Audio people: difference between mastering CD & Vinyl?

JonnyPistachio

Any audio people know -- I've been meaning to ask this, and was reminded by Johnny Wong in another thread...
How is the vinyl mastered differently than the CD?

Any noticeable differences? Is it always necessary?

Johnny Wong wrote:

I love that it was mastered specifically for LP by John Golden. It sounds GREAT.

Tim Simmons

I believe basically, CDs are mastered down from the final mix to 16-bit/44.1kHz. Usually levels are adjusted so that the CD sounds consistent, and that red book master is sent for copying.

Vinyl mastering simply is the cutting of the a lacquer master that is used to create stampers for the press. The audio source used to create the lacquer varies. Some bands/mastering places want to cut corners and use that redbook master. More common in this day and age, a 24-bit/96kHz mix is used as the source. Ideally, you would use the master tapes or source files and create a mix for vinyl so as to contain as much of the original sound as possible.

Yes Way

I don't know anything about anything, except the vinyl sounds significantly better than the CD on Lightning Bolt. I'm constantly fiddling with the levels in my car to try to capture the music, but I just don't think it's happening.

DriftingByTheStorm

JonnyPistachio wrote:

Any audio people know -- I've been meaning to ask this, and was reminded by Johnny Wong in another thread...
How is the vinyl mastered differently than the CD?

Any noticeable differences? Is it always necessary?

Johnny Wong wrote:

I love that it was mastered specifically for LP by John Golden. It sounds GREAT.

The entire process of making a vinyl record is almost insanely complicated ...(here is an account of it all) ... you really should just start by reading that article. Mastering a vinyl, unlike a CD isn't just mastering volume levels, channels, and frequencies to later be burned to disc. You are physically making a master copy of a vinyl record. On top of that the vinyl itself is a *physical* (the grooves themselves) representation of the sound which must be manipulated skillfully to properly convey the sound as it is first existed on tape.

watch this video to give you an idea how high-tech insane it is these days ... from my limited understanding, however, much of the process that you see at around the 3 minute mark (the actual act of the machine cutting the groove in the record and engraving the sound on to the record from the master tape\file) was actually done *on-the-fly* BY HAND in the old days. That is to say, some poor mastering-engineer fuck was sitting there running a tape which fed in to the recording needle by way of some mastering-mix console through which he manually adjusted things like the depth of the groove and the spacing of the grooves and the actual frequency levels (particularly the problematic bass frequencies) coming off the tape (all live & on the fly) as the sound transfered from the tape through the needle in to the master-record groove.

it is crazy crazy shit.

the question "what is different" would probably be better phrased, "what ISN'T different"?

JonnyPistachio

Thanks everyone. I will watch that video in a bit Driftin.. Im reading the article now.
it really is crazy, crazy shit. I looked at my vinyl just yesterday and was amazed that great music comes out of those grooves! :shock: :thumbup:

DewieCox

There's usually some tweaking in the bass frequencies. Somebody, with the knowledge of the particular frequency they tweak may respond. That's at done b/c vinyl has a stronger bass response than cd. Cd has a stronger response int he high end and can often sound unnatural. I don't think that higher resolution is used as often as it should be these days. Some bands do it, some don't.

LB certainly sounds light years better than Backspacer and S/T vinyl, but I don't think it sounds particularly better than the cd, which is the case with most if notall PJ albums. Was hoping since it had a separate master it would be markedly better, but I'm just not hearing much, if any improvement.

rival.

audio difference:

cd: no skips
vinyl: shit ton of skips

FrankieG

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

The entire process of making a vinyl record is almost insanely complicated ...(here is an account of it all) ... you really should just start by reading that article. Mastering a vinyl, unlike a CD isn't just mastering volume levels, channels, and frequencies to later be burned to disc. You are physically making a master copy of a vinyl record. On top of that the vinyl itself is a *physical* (the grooves themselves) representation of the sound which must be manipulated skillfully to properly convey the sound as it is first existed on tape.

watch this video to give you an idea how high-tech insane it is these days ... from my limited understanding, however, much of the process that you see at around the 3 minute mark (the actual act of the machine cutting the groove in the record and engraving the sound on to the record from the master tape\file) was actually done *on-the-fly* BY HAND in the old days. That is to say, some poor mastering-engineer fuck was sitting there running a tape which fed in to the recording needle by way of some mastering-mix console through which he manually adjusted things like the depth of the groove and the spacing of the grooves and the actual frequency levels (particularly the problematic bass frequencies) coming off the tape (all live & on the fly) as the sound transfered from the tape through the needle in to the master-record groove.

it is crazy crazy shit.

the question "what is different" would probably be better phrased, "what ISN'T different"?

That article has some great info. Really interesting stuff. Thanks!

pjradio

rival. wrote:

audio difference:

cd: no skips
vinyl: shit ton of skips

not mine

DriftingByTheStorm

FrankieG wrote:

That article has some great info. Really interesting stuff. Thanks!

yup yup.
became really interested from the lay perspective after having read Here, There, And Everywhere: My Life Recording The Music of the Beatles, by the Beatle's not-always-but-often-times sound engineer, Geoff Emerick.

He went in to this whole spiel about cutting the master records at one point and all the adjustments and what not, and I was just really floored by how little was science, and how much was art in the process. Neat stuff. From what I remember the blurb he wrote about it was essentially the same, like he walked in on the process, and was himself amazed.

eddiec

DewieCox wrote:

LB certainly sounds light years better than Backspacer and S/T vinyl, but I don't think it sounds particularly better than the cd, which is the case with most if notall PJ albums. Was hoping since it had a separate master it would be markedly better, but I'm just not hearing much, if any improvement.

