RPM08 Mastering?

[Michael Zacherl]

On Feb 21, 2008, at 1:27 AM, Gert van Santen wrote:

>>
>
> I would be interested to have a
> mastering session with you and see how
> (if) our opinions really differ.

I'd love to do that!! Really!

>>>>>

> Example. I had a cassette tape from 1982
> or something. A radio concert from The
> Cure - great concert, but the tape was
> old, there was a lot of hiss, and the
> sound had become almost monophonic.
> I used denoising, some EQ, compression,
> limiting, and in the end I added a
> little reverb to give the whole thing a
> bit of a wider sound. Now it's an
> excellent CD. It even sounds better than
> the official Live album from 1983.
> But to me they are still the same
> tracks. They just sound way better than
> before...

funnily enough that's somehow like something Eric told me when we  
talked about the different releases and makings of JMJ's "Oxygen" today.
He's currently working on an old vinyl record (can't recall which one)  
which is just bad in it's original condition (umpteenth edition and  
consequently a bad "master").
He didn't elaborate what he's doing besides that he's utilising Logic  
heavily (in terms of using its possibilities).
I'll ask him about that.
But both cases are restauration jobs. Like some of the countless  
(in)famous "digitally remastered" albums are.
Some are pretty good and some just don't do any justice to the  
original work.

Nevertheless I think I can put it much simpler:
If I did a contribution to something like RPM and my piece (for the  
sake of Paul's peace I don't call it a "tune" ;-) demands (read: I  
want it that way) at some points an absolutely dry sound with no sort  
of delay, reverb or such, I just don't want anybody to put reverb on it.
Same with compression: a couple of days ago I invested some serious  
effort into a piece where I wanted to find out how much final  
compression I want (in  this case how much "pumping" (?) I want  
deliberately).
Which leads me to the explanation why I probably shouldn't contribute  
to something like RPM since the genres are way to apart to be on a  
single compilation-CD.

Furthermore that's a reason why I consider the mastering of something  
like the RPM titles not an easy job!

On a side note, today I asked Eric to digitise my "Oxygen" vinyl for  
me (I don't own a turntable) in order to be able to hear the  
differences of the mastering.
(I wasn't able to listen to it for a very long time, but own several  
CDs and the recent "Live in Your Living Room")
I explicitly asked for an untouched, uncompressed version just that  
what came from the record player's pre-amp through the A/D-converter.
I'm pretty curious what's the result going to be!

   :-) Michael.