Vinyl mastering: A very specific question (quasi-how-to)

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Vinyl mastering: A very specific question (quasi-how-to)

Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:19 am

In listening to hastily mastered CDs like the early Replacements catalog, a lot of early 1970s Nigeria stuff, late 1970s 1st order punk like Dead Boys, Buzzcocks and early Clash (and the original CD release of London Calling), a certain sound gets my attention. It is brittle, maybe? There is a "snap" to it. I don't have a good word for it, but it seems to get ironed out to be much smoother when these old releases are remastered for a later CD release. Even the original Pixies CD releases seem to have this sound.

I must emphasize that this is almost invariably only on the first CD release (the one without MOJO editor liner notes) of a seminal vinyl semi-obscure masterwork.

I suspect that many of the original CD releases of old long-tail vinyl masterpieces like those named above were done by taking the mastering which was intended for vinyl and perhaps cassette, and dumping it as quickly and cheaply as possible to CD.

First, am I crazy? Second, is this a correct assumption? Third, can somebody with good ears PLEASE help me describe this sound (in terms of which frequencies are being overemphasized, or something) so I can try to achieve it in my own hokey basement recreational recording facility? I am developing a complex about this, see. It is an itch that I must scratch.

I am not looking for engineering/mic/gear tips here. I think this is a mastering question. However, I will follow wherever this inquiry leads me.

Cheers

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Post by ??????? » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:08 am

sounds like you need to google "RIAA curve"

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Post by A-Barr » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:13 am

Did they actually burn CD's with the RIAA curve applied? Wouldn't they come out ungodly bright and thin?

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Post by ??????? » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:16 am

that's a really good question. I doubt they did that, but it's possible that they took the LP-mastered version and applied a simple low-shelf or something just to get it out the door. Just conjecture and hearsay though. :D

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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:42 am

RIAA curve. Got it. I'll look into that.

Another example: Zen Arcade. On that album there's so much distorted guitar anyway, though, that the outcome in that case comes out just sounding almost tinny.

So I have a few takers on my general theory?

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Post by A-Barr » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:46 am

Another theory is that they were ripped using what would now be considered obsolete digital technology, i.e. 16 bit encoding and/or pretty inferior A/D converters.

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Post by ??????? » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:03 am

that's probably a smarter guess than mine.

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Post by apropos of nothing » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:16 am

This applies to my favorite bitching-disc, the X, "Los Angeles/Wild Gift" reissue. Man, the vinyl rules, boy the CD sucks. Ray Manzarek's string-synth on "Sex and Dying in High Society" sounds so full and lovely on the vinyl and painful and piercing on the CD.

I'm with ya, Mr. Tatertot.

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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:18 am

apropos of nothing wrote:This applies to my favorite bitching-disc, the X, "Los Angeles/Wild Gift" reissue. Man, the vinyl rules, boy the CD sucks. Ray Manzarek's string-synth on "Sex and Dying in High Society" sounds so full and lovely on the vinyl and painful and piercing on the CD.

I'm with ya, Mr. Tatertot.
YES! That X CD is one of the greatest disappointments of my life. However, sometimes the bad mastering can sound so rad! Certainly not in that case though.

I was trying to grok Metallica a few years ago and I found that dubbing to cassette was almost essential for my enjoyment of killemall (original release). That's how I got stuck on this topic, thinking the CD probably contained sounds that were intended to end up on a cassette or vinyl. I should try that with the X albums too.

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Post by A-Barr » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:22 am

apropos of nothing wrote:This applies to my favorite bitching-disc, the X, "Los Angeles/Wild Gift" reissue. Man, the vinyl rules, boy the CD sucks. Ray Manzarek's string-synth on "Sex and Dying in High Society" sounds so full and lovely on the vinyl and painful and piercing on the CD.

I'm with ya, Mr. Tatertot.
Yeah, you know, a lot of 80's music that I always thought sounded shite actually sounds great on vinyl. I just bought an LP of The Smith's Meat is Murder for the wifey, and I'll be darned if the drums don't sound like real drums instead of a drum machine, the acoustic guitars sound natural and more acoustic and the electric guitars don't sound like they're all running through solid state amps.

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Post by ??????? » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:38 am

How about Nirvana's "Bleach?"

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Post by ;ivlunsdystf » Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:04 am

Beware, though: This thread is about my love for this particular sound when it actually (inadvertently) succeeds. Think about old Nigerian funk singles reissued on obscure euro CD labels in the mid 1990s! Think about the Buzzcocks!

Just trying to get the thread back on track. We can all name countless examples of terrible-sounding CD reissue disasters. We all also dig the sound of old records. This is something different.

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Post by 8th_note » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:50 am

You got me wondering about this too. Here's a couple of questions, theories and things to try:

Is the RIAA curve put onto the master tape when mastered for vinyl or does it run through an RIAA eq at the pressing plant on it's way to the cutting head? I thought this step happened at the vinyl plant but I could be wrong. I didn't think that the RIAA curve was actually applied to the master tape.

I suspect that the main culprit here is poor A/D conversion. You might try to intentionally introduce poor digital sound and see what happens. Maybe try 22 khz at 8 bits. I suspect that those early CDs were made through converters that had very high jitter but I don't know how to emulate that effect. You might also try running the signal through your A/D converter so that it frequently peaks over 0 db to get that kind of digital distortion.

I know the sound you're describing and it doesn't sound like a simple EQ thing to me. I think the majority of it is bad digital conversion because there's a character to it that sort of has that Casio keyboard thing going on. It's why digital got such a bad name in the early days. There was some of it that really did sound bad.
Last edited by 8th_note on Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by thieves » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:52 am

My understanding was that they used the same master as the vinyl for those early releases, just before the riaa curve was applied.
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Post by @?,*???&? » Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:03 pm

??????? wrote:sounds like you need to google "RIAA curve"
This absolutely not related to the problem described.

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