Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

Here's the list from the Grammy site:

Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
(An Engineer's Award. (Artists names appear in parenthesis.))


Brian Wilson Presents Smile
Mark Linett, engineer (Brian Wilson)
[Nonesuch Records]


Feels Like Home
Jay Newland, engineer (Norah Jones)
[Blue Note Records]


Genius Loves Company
Robert Fernandez, John Harris, Terry Howard, Pete Karam, Joel Moss,
Seth Presant, Al Schmitt & Ed Thacker, engineers (Ray Charles & Various
Artists)
[Concord Records/Hear Music]


The Girl In The Other Room
Al Schmitt, engineer (Diana Krall)
[Verve]


Give
Tchad Blake, engineer (The Bad Plus)
[Columbia Records]

cdsam wrote:
Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

No, but three of the folks up are r.a.p posters and they all deserve
a big hand.

Who is up for best engineered classical album?
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"cdsam" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

I've only heard two of them. I really like the sound of the Norah Jones
album. The Ray Charles album was horribly squashed, presumbably in
mastering. Looking at it in a waveform editor it looks like a solid bar. I
guess that's not the recording engineer's fault, though.

Hal Laurent
Baltimore

On 29 Dec 2004 13:38:02 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:


Who is up for best engineered classical album?
--scott


The usual suspects. Actually, this year Telarc has two engineers up
for an engineering Grammy. Jack Renner and a relatively new staff
engineer named Robert Friedrich.

But more importantly, Eddie Blazonczyk's Versatones are up again for
Best Polka Album.

JL

On Dec 29, 2004, cdsam commented:

Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the vocals.

--MFW
[remove the extra M above for email]

In article writes:

But more importantly, Eddie Blazonczyk's Versatones are up again for
Best Polka Album.

Glad to hear that he's still at it. Did you know that he used to be an
Elvis impersonator?

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

These guys never quit. My late Mom's group, The 47th St Polka Club, the people
involved would blow me away constantly with their work ethic. Definatelylearned
a lot watching them guys go. We,ve had all the Polka luminaries to the house at
one time or another and I've still got boxes and boxes of cassette tapes to go
through and puit on cd, for posterity more than anything I guess. Neat way to
grow up, and I great introduction to the studio business. Good people.
Jer@Sundog Audio, Chicago

Marc Wielage wrote:
On Dec 29, 2004, cdsam commented:

Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it
about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at
me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the
vocals.

--MFW
[remove the extra M above for email]

There have been really good articles on the making of Smile in both
Sound On Sound and EQ in the past few months. Don't know if they are
available online. I hope the album gets some of the recognition it
deserves at the Grammies in Feb.

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:57:36 GMT, Marc Wielage
wrote:

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the vocals. snip

It's out on LP, too. Anyone get a pressing yet and willing to attest
to the pressing's quality?

dB

DeserTBoB wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:57:36 GMT, Marc Wielage
wrote:

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the vocals. snip

It's out on LP, too. Anyone get a pressing yet and willing to attest
to the pressing's quality?

No, but it was cut by Don Grossinger at Masterdisk and pressed at RTI, so
I would have the highest expectations. Don does some really nice work.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

180 gram vinyl, two disc set w/ 4 bonus instrumental tracks. Sounds
really great. Is anyone on this forum a NARAS member planning to vote
in this category?

Could more easily be the engineer's fault than you might imagine. Glenn
Meadows once told me he could work with -1 dB, and I don't doubt him, but if
anyone wanted me to do something with such a squished product, I doubt I
could accomodate them.

Then again, Glenn had Frank Wells working for him designing and building in
house consoles and such, along with Glenn's extensive use of SADiE, so maybe
under those circumstances...

Yeah, and then monkeys would fly out of my butt! g

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Hal Laurent" wrote in message
...

"cdsam" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

I've only heard two of them. I really like the sound of the Norah Jones
album. The Ray Charles album was horribly squashed, presumbably in
mastering. Looking at it in a waveform editor it looks like a solid bar.
I
guess that's not the recording engineer's fault, though.

Hal Laurent
Baltimore

I can't believe it won't. The album that took a lifetime of music to come
about, not to mention tons of psychological problems. From the DVD
documentary, it was up to the last couple of minutes before it was even
decided that it would come about.

Then again, how could Brian have failed to show with Paul McCartney, Elton
John and so many other luminaries in the hall, much less people who'd flown
in from Montana and Rhodesia, etc.

No pressure Brian. Just go out and play!!!! Yeah, right. I'd have **** my
pants.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"cdsam" wrote in message
ups.com...

Marc Wielage wrote:
On Dec 29, 2004, cdsam commented:

Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it
about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at
me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the
vocals.

--MFW
[remove the extra M above for email]

There have been really good articles on the making of Smile in both
Sound On Sound and EQ in the past few months. Don't know if they are
available online. I hope the album gets some of the recognition it
deserves at the Grammies in Feb.

