Travis In Austin

Winner, winner chicken dinner. That is the Elliot Mazer's mobile studio, His Master's Wheels. It was used to record many, many live albums, including Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Live 1974. It has also been used to mix many studio recorded LP's. The bus is still used and is now Neil Young's and is located on Broken Arrow. It has two Ampex MM 1000 16 track decks, and, as you stated had two Klipsch Cornwall speakers for "near-field" monitors. The board is a Neve 8016 with a 10/2 sidecar. Outboard compressors were 1176s. It also used to have a Sony boombox which Mazer like to use for what he termed "small-speaker reality." "Klipsch studio monitors, the choice of recording professionals the world over." Travis

It opened, lots of people walking around looking lost. Everyone is asking "where is the Venetian." (It's across the street from the Volcano). The press is already highlighting Klipsch wireless streaming products are going to have Google Assistant compatibility (particularly the One and the Three).https://www.cnet.com/news/klipschs-the-three-and-the-one-look-like-something-your-grandma-owned/ The other big buzz around the Hall is that you can see the whole Heritage line, with tube amplification, vinyl on VPI, MoFi, etc. From the Klipsch Museum of Audio History FB page: https://www.facebook.com/klipschmuseum/

Their waiting to get back from Vegas to tell you. . . you are being transferred to China.

Who knows what this is?

This is Clearmountain's mixing studio today. Notice his studio monitors. Also notice what he has got to help with the mix when he needs it.

Me too. But we have a few that are wall mounted. I need to find one of those things you can mount a soundbar underneath with. I can't remember where I saw it, or who made it. Any ideas?

Put me down for the vinyl. Ask them to consider Hi Rez for the first two lps. Travis

The is no question that with some producers/artists/record companies they wanted it louder and louder, to a point where it was just out of hand in some circles. Bob Katz's book on mastering (universally considered to be the Bible in that industry) has a chapter devoted to the Loudness War. He wrote that book in 1999 and it was published in 2000. The industry stats say, I don't know if this is true or not, say that the peak of the War was in 2005 and that there has been a decline since then. I have no idea who would track this. I don't think going strictly by DR number from the database is necessarily going to get someone the best recording on a particular system. EQ is a matter of personal preference, and why it is used at every stage in the recording chain, from beginning to end. The singers preference on the microphone, how far from mike, and on and on and on until it ends up on media or a file of some sort. Check that, if you have a Cello Palette (a real one, not the plug in) it gets EQ by the listener, or now, with great software, you can EQ it how you want it in a file. End user EQ has always been and will always be. From a conductor moving musicians back and forth, left and right, to the technology we have now. Heck, even Joel's dad was into EQ Some artists care about their end produce, some have no idea or can't afford to care, and some don't care at all. For example, nothing that got released by Led Zeppelin, including the very recent remasters was released without Sir James Page's direct involvement and approval. But he is the rare example of an artist knowing about production, recording, microphone placement, etc. It is pretty easy to tell if an artist has involvement in how their music is recorded and what the end result sounds like. If they are listed as a "Producer" on the album it is them. It is all their fault. When they were remixing some Bruce Springsteen and then remastering those mixes Clearmountain did the remixes. Bob Ludwig did the remastering. On 5 lps they were mastered specifically for CD for the first time. Which means . . . some poor guy in the 80s was handed some sort of tape, from somewhere, and told to "get these on CD as quick as possible." On Nebraska, he would not allow remixing, and when Bob told him he thought he could add a little to it during the analog to digital process he politely said "no, it is what it is." So the question is, if someone monkey's around with EQ on Nebraska, knowing that it is the way that Bruce intended it, in its rough and raw form, is he still listening to Bruce Springsteen? Or is it a Springsteen "remix?"

Terrible above 12K, but the ringing is gone. Between flying, rock concerts and hunting, all without protection, it's gone forever. The reference standard to do work such as mixing and mastering is either 80(I forget) or 85 (AES) db because this is the level that humans have the best frequency response. I prefer the lower of those two for careful listening. I don't think I could do 85db for very long. I wear earplugs at most concerts (rock, opera, symphonic). I worry about the earbud generations, I think they are all at way above 85 db for extended periods of time.