Does it have a seperate master? I thought Vinyl being made these days wasn't analog anymore.

FrankieG

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

FrankieG wrote:

That article has some great info. Really interesting stuff. Thanks!

yup yup.
became really interested from the lay perspective after having read Here, There, And Everywhere: My Life Recording The Music of the Beatles, by the Beatle's not-always-but-often-times sound engineer, Geoff Emerick.

He went in to this whole spiel about cutting the master records at one point and all the adjustments and what not, and I was just really floored by how little was science, and how much was art in the process. Neat stuff. From what I remember the blurb he wrote about it was essentially the same, like he walked in on the process, and was himself amazed.

Yeah, After reading that first article I am amazed. I never really understood why someone needed to master a CD. But now I can completely understand how that got transitioned over from the LP production. A whole aspect of music thta I was unaware of, very amzing process. The art vs science thing is still baffling to me...

DriftingByTheStorm

eddiec wrote:

DewieCox wrote:

LB certainly sounds light years better than Backspacer and S/T vinyl, but I don't think it sounds particularly better than the cd, which is the case with most if notall PJ albums. Was hoping since it had a separate master it would be markedly better, but I'm just not hearing much, if any improvement.

Does it have a seperate master? I thought Vinyl being made these days wasn't analog anymore.

it has to by default \ definition.

LPs have to be cut from a master record.
That master record has to be ... well ... mastered.

I think the problem is that a lot of vinyl master records are just cut "cold" from the master tape by a machine that runs on raw algorithm with little or no skilled human oversight. Hard to say though, without standing over the process of each album that is cut.

ps - and from the several photos we have seen of the PJ vaults (one in the new Clinch film for LB, another one i think from the Lost Dogs liners) more recently, it seems pretty clear that PJ have continued to at least record to analog tape (even if what occurred between the instruments and the tape - at the console - was not strictly analog). If you google "what artists still record to tape" you will see a bunch still do, and a bunch more (gonna go out on a limb and guess a large % of "pop" artists) do not.

DewieCox

eddiec wrote:

DewieCox wrote:

LB certainly sounds light years better than Backspacer and S/T vinyl, but I don't think it sounds particularly better than the cd, which is the case with most if notall PJ albums. Was hoping since it had a separate master it would be markedly better, but I'm just not hearing much, if any improvement.

Does it have a seperate master? I thought Vinyl being made these days wasn't analog anymore.

Mastering doesn't have anything to do with whether something is recorded in analog or digital. Each format(cd and vinyl) has certain frequencies that need to be tweaked to sound their best and not be overly muddy(for records) or sound artificial in the high end(for cd). Those are generally the 2 big gripes.

eddiec

DewieCox wrote:

eddiec wrote:

DewieCox wrote:

LB certainly sounds light years better than Backspacer and S/T vinyl, but I don't think it sounds particularly better than the cd, which is the case with most if notall PJ albums. Was hoping since it had a separate master it would be markedly better, but I'm just not hearing much, if any improvement.

Does it have a seperate master? I thought Vinyl being made these days wasn't analog anymore.

Mastering doesn't have anything to do with whether something is recorded in analog or digital. Each format(cd and vinyl) has certain frequencies that need to be tweaked to sound their best and not be overly muddy(for records) or sound artificial in the high end(for cd). Those are generally the 2 big gripes.

I'm not an expert and I'm not arguing here but if the master is digital than both the CD and Vinyl come from the same master, no?

DriftingByTheStorm

eddiec wrote:

I'm not an expert and I'm not arguing here but if the master is digital than both the CD and Vinyl come from the same master, no?

in short, no.
you need to go read the article in the large post i made above, or at the very least, just click on the video link so you can see the *physical* process of "mastering" an LP. The data from the acetate master tape is taken and numerous things are done both to the sound coming off of the tape and to the data going in to the record groove that *do not occur at all* in the separate process of sending that acetate master tape off for CD mastering. Just think about it from a raw simplistic persepctive:
CD: sound on an acetate is leveled, channeled, mixed, and sent digitally in to a CD.
LP: sound on an acetate must be transfered in to a *physical groove* on an LP that has physical characteristics that must be taken in to consideration (depth of the groove, seperation of the grooves, what information goes on what "channels" in the grooves <read the section on 'stereo sound on vinyl'>, bass response of the needle, the decrease in velocity towards the smaller radius of the center of the LP etc etc)

Tim Simmons

It can be the same source audio, but when making the stamper or red book master, levels will be adjusted so that the particular formats qualities are best utilized.

RD101189

I'm reading Geoff Emerick's book right now and this is exactly how he describes it back in the 60's. Had no idea how manual it was and that person really impacts the sound of the record. They can cut the vinyl to sound significantly different than what was recorded/engineered as Geoff had to tell them to cut the vinyl flat on Sgt. Pepper and not do anything to change the balances and sound.

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

FrankieG wrote:

That article has some great info. Really interesting stuff. Thanks!

yup yup.
became really interested from the lay perspective after having read Here, There, And Everywhere: My Life Recording The Music of the Beatles, by the Beatle's not-always-but-often-times sound engineer, Geoff Emerick.

He went in to this whole spiel about cutting the master records at one point and all the adjustments and what not, and I was just really floored by how little was science, and how much was art in the process. Neat stuff. From what I remember the blurb he wrote about it was essentially the same, like he walked in on the process, and was himself amazed.