming

782
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: you know, you kids, vinyl sound better than if it's

783
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 1: a file to begin with, it is supposed to be

784
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:16,720
Speaker 1: cutting on tape. Can a file sound better on vinyl

785
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: than it will on a streaming or purchase service. I

786
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: think the answer here is if you enjoy it, it

787
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: can sound better. I don't think there's a real answer. Technically, no,

788
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 1: it can't. It's a bankrupt system. But it's very pleasing.

789
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 1: I put on some of the phonograph records we've been cutting,

790
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: and I've been selectively doing vinyl on some of the

791
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: artists I've been working with. UM, I don't want to

792
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,479
Speaker 1: cut you know, bombastic stuff because we're using an order phone.

793
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: It's very fragile, but it's incredibly pleasing. UM do you

794
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: get the same if you didn't know what you were playing,

795
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: If you could eliminate the ticks and the pops and

796
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: the surface noise, would you find the same satisfaction off

797
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 1: of a file? I think you would. You know, the

798
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:15,359
Speaker 1: surface noise adds something to it. I like the conversion

799
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:20,720
Speaker 1: of electrical to mechanical and mechanical back to electrical. There's

800
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 1: something that's good about it. But technically no, it's not better. Okay,

801
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 1: So let's go back to stuff that was cut on

802
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 1: tape to begin with, Are you gonna hear it better

803
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 1: on vinyl than you will on any digital system? Vinyl

804
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:47,480
Speaker 1: is let's just talk about vinyl for a second. Vinyl

805
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:51,560
Speaker 1: has its has really strict limitations. Okay, the low end

806
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:54,240
Speaker 1: doesn't go as deep as subs do off of a file,

807
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,919
Speaker 1: and the high end is rolled off, but it's rolled

808
00:53:56,920 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 1: off musically, so tape does similar things. Tape is not

809
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 1: an exact image of what you've got. It's a color.

810
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: It can be very slight, it can be very very big. Um.

811
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:17,240
Speaker 1: Back to David Guilt, they're complete analog people. We master

812
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 1: their stuff off the tube shooter. It's uh, it sounds

813
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: spectacular when we put it in vinyl. Their music doesn't

814
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: have a lot of high frequency component. Um, there's air,

815
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 1: there's dimension their space. If you're going to put in uh,

816
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: something that's done with files, it's all digital all the

817
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 1: way through comes in lout as ship. It can sound

818
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 1: okay on vinyl, but I think it sounds better off

819
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 1: the dig Okay, let me just ask you this though.

820
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 1: If you're mastering off the high REDS file straight from

821
00:54:55,600 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: pro tools, Okay, to vinyl. Is that gonna be better

822
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: then the commercially available file? You know, I can't qualify

823
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: better if you like it. It's better if you you

824
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: know it's it's it's a first of all, you've got

825
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 1: to have a great system to play back final. Okay,

826
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: you can't put in a cross USB turntable and think

827
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 1: you've got something good because you don't. So no, that

828
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: can't doesn't stand a chance. You're come into my room.

829
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 1: You've got a fancy turntable, You've got a fancy preamp.

830
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: You've got some nice speakers, very clean path, noise floor,

831
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:41,240
Speaker 1: very low in the room, so you hear the rumble.

832
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:46,320
Speaker 1: You can hear all kinds of crazy details in the vinyl,

833
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: but you will also hear those in the file because

834
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:52,399
Speaker 1: they're not invented in the vinyl. You know, the vinyl

835
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:57,360
Speaker 1: is just a capture medium that back to the electrical

836
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 1: to mechanical to electrical it there's something very good about that. Okay,

837
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 1: I'll ponder that. What is the So if I'm an

838
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:10,760
Speaker 1: act trying to develop, what's the best thing to send

839
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:14,560
Speaker 1: to you? If you're working on it, something that you've

840
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: mixed that you like and you say I feel really

841
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 1: good about this. So it doesn't matter what formatic comes in,

842
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:25,279
Speaker 1: whether it comes in on a piece of tape or

843
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 1: it comes in and hires file or forty four, it

844
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:31,240
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. The best thing to send me is something

845
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:36,480
Speaker 1: you like and are happy with it. It's satisfying. So

846
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: you've gotta you have to work at your mix until

847
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 1: you're happy. Don't don't come in with something that's limping

848
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 1: and think you're going to be a you know, a

849
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 1: thorough red racehorse. So what is the futuring of the

850
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: mastering world, Well, it's, uh, I think it's very much

851
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:58,359
Speaker 1: a in the box future. I think that define that

852
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:02,439
Speaker 1: for those unfamiliar. It's working with computers and plug ins. Um.

