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
On Wednesday, May 4, 2011, Scott will be presenting a hands-on workshop for vinyl lovers—no technical knowledge or aspirations needed. The first twenty of you to RSVP to the event at Masterdisk’s Studio in New York City will secure a spot at this very special event. Full details can befound right here.
Week #12 | More About Deadwax
Last week I got a little windy when talking about the early mastering engineers. I wanted to discuss the dead wax. These numbers, names and symbols can tell us something about the record. In many cases we can infer some distinction of quality depending on the markings.
Now each label had it’s own cataloging system. One I remember was CBS Records. AL-54321-1 could have been a CBS scribe number. The number was a serial number for the project – so all sides that had the same recording on them had the same 5 or 6 digit number. The “AL” meant A-side. The “-1″ tells us that this record was made from the very first master lacquer cut. Subsequent lacquers (parts) would have a new dash number (i.e. “-2″, “-3″, “-4″, etc). Every once in a while you would see something like “-1re-1″. That was considered the same as a -1 but was a replacement part for the plant.
Now why would this be significant? To make a record – lots of records – you didn’t just make one master and make tens of thousands of copies off that master. First off, no one single plant could make enough disks fast enough to satisfy the demand for radio-ready singles and current releases. Remember in the 80s and 90s many albums “shipped platinum” meaning 100,000 copies were made initially and sent to all the record stores in the country. So how were all of these records made? The answer is it depended on the artist and on the budget.
For a major artist on a major label with a track record for sales, an independent mastering engineer would be hired to cut all of the parts to satisfy the pressing needs for the US and sometimes for the entire world (or at least those territories that the label had licensing agreements with). This could mean that for a big album, 6 or 8 or even 10 sets of masters might be cut on the same lathe in the same room from the same master tape. Some of the cutting rooms even had two lathes so that these multiple parts orders could be completed faster.
So in this case all records made in this batch would be from the original mastering engineer and all should sound almost identical to the “dash 1″ master that was first cut. These parts were often sent to different plating and pressing plants so that they all could work at the same time creating records at a very high rate. Some differences would be audible because of the different pressing plants. There might be slight variations in surface noise, tic or pops, due to plating or pressing, but it can make you pretty nutty trying to figure that all out.
Now lets look at a different scenario: an artist that is not a huge seller, or that doesn’t have the track record of the former example. In this case, the label hires the independent mastering engineer to create the first set of masters. Likely “-1″ and “-2.” Then they request one or more Dolby encoded quarter-inch tape copies. A copy went to the studio’s vault, and the rest were sent to every territory worldwide that licensed the record. In each of those countries a local mastering engineer would cut that country’s master from the quarter-inch tape copy. Clearly this wasn’t going to produce the best results, but since they hadn’t heard the better version from the U.S. there were rarely any complaints. Some of the most fanatical of fans would buy their own domestic pressing (in their homeland outside of the US) and when US imports came in through grey markets they would buy those too. Usually those import disks sounded better, had less noise, and were usually printed better. There are exceptions — as in northern and western Europe where mastering, plating, pressing and printing were often done to very high standards.
Now here is where it gets tricky as a collector. If a record sold well and more copies were needed, the label might 1) hire the original mastering engineer to make additional “parts” — these would have the same scribe number but would have a different suffix or dash. Or they might 2) ask their in-house mastering person to make the new parts from the vault copy of the mastering. So you may not know what you are getting when you pick up a pressing. If you really know the procedures of a particular label you can deduct which pressings might be better or worse. Usually, however, you have to rely on your ears and eyes to determine quality.
So finally – the point of all this – what are the other markings in the dead wax and what do they mean? The records made by the independent mastering engineers often had the stamp of the studio in the deadwax area. It was embossed by hand from a little die that was custom made by the studio (see photo). So every part that was cut at Masterdisk, has the MASTERDISK stamp impression. Every one. So if you are looking at a record that was mastered by Bob Ludwig, or Howie Weinberg, Tony Dawsey, Scott Hull or Andy VanDette and it doesn’t have that stamp –- the master was cut by some other studio and ALWAYS from a tape copy, not the original master. The same was true for all of the independent mastering studios that I’m familiar with. We all took great pride in our work and put our mark of excellence on it. In addition most of us put our initials or mark on the disk next to the stamp. Bob Ludwig – famous for so many incredible releases – scribed the initials RL into the disk. (Robert C. Ludwig is his given name.) The same was true for Ted Jensen, George Marino, Bernie Grundman, Doug Sax and on and on.
Here’s a pretty amazing list to help you identify marks in the deadwax, at the Discogs site.
So, did your record collection just get more valuable or less? Ultimately if it sounds good it is good. As music fans, that’s what really matters.
Other fun stuff. Most artists wanted to personalize their record in any way they could think of. One popular method was to have the cutting engineer inscribe a word or statement into the deadwax. Sometimes these were very simple: “Hard Side” on side A and “Soft Side” on side B. Other times they would ask us to put an entire sentence into the leadout grooves. It was a challenge to do this without making a single mistake. One errant mark that got too close to the groove would cause a LOUD pop when played. If that happened the entire side had to be scrapped and cut again. Just one more reason why mastering / cutting engineers loose their hair prematurely. The process of making a quality lacquer disk is exhilarating. It’s a performance, like playing an instrument. You see that no matter how perfect you thought you could be, each pass, each side of vinyl was slightly different. Each had something about it. Each was a compromise between loudness, bass, and sibilants — between music and technology.
I’m so glad I still get to cut records and share this experience with my clients and my engineers.
I hate to say this – but next week is my last episode of this vinyl blog. Record Store Day is right around the corner. If you are like me you have already picked out a few anticipated releases and checked with your local record store to see what special events or promotions they’re running. This year I might have to have someone do my vinyl shopping for me as I have been asked by the Memphis section of NARAS to join a panel discussion on Record Store Day at the STAX museum in Memphis. This will be a whole lot of fun.
For those of you that haven’t gotten enough talk about vinyl, Masterdisk is offering a hands-on workshop in our studio for record lovers on Wednesday, May 4 from 6:30 to 8:30. You’ll get to see our studios and hear what a master really sounds like – and we’ll show you how a recording gets onto vinyl. Please send us an email if you would like to reserve a seat. Space is limited, so act fast!
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.