On 30 Dec 2004 15:18:32 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

DeserTBoB wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:57:36 GMT, Marc Wielage
wrote:

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the vocals. snip

It's out on LP, too. Anyone get a pressing yet and willing to attest
to the pressing's quality?

No, but it was cut by Don Grossinger at Masterdisk and pressed at RTI, so
I would have the highest expectations. Don does some really nice work.
--scott

I've been wondering for awhile... When music is put onto vinyl these
days, is the signal into the cutter any less "digital" than a CD or
DVD copy of the same recording? Somehow I doubt there are many purely
analog master tapes to use.

The result could still be better, or at least different from a CD, if
they are starting from at least 24 bit 96 KHz material. Does that go
through a standalone DAC and into a legacy analog cutter, or has
someone made a digitally controlled cutting head?

I'd like to see the three-letter codes from early CDs revived for new
LPs - "DDA", or "ADA", or maybe someone is even doing "AAA"?

Loren

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:03:45 -0800, Loren Amelang
wrote:

I've been wondering for awhile... When music is put onto vinyl these
days, is the signal into the cutter any less "digital" than a CD or
DVD copy of the same recording? Somehow I doubt there are many purely
analog master tapes to use.

The result could still be better, or at least different from a CD, if
they are starting from at least 24 bit 96 KHz material. Does that go
through a standalone DAC and into a legacy analog cutter, or has
someone made a digitally controlled cutting head?

There's some detail about _Smile_ he

http://www.musicangle.com/album.php?id=255

along with a very touching story about Brian in the 1980's.

Chris Hornbeck
"They'd meet at the Tout Va Bien."
-JLG, _Bande a part_, 1964

I had the pleasure of singing back-up with Brian on a TV show, along time
ago. What a nice guy, and he said we sounded just like "The Beach Boys", and
I guess he would know.

Tom




"Roger W. Norman" wrote in message
...
I can't believe it won't. The album that took a lifetime of music to come
about, not to mention tons of psychological problems. From the DVD
documentary, it was up to the last couple of minutes before it was even
decided that it would come about.

Then again, how could Brian have failed to show with Paul McCartney, Elton
John and so many other luminaries in the hall, much less people who'd
flown
in from Montana and Rhodesia, etc.

No pressure Brian. Just go out and play!!!! Yeah, right. I'd have ****
my
pants.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"cdsam" wrote in message
ups.com...

Marc Wielage wrote:
On Dec 29, 2004, cdsam commented:

Anyone have any thoughts on this year's Grammy nominations for best
engineered record?

--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

The Brian Wilson album sounded phenomenal to me. I've listened to it
about a
dozen times, and the quality of the recording really jumped out at
me. I
thought the strings in particular sounded very good, as did the
vocals.

--MFW
[remove the extra M above for email]

There have been really good articles on the making of Smile in both
Sound On Sound and EQ in the past few months. Don't know if they are
available online. I hope the album gets some of the recognition it
deserves at the Grammies in Feb.

Loren Amelang wrote:

I've been wondering for awhile... When music is put onto vinyl these
days, is the signal into the cutter any less "digital" than a CD or
DVD copy of the same recording? Somehow I doubt there are many purely
analog master tapes to use.

Depends. Almost everybody cutting today is using a digital delay line
for margin control, so they can get their preview signal in advance of
the audio to the head. This used to be done with tape machines with
additional pre-hear heads, but I don't know anybody still running those.

So, even if the master comes in on analogue tape, most folks digitize
it in order to cut it.

When Don was at Europadisk he also did not have an A/B style mastering
desk where you could set the EQ for a track in advance and flip from one
processing chain from one track to the next one, because all of that stuff
had been replaced with a Neve digital mastering console. I know that when
he moved to Masterdisk he did mention that they had available an old-style
mastering console and an MCI deck with a preview loop in the closet that had
not been fired up in years.

I do know that Doug Sax still has an old-style rig and still cuts a lot on
it. And Charlie at Kinura Records uses one of the computerized Scully
lathe controls (with a Z-80 in it!) and is willing to cut discs without
any margin control at all, just adjusting pitch on the fly by hand while
reading the score.

I am still running an old Fairchild margin control system with my lathe, so
I can go full analogue, but I don't have much in the way of processing
available in the signal chain if I do. The RAP LP compilation is a good
example of stuff run on the Fairchild/Scully combination.

The result could still be better, or at least different from a CD, if
they are starting from at least 24 bit 96 KHz material. Does that go
through a standalone DAC and into a legacy analog cutter, or has
someone made a digitally controlled cutting head?

No, pretty much everyone is using Neumann or Westrex heads today, with a
smattering of odd stuff here and there.

But what you need to know is that there are basically two different record
markets today: dance music and audiophiles. And folks that are cutting for
one market usually aren't cutting for the other. There are folks in the
latter market that will do a straight analogue path, but nobody in the former
will bother.

