krabapple wrote:Luke, the original masters *are* mastered. It's not the same as simply producing a mixdown; after mixdown, a mastering engineer will apply tweaks that affect overall sound -- to make the thing sound like a coherent whole, for example. And then for LP, they are mastered *again*, to produce 'production masters' suitable to vinyl. Again, if this *weren't* true, why would *re-mastering* engineers like Hoffman et al strive to 'stay true to the original master'?
They don't necessarily (Steve uses EQ all the time, for example), and no, that isn't the case. The recording/mixing/mastering process goes something like this:
1) record to multitrack
2) mix each song to stereo
3) edit the individual mixes together into a "master". THIS is the "original master tape" so highly prized these days. There's no additional "mastering" applied yet.
4) play this tape back while cutting an LP with EQ/compression, etc. This is the mastering step. During playback, record a copy of the output with all of the effects. THIS is the "production master", so in the future when re-cuts are needed, this tape just has to be played back flat.
There are always exceptions, but in the strictest sense, the "original master tape" is a collection of all the mixdowns, edited together.
Again, if it were as simple as everything being already mastered on the master tape, people like Steve would be out of a job.
But a tape mastered for vinyl is almost certainly not going to have been mastered with digital capabilities in mind...and because compression etc may wellhave been applied, there's no way you can 'fix' that. Whereas with an OMT, you may well have the option of exploiting digital's capabilities more fully (e.g. dynamic range, bass reproduction) to capture what the artists actually intended..and heard in the studio.
Well, compression doesn't have to be bad. Compression is a tool, and if used correctly, it can make things sound better. Mind you, I'm sure there are plenty of LP masters out there that are compressed to death and have terrible bass response. But I'm sure there are plenty of others that sound great, too. There are plenty of great sounding LPs out there, aren't there? Why would production tapes of those not sound good?
So, in this case, I don't get what the Eno strategy is for. Do the production masters actually sound better than the OMTs, for some reason? If so, why not say so. What advantage are we getting here that we couldn't get from a good digital mastering from OMTs?
I think the point would probably be "we have a mastered tape that sounds good (to our ears), why try to do it all over again?"