Did Beatles Abbey Rd studios Master in the CR?

[CoolCat]

I was looking for this answer and got lazy and posted the question.

There's more and more info on the sessions...but I never see the "mastering" mentioned.

Seems they made the reels and sent to the US or to pressing....so did the pressing plants do the mastering?

 

[Lt. Bob]

Mastering was different back in those days. It was generally done by the 'cutting engineer' who would set the RIAA curve but also decide how close together the grooves would be and how loud it could be to fit onto a record side. Louder = wider grooves = less time.
Also .... loud passages would need to be on wider groove spacing so it wouldn't 'ghost' on adjacent grooves. Softer passages could be closer together. So all along the side of a record, the groove spacing would change constantly in the case of a good engineer really doing his job.
But mastering as we obsess about it today, wasn't really very common. It was the province of the cutting engineer as he was working the cutting lathe to get it transferred to a mother disc for stamping.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

+1 on what the leiutenant says.

"Mastering" back then meant prepping a recording for printing to it's final media and printing it. It actually still means that today - everywhere but on the Internet.

What your average home wrecker now calls "mastering" is actually in convertional terms called "pre-mastering". Wasn't anywhere near as much or as heavy pre-mastering going on 40 years ago as there is today. Premastering consisted mostly of throwing in fades at the ends of songs, maybe adding some verb, and a few small finishing touches like those. As for the rest like EQ and levels, they decided to get it right in the tracking and mixing instead.

G.

 

[Track Rat]

Today the popular misconception about mastering is that's where someone will squash the living shit out of a pefectly good recording, removing all the dynamic range and making it the loudest CD on the block. A stated, back in the olden days it was all about getting it to "fit" on to vinyl and not spit the needle.

 

[CoolCat]

thanks everyone.

so.. that was the missing clue! pressing the disc's was the "mastering".. kind of.

So I then can imagine, CR engineers taking this 100% finished reel to reel to another part of the building, the pressing room, and handing the reel to reel of , say Rubber Soul, to the LAthe Pressing guys?

I guess, the pressing guys loaded the reel to reel of this finished RR tape to a RR player and this player is hooked up to a vinyl-disc engraiving lathe tool? No gear and limiters in between? Straight duplicating process?

So if the above is correct, its safe to assume the reel to reel was pretty much 100% finished in the CR?

 

[Wazzacorbett]

I think in Geoff Emerick's book he mentions all about the inhouse mastering at abbey road and also just how much he and george martin did before they passed it on (a great read btw!).

Capitol did add echo etc to early songs tho and also several US beatle songs had different mixes so maybe they had some access to the original tracks to remix and remaster

 

[LogicDeLuxe]

No gear and limiters in between?

There sure is some processing, as vinyl has some limitations. You need to have the low frequencies in phase, thus put a high pass over the side-signal. Also frequencies bellow 40 Hz are not allowed, thus put another high pass. Then applying the RIAA curve is actually quite a strong sort of EQ'ing. Finally, there may or may not a compressor in chain (as this is also the case with CD).

The difference on vinyl mastering is, that all those steps are frequently done on the fly while cutting.

 

[Gandalf]

As for the rest like EQ and levels, they decided to get it right in the tracking and mixing instead.

G.

Noe that's just crazy talk

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Noe that's just crazy talk

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." - Mark Twain



It's threads like this one that cause me to remember that more than half the people in this racket these days are too young to remember the days when "Direct To Disc" was touted as the high-fidelity way to go. They didn't even go to tape; they had the cutting lathes right in the CR and the signal went live out of the board direct to the lathes. This of course meant no mastakes in the performance or the mixing, because there were no overdubs, no remixes, no punches, no fixing in the mastering. But they sounded great.

G.

 

[Track Rat]

Oh man! I remember those Sheffield Labs recordings. I've still never heard a commercial recording that sounded as good.

 

[Lt. Bob]

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." - Mark Twain



It's threads like this one that cause me to remember that more than half the people in this racket these days are too young to remember the days when "Direct To Disc" was touted as the high-fidelity way to go. They didn't even go to tape; they had the cutting lathes right in the CR and the signal went live out of the board direct to the lathes. This of course meant no mastakes in the performance or the mixing, because there were no overdubs, no remixes, no punches, no fixing in the mastering. But they sounded great.

G.

That's right ..... they had to cut ALL the songs for an entire side in one pass and if they messed up anything, they had to do all the songs again.
I have a Tower of Power LP that's direct to disc and it's a really awesome disc as you're actually hearing them about as live as it gets.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

That's right ..... they had to cut ALL the songs for an entire side in one pass and if they messed up anything, they had to do all the songs again.
I have a Tower of Power LP that's direct to disc and it's a really awesome disc as you're actually hearing them about as live as it gets.

Ha ha, Tower of Power D2D; I'd have never guessed that one. Very cool. That's one of those if I saw it in the record bin, there'd be no way I could pass up buying it .

It just goes to show yet another way (as if we need yet another way ) that audio recording sensibilities get all twisted over time, yet in some ways stay the same. Think about it:

Commercial recording started out mostly direct to disc.

Then tape came along, making things easier on the performer but tougher on the engineer (anyone who had to edit and punch with a razor blade understands.)

Then D2D finds a revival as a high-quality audio alternative to the evils of tape.

Along comes digital, making things easier on the performer again. So easy, iin fact, you don't even need a decent performer; any jackass can just sample and drumagag and autotune their way through the project.

This, of course, puts the burden of actual work back on the engineer, who longs for the simple days of mixing by razor blade and getting the sound right before sending the project off to mastering.