It is a great book, and his book on studio speakers/monitors is even more on point and I highly reccomend that as well. He has written extensively about the NS-10. Newell does discuss the reality of it all as follows: "In an interview in EQ magazine in June 1993, George Massenburg, one of the world’s pre-eminent recording engineers and producers, said ‘I believe that there are no ultimate reference monitor systems, and no “golden ears” to tell you that there are. The standards may depend on the circumstances. For an individual, a monitor either works or it doesn’t ....Much may be lost when one relies on an outsider’s judgement and recommendations’. Also, it is worth repeating (from Section 2.4.1) that about a hundred years earlier, Baron Rayleigh, one of the true giants of acoustical research, stated ‘The sensation of sound is a thing sui generis, not comparable to our other sensations. Directly or indirectly, all questions connected, with this subject must come for decision to the ear, as the organ of hearing, and from it there can be no appeal.’" PREFERENCE The factions do persist to this day, but they appear to be manufacturer driven or who has done what lately that sounded spectacular. How JBL got in the market is very well documented. The BBC monitor is even better documented than that. The NS-10 came about because Clearmountain and a couple of other "freelance" engineers needed portable monitors that they could take from studio to studio as a constant reference. The engineer was becoming more a part of the production process and there was more and more demand to have a particular engineer on a project, regardless of the studio where it was being recorded. When other engineers heard that Clearmountain did album X on NS-10s, or when he gave interviews about using them on Avalon by Roxy Music other engineers wanted to have them. I don't think there is anything new about that. Where it got weird is that in interviews he said he used tissue paper to cut the brightness of the tweeters. Then engineers wanted to know what brand of tissue paper he was using and what thickness. For those that are convinced I must be making this all up, please see: Examining the Yamaha NS-10M “Tissue Paper Phenomenon”An Analysis of the Industry-Wide Practice of Using a Tissue-Paper Layer to Reduce High-Frequency OutputRecording Engineer/Producer Magazine, February 1986 – by Bob Hodas http://www.bobhodas.com/examining-the-yamaha-ns-10m.php "The rest, as they say, is history. Clearmountain in particular was (as he is now) a first-call producer and engineer for the biggest projects, and once he and a few others began to rely on the NS10, the phenomenon grew like a virus inhabiting a welcoming host: studios began to buy NS10s in their thousands in an effort to attract name engineers. Of course, in order to thrive, a virus needs a host to which it is particularly well suited, and this was provided by the rapidly increasing number of freelance engineers I described earlier. When engineers heard that he did album X on NS-10s, or when he gave interviews about using them on Avalon by Roxy Music other engineers wanted to have them. I don't think there is anything new about that. Where it got weird is that in interviews he said he used tissue paper to cut the brightness of the tweeters. Then engineers wanted to know what brand of tissue paper he was using and what thickness. " Unfortunately, from the time I was a kid, I read every recording industry magazine that came to our door addressed to my Dad. It has always fascinated me, I suppose because I got to see it first hand in a few studios he would drag me along to in Los Angeles and the Bay Area while growing up. I still subscribe to Mix, Sound on Sound, Tape Op and a half dozen others so I can know a bunch of useless information about how a particular album was recorded, mixed or mastered. You never know when you might need to "de-brighten" a pair of studio monitors armed only with a roll of toilet paper.

Wait, really? I thought there was a direct correlation between the number and perceived sound quality. The higher the number the better the sound. That isn't true? Oh no. What to do, what to do. If that's the case I guess we will have to go back to trusting our ears.