The guys at Record Industries said that almost all of their master tapes
for cutting come in as CD-Rs, with a few DATs and every once in a while a
1/2" tape. They said that 1/4" hadn't shown up in ages.

I'd like to see the three-letter codes from early CDs revived for new
LPs - "DDA", or "ADA", or maybe someone is even doing "AAA"?

The SPARS code was used on LPs as well, and it was just as useless as it
was for CD. If you have an analogue master mixed through a Yamaha digital
console to 1/4", then run through a digital mastering console and a Roland
delay line to the cutting head, you have an AAA disc.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Saw this topic and thought I would comment. The vinyl version of Smile
was cut from an analogue copy of the 88.2/ 24 bit master and Don
Grossinger did use a preview head on the playback deck in order to
avoid having to use a digital delay to the cutter head. The tape was
1/4 " 15 ips CCIR w/out any noise reduction. Don does great work and
unfortunatly the lable goofed and printed the CD mastering credit on
the LP for the first run. I'm hoping we will see a repress on the set
soon so that Don will get the credit he deserves. As for the Grammys, I
am honored to be nominated for my work on the album which besides being
a great musical experience , is an enormous personal triumph for Brian
Wilson. As much as I would like to win, I really hope that the members
of NARAS take this opportunity to recognize Brian's work and award him
the Grammy in the two categories he is nominated for ;Best Pop Vocal
Performance, and Best Rock Instrumental. It is rather astonishing that
Brian has only gotten a couple of honorary Grammys during his long
career. The famous story is that in 1967 "Good Vibrations" lost to
"Winchester Catherdral" for record of the year, but that's the way
things worked back then. Maybe this time it will be difft.
Happy New Year......... Mark Linett

On 1 Jan 2005 10:13:34 -0800, "yrplace" wrote:

Saw this topic and thought I would comment. The vinyl version of Smile
was cut from an analogue copy of the 88.2/ 24 bit master and Don
Grossinger did use a preview head on the playback deck in order to
avoid having to use a digital delay to the cutter head. The tape was
1/4 " 15 ips CCIR w/out any noise reduction. snip

Can't wait to get a pressing. Hope the pressing quality's good! It's
getting to be a lost art.

The famous story is that in 1967 "Good Vibrations" lost to
"Winchester Catherdral" for record of the year, but that's the way
things worked back then. Maybe this time it will be difft. snip

Politics as usual! Quite obviously, "Winchester Cathedral" hasn't
withstood the test of time, whereas "Good Vibrations" certainly has.

dB

In article , Scott Dorsey
wrote:

Almost everybody cutting today is using a digital delay line
for margin control, so they can get their preview signal in advance of
the audio to the head.



How ironic!





David Correia
Celebration Sound
Warren, Rhode Island


www.CelebrationSound.com

The famous story is that in 1967 "Good Vibrations" lost to
"Winchester Catherdral" for record of the year, but that's the way
things worked back then. Maybe this time it will be difft. snip

Politics as usual! Quite obviously, "Winchester Cathedral" hasn't
withstood the test of time, whereas "Good Vibrations" certainly has.

IMO Winchester Catherdral was a rather poor novelty record in 1967, and
it hasn't improved at all w/ age, while Good Vibrations is rightly
recognized as one of the most innovative (if not the most innovative)
pop records ever made.

BTW referiing back a few posts, Doug Sax and Mastering Lab took their
cutting lathes out several years ago and no longer do vinyl. While the
demand for vinyl has been increasing over the past few years the number
of facilities still able to cut discs has dropped dramtically and fewer
still can do an all analog master.

The SMile vinyl is a double disc set pressed on 180 gram discs w/ a
gatefold sleeve and four instrumental bonus tracks on side four. Real
Hi-Fi.......
Mark

In article writes:

Almost everybody cutting today is using a digital delay line
for margin control, so they can get their preview signal in advance of
the audio to the head.

I'd like a delay like that. g

You want the margin control a revolution before the audio gets to the
cutter, so that means you'd have to send the cutter signal, not the
pitch control signal, through the delay. Everything analog is digital
today.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"yrplace" wrote in message
oups.com...
As for the Grammys, I
am honored to be nominated for my work on the album

Good on ya! Hope you win!

Neil Henderson

Mark Linett is way overdue for a Grammy. His stereo mix of Pet Sounds alone
was one of most amazing things I've ever heard an engineer do, and what he did
on SMiLE simply blows my mind.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Matt

The famous story is that in 1967 "Good Vibrations" lost to "Winchester
Catherdral" for record of the year, but that's the way
things worked back then. Maybe this time it will be difft.BRBR

I hope so. Although this year in 'best pop album" with Ray Charles' final
effort, it might not be the most opportune time to right that wrong. Us (ahem)
older GRAMMY voters may split between the two leaving the path clear for Joss
Stone to win. Just an idle guess.