"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...


It's the norm for some little tin pot duplicating company to do this
sort of 'mastering'? I find that beggars belief.

Most mastering facilities have modern facilities with an "impressive"
array of equipment. Considerable investment has been made.

That may support the suspicion I describe below...


This begs the question: "Did anyone actually listen to the music?"

This whole mastering thing has always confused me (except for vinyl).
If a mix is produced in the studio that satisfies the client, why is
that messed with afterwards?

Indeed. A question I have been asking myself for many years.

My suspicion is that this is due to a combination of factors.

One is the mindless assumption this is "needed" and so applied without any
sign of thought.

The other is that competing companies may want to offer what *they* think
is the 'most attractive' service and give themselves a 'selling point'. In
this case, given the above assumption, that they can make a 'louder' (must
be 'better' in their mind) result than alternative disc makers.

Indeed, a whole subset within the industry has blossomed and thrives.

So I'd guess they equate such mindless behaviour as them being "cheaper
and
better" than their competitors. Perhaps a survival adaptation to a pop
music world where the faith is "louder is better".

I don't know about cheaper. Except for projects funded by EU cultural
foundations which must, as a term of the funding be put out to tender for
subcontracting, I am not sure that the price of mastering is a serious
consideration when compared with the other outlays involved. For example
the cost of renting a Bosendorfer concert grand piano, its transportation
with a piano technician on standby is considerably more than the mastering
of a CD !

I am less convinced that it was such a golden age for 'accuracy' in the
1:1 sense. :-)

Given the technology available at the time, I think the results were
often amazingly good. Rather like iron ships built before
the days of welding:-)


Partly because so many of the LPs I bought back then were audibly
imperfect.

The faults you have (so frequently:-) described were pressing not cutting
faults, IIRC. I realise this is of little comfort to the customer to whom a
bad disc is a bad disc, but we should really differentiate between the two.


Partly because - as I recall - some people who 'cut' the discs traded on
having a reputation for making the result 'sound better' by tweaking it in
various mystical ways.

Harry Fisher, the senior disc cutting engineer at Decca, under whose
beady eye, I learned the art of disc cutting, used to say "The objective
is to make the disc sound the same as the tape. Any fool can make it
sound different"

Again, the 'guru' disc cutters seemed to mainly be a feature of the 'pop'
world where they would scratch their sign on the land at the inner end of
the side. The master mason leaving his mark... they wished. :-)

Everyone who cut discs was required to inscribe their ID
together with the matrix and the cut number on the inner
of the disc, adjacent to the locked groove, so that the
factory knew who had cut the disc and on which lathe.
This was not just something the "gurus" did, we all did it:-)

Iain