A certain MiNe 109, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

Pick an LP at random in a music shop, it probably is. A tiny fraction of
LPs manufactured in the early-mid 80s are less so. I'll wager at least
90% of LPs out there are heavily doctored.

Sounds comparable to the percentage of cds that are heavily doctored.

Anything that's non-pop music will be pretty much a duplicate of the
master tape. Most of the CDs I have (not pop) have been mastered
directly from the actual master. Why do further doctoring on an already
completed work ?

In an imaginary world, if LP also had ruler-flat characteristics and no
unusual mechanical traits then no post-mastering stage would be
necessary there either.

The only difference is a non-destructible mastering stage instead of a
lp production mastertape.

"non destructible mastering stage" what on earth are you talking about ?
When preparing for digital distribution, the entire post-mastering stage
is dropped as it is unnecessary (excepting pop music of course). Non
destructible editing is a feature of a digital audio workstation, but
it's absolutely nothing to do with mastering. You have your terminology
badly mixed up.

Complete and total hogwash! The final recorded work as the artist
intends is on the final master tape (that is why it is called the
"master"), and all mixing and EQing to extract the correct sound will
have been done during the production of that master.

You're arguing by definition. I do not accept your definition. End of
argument.

It's not my definition, it's the one used by recording engineers. Feel
free not to accept what the rest of the profession does, but
unfortunately you are not at liberty to make up your own definitions for
things, at least not if you want to be understood by the sane world.

From that point
forth, mass production is singularly concerned with reproducing that
master tape as closely as possible.

No, it isn't. It's all about extracting coins from pockets

Indeed it is, and it has been shown. People will pay for a remastered CD
that has been freshly cut from the original master, with no weird
doctoring or other side effects at all.

EQ and compression *are* necessary on vinyl, as the various
imperfections of the medium would ghost much of the sound, and for
practical reasons due to the inherently mechanical nature of the cutting
and playback processes.

That's what makes mastering an art.

Agreed.

Surprising how good the result can
be.

And it's a damn shame hearing what gets done to a master tape in order
to squeeze it uncomfortably onto an LP.

If you told the engineer this silly
"complimentary" theory of yours, he'd laugh in your face. Engineers used
as little EQ and compression as they could get away with. Unfortunately
that was still a lot.

You mean a mastering engineer would never increase the treble knowing of
vinyl's attenuation?

I am talking about CD.

as would be an lp master without the RIAA curve.

Another nasty idiosyncrasy, completely unnecessary with the advent of
digital.

But sonically transparent.

It's not sonically transparent - no attenuation/amplication process is.
Once you cut a bit out of a sound, you can't magically amplify it back
again. It's lost.

How about the "nasty idiosyncrasies" of
digital, all those nasty high frequency artifacts that have to be
filtered out?

Tell me about these "high frequency artifacts" and what process is used
to filter them during mastering.

As we all know, the process of playing back vinyl is what adds all the
warmth (read : distortion). The CD will be a fairly authentic
reproduction of the LP cutting master - ie flat and crap. That's what is
going onto your vinyl, baby.

That's what I want: the cutting master is meant to get the most out of
the lp.

Saying that producing a cutting master is about getting the most out of
(or "compliments") an LP is like saying that wearing a corset
compliments a fat person's physique. On face value this is correct, but
it is misleading. A corset would not be necessary if the fat person
simply lost weight, and he'd feel a lot better at the same time.

Likewise, the LP cutting master is necessary because of the practical
problems associated with the medium. It is meant to cut down the music
so that it can be *put* on LP, as this would otherwise be impossible. It
is not a question of "getting the most out of" the LP. It is a question
of getting something listenable out of the LP, whilst trying to preserve
as much of the original sound as possible (60% is about the best, on a
good day). That is the only compromise which comes into the equation,
and almost all musicians and engineers will tell you that it is a
terrible one and they're glad to be shot of it.

Without the compensations of vinyl, of course it will sound
strange.

Do you think all those EQd and compressed bits of sound magically spring
out of the vinyl somehow ?

--

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