853
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:05,719
Speaker 1: I think there's always going to be room for what

854
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: i'd call traditional mastering and analog chain fancy analog gear,

855
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: good great converters, um. But that's a special client to that.

856
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 1: You know, budgets come into this too, more than ever

857
00:57:19,160 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 1: now somebody that wants to take the time to do

858
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:25,080
Speaker 1: a real, full on analog recording where they've got a

859
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: great machine, fantastic tape, and you have to remember they

860
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 1: don't make tape so much anymore. So good and bad batches,

861
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,920
Speaker 1: and so you know, if you're fortunate enough to have

862
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 1: a budget that you can work like that and you

863
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:43,520
Speaker 1: want to mix it down through your pristine NIV or

864
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 1: SSL console and put it on a fantastic piece of

865
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: quarter inch or half inch tape. Takes a lot of

866
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:55,959
Speaker 1: time times money. It's so if someone is doing that

867
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 1: and they're doing a full on mastering, what would be

868
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:04,760
Speaker 1: the rights for that? For my services, I charge an

869
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:09,760
Speaker 1: hourly rate and then the goods um. You know it

870
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 1: gets expensive. Okay, so today, when you're finished, what do

871
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:19,919
Speaker 1: you actually send to the manufacturer or to these varying outlets. Well,

872
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:24,919
Speaker 1: we provide multiple files sources, so the m FIT, so

873
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:28,560
Speaker 1: we we conform to Apple standards for the m FIT.

874
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 1: We're an infant sanctioned studio. There's the digital, which is

875
00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 1: your Amazon um from the digitals. I think Amazon makes

876
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:46,560
Speaker 1: their two fifty six MP three and a half. And

877
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: then there's the CD which is getting less and less.

878
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 1: And another thing I'm noticing is is that we get

879
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:57,720
Speaker 1: less call for the super high res K two. It's

880
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: getting it's reducing. Yeah, we don't we see fewer requests

881
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, I think that I may not work

882
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:07,960
Speaker 1: in the genre of music. I think that that's maybe

883
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: more jazz classical oriented than it ever you know, has been.

884
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:17,440
Speaker 1: But we used to provide those high res files for

885
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 1: I forget the name of the company in New York,

886
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: the HD tracks or something. Okay, what about for a

887
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 1: long time, especially in the CD era which started in

888
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: Night two or so, remastered what was going on there? Wow?

889
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 1: In two not a lot of good stuff. But fast forward, Um,

890
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,960
Speaker 1: I've been around long enough to have the privilege to

891
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 1: do people's twenty five year anniversary albums and stuff. So

892
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:52,919
Speaker 1: I just did the last I did Monster and Out

893
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 1: of Time for R e M. And in those cases

894
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:01,440
Speaker 1: R e M is really into quality be We actually

895
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: get the half inch tapes from the vault and uh

896
01:00:07,680 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 1: I remaster them. I got to say, it's kind of

897
01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:14,960
Speaker 1: a daunting task because I put on those old CDs

898
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:19,439
Speaker 1: and they're incredibly good sounding, and it's you know, it's

899
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:23,479
Speaker 1: always different, and different can be good, different can be bad.

900
01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 1: It just depends on who's just is. It's such that

901
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 1: there's been improvements in technology such that a master like

902
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 1: you can literally do things better. Yeah, I mean, I

903
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 1: experiences is a big contributing factor. I think that if

904
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,440
Speaker 1: you're dealing with somebody that works in the in the

905
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: world I work in, nobody's really got second rate anything.

906
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: We've been around long enough to pick and choose what

907
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 1: it is we want and can use the tools to

908
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:58,160
Speaker 1: get out of the project what I'm looking for, and

909
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:02,360
Speaker 1: hopefully the client is satisfied with. So in a perfect world,

910
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:04,439
Speaker 1: if you could snap your fingers, what would you change

911
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 1: about today's music industry? I wish loudness wasn't such a factor.

