Postby lukpac » Tue Jun 10, 2003 8:51 pm
Brian,
Two things:
1) Red Octopus is, by far, one of Steve's worst efforts. The master tape was obviously damaged, and (apparently) there wasn't much he could do about it. While I don't agree with it, Steve generally doesn't use copy tapes.
2) Again, like it or not, Steve generally masters with the vocals in mind, keeping them as natural as possible. If a mix has a big roll-off but the vocals sound great, well, that's the way it is. A good example are his CCR discs. On, say, Cosmo's Factory, the drums are a bit mushy, while the vocals are a bit bright. Rather than EQ everything to make the drums "snap" (as have some other remasters), he focused on the vocals, letting everything else fall into place.
Did you look at *all* of the discography pages (DCC, MCA, and "other")? I can't believe you don't at least have a few other CDs or LPs that he's done.
For all of the problems I have with his site (and trust me, there are a lot of them), I still think he is one of the (if not *the*) best mastering engineers out there.