And the big irony is that we wind up at a stage where we have people desiring tape emulation plugs to try and acheive that tape sound that people used to try to avoid as a bad thing.

Yeah, things just keep getting better every day .

G.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Commercial recording started out mostly direct to disc.

.

You know, in the earliest recordings they would have basically a big reverse version of the gramaphone horn that would cut the laquer and the orchestra would sit around the horn and play as loud as they could causing the horn to vibrate and cut the grooves.
When you hear those discs today, they don't sound full fidelity like we've become used to ..... little bass and pretty midrange heavy BUT ..... there's really something about them that's very cool yet hard to explain. There's a direct connection to the original performance in a way that you don't quite get with all the layers of electronics between you and the performance.
Somehow, and I don't know how, you can sense that you're actually hearing a physical connection to that original performance ..... sounds stupid, I know, but it's there clear as day.

 

[Seafroggys]

Ah, gotta love analog microphones.

 

[cusebassman]

You know, in the earliest recordings they would have basically a big reverse version of the gramaphone horn that would cut the laquer and the orchestra would sit around the horn and play as loud as they could causing the horn to vibrate and cut the grooves.
When you hear those discs today, they don't sound full fidelity like we've become used to ..... little bass and pretty midrange heavy BUT ..... there's really something about them that's very cool yet hard to explain. There's a direct connection to the original performance in a way that you don't quite get with all the layers of electronics between you and the performance.
Somehow, and I don't know how, you can sense that you're actually hearing a physical connection to that original performance ..... sounds stupid, I know, but it's there clear as day.

I was thinking the same thing as Glen discussed direct-to-disk recording. If you think about the signal chain and the relation between microphone and cutting needle as a direct, mechanical process, it is really quite cool to think that at some point in the past, a group of performers aimed themselves at a couple of mics, which were mixed and EQ'd on perhaps a test run, and then when the cutting arm was laid down into the acetate, the band played, caused that cutting needle to chop away as a direct result, and decades down the road, you are listening to the exact reverse of what went to the disk.

With the amount of digitizing and extra equipment now, people don't get a sense for how everything works. The concept of the black box in terms of technology sort of aggravates me in that way - being a software engineer I need to think like this every day, but in the recording world I like to understand as much as possible about how everything works, even under the hood, and with all-digital, you don't get that.

You have a pretty picture on your screen with knobs and sliders you move with a mouse, and you hear an audible difference, but without the underlying understanding of how the old physical technology worked that is being emulated, I can't help but feel that you don't gain a true understanding of how to use the particular tool, really. You can obviously get by, but I suppose it is just personal preference that I have a better understanding of compression than "When i crank this knob the guitar stops getting louder".

 

[MCI2424]

+1 on what the leiutenant says.

"Mastering" back then meant prepping a recording for printing to it's final media and printing it. It actually still means that today - everywhere but on the Internet.

What your average home wrecker now calls "mastering" is actually in convertional terms called "pre-mastering". Wasn't anywhere near as much or as heavy pre-mastering going on 40 years ago as there is today. Premastering consisted mostly of throwing in fades at the ends of songs, maybe adding some verb, and a few small finishing touches like those. As for the rest like EQ and levels, they decided to get it right in the tracking and mixing instead.

G.

That is actually quite true. Back then you would fix it in the mix and then master. Now you fix it in the mastering. We are ahead of our time in modern recording.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

That is actually quite true. Back then you would fix it in the mix and then master. Now you fix it in the mastering. We are ahead of our time in modern recording.

It looks like technology is pushing us farther away from the truth, not getting us closer.

Direct-to-disc -> Fix it in the tracking.
Tape -> Fix it in the mix.
Digital -> Fix it in the mastering.

Next Big Thing -> Fix it in the playback.

Don't laugh, we're halfway there now with some bands suppling raw tracks to the listeners to mix themselves.

I'm not sure whether that makes me want to laugh or cry.

G.

 

[Cosmic]

Direct to Disc was wonderful; I still have 4-5 of those and talk about 'in your face' sound....

It is funny in the year 2007 that pre-recorded reel-to-reel makes a comeback.
The Tape Project wants to sell super-high quality 2-track, 15IPS reel-to-reel copies of outstanding analog masters; Dizzying prices, but it's supposed to be as close to the master as you can get... May just have to have one....if my wallet allows

Analog lives.
C.

 

[LogicDeLuxe]

Next Big Thing -> Fix it in the playback.

If it could fix overcompressed and clipped CD's. I'll take it.
Seriously, I don't think so.

Don't laugh, we're halfway there now with some bands suppling raw tracks to the listeners to mix themselves.

Though, with a completely different purpose. Usually they do this for remix competitions. I think, this is a good thing, and I like to see more of them. I'm sure, every remix, megamix and mashup hobbyist appreciates this trend.
If many mainstream bands would do this, and then bootlegs appear which aren't overcompressed, but really good sounding. Maybe then, the industries start to think what they have done to the music.
Well, they could compete as in making the best mastering possible for the official CD release, thus bootlegs would lose attraction, or they could force the band not to release multitracks anymore. I'm afraid, the latter is much more likely to happen.

We are already there, that fans start to search for studio bootlegs rather than buying CD's. Not because they don't want to spend the money, but for the sake of the quality, which is frequently better (unlike live bootlegs which are commonly of poor quality).

 

[DAS19]

I only read the first three posts but abbey road had a mastering studio and they did do mastering. Although european mastering wasn't nearly as good as american they still did it all themselves.