912
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 1: I like my loudness. I certainly get slagged by the

913
01:01:18,200 --> 01:01:21,960
Speaker 1: the people that like to finger people for making things loud.

914
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 1: All of those people forget that somebody approved it. Um.

915
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:32,240
Speaker 1: But my personal taste would be for music to come

916
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 1: back a couple of notches, because you never run out

917
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 1: of volume on your volume control, but you sure run

918
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: out of patients when it's too loud. You know. I

919
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:46,360
Speaker 1: we had a car when I when our son came

920
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 1: into this world, we got a Mommy Mobile and it

921
01:01:49,440 --> 01:01:52,680
Speaker 1: was interesting the first click of volume. You couldn't talk

922
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: over with a modern c D. Wow Wow is right, okay,

923
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:03,560
Speaker 1: but inherently nal will be quieter. You know, Vinyl, you

924
01:02:03,560 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: know you're you're at the limits of time and frequency,

925
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:15,360
Speaker 1: so to reproduce a fifty cycle wave, and vinyl takes

926
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:18,840
Speaker 1: up space physical space on the disc. So if you've

927
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:22,480
Speaker 1: got something that's got a robust low end, you're not

928
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: going to get it super loud without overly compressing or

929
01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 1: compromising the audio in ways. It's not to say it

930
01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:34,520
Speaker 1: can't be pleasing to do some of that, but that's

931
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 1: the Vinyl has those types of limitations. Um. You know,

932
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:43,680
Speaker 1: if you remember, there are numbers of your favorite records

933
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:47,760
Speaker 1: that are nine tracks, you know, maybe thirty four minutes,

934
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: you know, seventeen minutes aside sixteen eighteen, whatever it happens

935
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: to be, which is sort of an ideal time to

936
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: for for a vinyl disc. When you get up into

937
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 1: these twenty four minutes sides, they're okay because you know,

938
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 1: again the level is not overly pushed. The problem is

939
01:03:05,880 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 1: you start start having signal to noise problems. I did

940
01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:14,240
Speaker 1: I did Leonard Cohen's last record, and it was before

941
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 1: I was cutting vinyl, and I remember saying to the

942
01:03:22,160 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 1: guy that was cutting it that could we hear it

943
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: a half dB quieter because I thought it might sound

944
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:31,360
Speaker 1: a little better. And he said, well, you know, we

945
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: can do that, but you're gonna start noticing the surface noise.

946
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 1: And he was so right, you know, he was just

947
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:42,240
Speaker 1: so right. So it's all a delicate balance. Uh, you know,

948
01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:44,800
Speaker 1: audios a, it's a funny thing to chase. It's a

949
01:03:44,840 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 1: sure a lot of fun and well, especially today because

950
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: people are not younger generations not into stereo like the boomers,

951
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: so they're playing it back through earbuds and a lot

952
01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 1: of crappy systems. Yeah they are. I mean, that's that's

953
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:01,600
Speaker 1: the downfall of add O is is that there's no resolution.

954
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:05,160
Speaker 1: You know, you're listening with such limited reproduction, you know,

955
01:04:05,520 --> 01:04:09,959
Speaker 1: reproducers meaning earbuds, even good headphones. There are very few

956
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:13,160
Speaker 1: good headphones. I know a lot of people take issue

957
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:14,880
Speaker 1: with that. I should say there are very few good

958
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 1: affordable headphones. Um. And when the you know, the common

959
01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:24,360
Speaker 1: denominator is the handheld device, i e. Your phone. Um,

960
01:04:24,400 --> 01:04:26,320
Speaker 1: you know, if it jumps on that and that makes

961
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 1: you happy, great, And I'd like to make it jump

962
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 1: on that and make you happy. That's your job. You've

963
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:36,439
Speaker 1: been listening to Steven Marcus in Mastering Engineer Extraordinary here

964
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: on the Bob Left Sets podcast. We've gotten technical, you know.

965
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:41,919
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are intrigued. Some people

966
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 1: are knowledgeable about this already. Other people can learn. I

967
01:04:45,640 --> 01:04:48,520
Speaker 1: certainly learned a couple of things. Stephen, Thank you so

968
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: much for being here. Thanks for having me, Bob. It's

969
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:53,520
Speaker 1: been a pleasure. Until next time, I'm Bob. Left sets