And it doesn't even matter. If he can get a preferred sound from freeware across his whole library he has hit the goal of most audiophiles. It doesn't matter that his preferred listening taste is the result of cd mastering from a master production tape (tape sent to pressing facilities with RIAA as, yes there are 1000s of cds that were originally mastered.from production tapes, ask Diamant about having to do that), or the limitations of tape, or a plug in used during tracking, or eq, or compression at tracking and mixing? I have never understood why the source of the eq or compression mattered. If you can fix it to your liking, fix it. Unfortunately, the loudness wars all gets blamed on mastering, and I guess it is easy to blame eq preferences not being met on mastering as well. Does it matter if it happens at mixing or mastering? Only when the mix is messed up and it they have to try and fix it at mastering. Those guys never get the credit for saving some very, very bad stuff.

It's because he makes the assumption based on working backwards. So logically it appears.to make sense. People who actually do it, select microphones, determine placement, settings on amp or DI, tracking, mixing and them mastering know what is accurate and which assumptions are faulty. None of the mixing and mastering people who are at the top of their field subscribe to the conclusions either.

@Combover Mastering, I told you they were going to want a DR number.

Everyone has a different goal with this. @Chris A wants pleasing sound (preference) @Bonehead Jr and @Combover Mastering have to satisfy a client AND try to make it pleasing to the masses. The client, which is whatever is in their head, subject to being guided or persuaded by professionals. @Combover Mastering and @Bonehead Jr. Did you provide them alternate mastered versions to chose from? I know this costs more and not everyone can afford it. Good studio monitors hopefully allow the mixers and.mastering engineer the ability to try and approach everyone's goals. I'm surprised that @Chief bonehead did his flat to 26hz. Most of the iconic near field monitors only go down to about 100hz (NS-10, BBC LS3/5A) the 4310 went to about 45 or 50 I believe. In 70s 80s and 90s studio monitors were expected to be accurate to detect problems and address them. Now they need to "TRANSLATE" for mixing and mastering. You need monitor that allows you to mix and master for car radio, head phones, streaming speakers, and the average stereo system. Sometimes the goals converge, sometimes not. Thanks to Chief Bonehead everyone is going to be bitching about not enough Bass. @Bonehead Jr. You better put a shelving filter in the monitor output to correct for that😀

Great stuff.

Did you have a chance to look at the links that @wvu80 posted above? I'm not sure if the answers are in there, but I think it would give you a head start. Travis

Thank you for posting the "before" 2 track mix tape versions and the "after" master tape version after mastering. People can compare for themselves what mastering does to a raw mix down tape. There is a common misconception among some audiophiles that mastering is a destructive and unnecessary process only utilized at the insistence of record company executives to get a louder record using massive compression and limiting along with unnecessary equalization. Why that may be true in some cases, or with certain types of music, people here can listen to those files and determine for themselves whether the mastered version is an improvement over the raw mix. Most people have never had the opportunity to hear a raw mix down tape before mastering is undertaken. Unfortunately they are left with the impression that if the end product has too much compression, or too much eq, or other type processing they assume this was done in during mastering, as opposed to further up the chain during mixing or tracking. Thus (I believe) the reason for Roy @Chief bonehead giving the title to this post that he did. I think the other thing that most people who have an appreciation for well recorded music would be shocked to see is the studio monitors that are utilized for musician playback, mixing and mastering. I guess it's like that old adage about seeing how sausage is made. They would be quite surprised to know that some of the most revered studios, mix and mastering engineers had used a pair of Yamaha NS-10s to achieve the results of the final product. Seeing a pair of grot boxes like the Auratone 5C would be too much for many to bear. I hope the Klipsch Delgado Studio monitors take off like the NS-10 did back in the day. Travis

I was thinking same thing. We have a few that are wall mounted. I saw somewhere mounts or adapters that let you attach a sound bar to top or bottom. Anyone know who makes those?

They are.going to wonder why you need this. They will wonder if you smooshed it and what the DR number is. They are also going to want to know why you would possibly need eq if it was tracked and mixed so well. Obviously it was those super accurate monitors you have that let you tweak it even better😀. Great, great sound!

That would be awesome!

There is too many anyway

You should hear Forte III's or 396s.

That makes no sense.

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