Mastering—transferring a recording to its final physical format—is literally the last artistic piece of a long process and one TVD is delving into over the coming months from a variety of angles with Scott Hull, mastering engineer and the owner of world-class and world-famous Masterdisk studios in New York City
Scott will be presenting a master class in mastering, from the fundamentals to the final product, as we count down to Record Store Day 2011 when a select few of you will be given the opportunity to win a personal tour of the record mastering process at Masterdisk.
Onward to Week #6 . . . ever feel that your turntable could be performing better?
If you’ve been following along this blog since week one, you now have a pretty good picture of how music gets recorded onto vinyl.
This seems like a good time to talk about record players and especially phono cartridges. I won’t even try to tell you what turntable is right for you; there are many factors to consider. But I can say for sure that you really do get what you pay for.
Not all records are “challenging” for the stylus. The least expensive cartridges will play back non-challenging grooves just fine. A $30 cart on a $150 table will probably have problems with higher levels and with high frequencies, whereas more expensive cartridges almost always provide much truer playback. But (there’s always a “but”) cartridges and turntables built for DJ use – even though expensive – are not the best at reproducing crystal clear music. It’s because the DJ cart has to be sturdy. It doesn’t give as easily and is weighted more; as a result it can distort on high frequency material. My favorite cart is one that balances all these issues. And since I don’t have an endorsement deal, you’ll have to ask your hi-fi shop what equipment suits your style and wallet best.
It’s interesting to note that the distortion we hear on sibilant vocal “esses” and cymbals is almost always NOT in the cut or the groove of the record. The distortion heard when playing back is a function of the quality of the cartridge, the condition of the record, and how squiggly the groove is. It’s the mastering engineer’s job to find the right compromise between level, brightness and playability. And it is always a compromise.
For example, I was once asked to restore some solo trumpet music. The masters had been lost. The client made transfers at a pro studio from mint vinyl before bringing me the digital files to clean up. The record noise was not the worst issue. The main problem was the horrifically bad ripping distortion on the muted trumpet. By the way, Harmon muted trumpet is a big challenge to cut cleanly as it has tons of high frequency content.
I tried everything I knew to reduce the distortion to acceptable levels, but I wasn’t getting anything I could use. It was a mono recording played back by a stereo cartridge, and I was working on just one channel at a time. But when I played back the stereo transfer, my ear immediately recognized the source of the clipping. What was thought to be peak distortion was actually caused by stereo “splatter.” It sounded like the trumpet suddenly went from mono to stereo and back but only on the bright passages. I knew that only stereo splatter could make that sound. The cartridge they had used for the transfer was unable to track those high frequency waves accurately.
I stopped what I was doing and contacted the client, asking them to send me their vinyl copies so that I could try a transfer myself. They were very hesitant, as they had spent a lot of money already to transfer and clean these recordings. (I forgot to mention it was a multi–disk box set!) But I insisted. When I played their vinyl on my best cartridge it was a beautiful thing. There was absolutely zero distortion. It sounded perfect. I played that same passage back on my cheaper setup and not surprisingly that ripping distortion was back.
So if you hear sibilant esses and a sort of glassy sheen on most of your vinyl, you probably could use a better or newer cartridge. Also, turntables need to be setup properly to achieve optimal results. Your record store turntable guru can help – or if you want to do it yourself, get this very good DVD: Michael Fremer’s Practical Guide to Turntable Set-Up.
It is often frustrating for our clients and for my cutting engineers when a producer gets their test pressing and doesn’t like what he or she hears. We have to wonder, “How old is their cart? Was it setup properly? Is the stylus clean? Is the turntable causing rumble or interference? Has the turntable been listened to regularly or was it dusted off and plugged in this morning to play back this one piece of vinyl?”
The fact that each turntable and cartridge sounds different makes it very hard to quality control masters and pressings. If you use a very expensive cart and turntable then nearly everything sounds perfect. If you use a very low grade consumer turntable as your measuring stick, then everything sounds distorted to some degree. Somehow you need to determine what level and how bright to make the music.
In my opinion, the best results are achieved by looking at both extremes. Then I try to determine what a typical listener will be using for playback. Then we come up with a compromise that fits our music and our listener.
Yes, it’s more work and costs more money to give a cut this kind of attention. But like I said — you get what you pay for.
I hope you are enjoying this walk down vinyl lane. Do you have any questions? Send them to scotthull AT masterdisk DOT com. In a later blog I’ll answer some of them.
Scott Hull is a mastering engineer and the owner of Masterdisk (founded in 1973) in New York City. In his 25-plus year career, Scott has mastered records for Sting, Bob Dylan, Steely Dan, Os Mutantes, John Zorn, Uncle Tupelo, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and hundreds more. Visit Masterdisk online or on Facebook.
