Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t updated the blog since September. I guess things have been busy.
Aside from being busy mastering, Angie and I took a fun trip to Portugal to see the sights, hang out with friends from the UK who met us there, and spend an afternoon/evening with Bob Weston (who recently moved to Lisbon).
Then it was the holidays and we went to Belize to visit my dad who had some serious health issues that led to his death in mid-January, then I went to The NAMM Show in Anaheim, then I went back to Belize in early February with my friend Josh to retrieve some of my dad’s things, register his death at the US Embassy in Belize, take care of some other business, and dig up 500oz of silver in his backyard in Belize. Now I am finally getting back to having some normal and full weeks of work in the studio. Thanks for your patience to all those who had projects going on in that time. I am just about caught up and back to normal turnaround times.
I don’t think it’s realistic for me to cover everything that’s happened since the last post, or even the highlights so here are some random odds & ends for the algorithms to chew on and digest for The Google:
A bigger one is that UMe (Universal Music Group) recently launched a new Vinylphyle series to reissue certain classic albums with the utmost care when it comes to the mastering, lacquer cutting, metal plating, pressing, and packaging. So far they have about half a dozen titles and they’re all getting great reviews from even the toughest of critics.
While many of the Vinylphyle releases are cut directly from the analog tapes, certain albums require some digital work before they can be cut. That’s been the case for two of their titles (that I’m aware of) and both ‘Mama’s Gun’ by Erykah Badu and ‘Split Milk’ by Jellyfish have been remastered and reassembled here at Mystery Room Mastering.
The Jellyfish release actually stems from the 2023 Remaster that was done here. I didn’t have to fully redo my work, I just had to open the existing fluid mastering session and prepare a more vinyl-friendly version of what was done in 2023. The Erykah Badu release was done more recently specifically for the Vinylphyle release only. It may be released on streaming some day but as for now it’s vinyl-only. It was an honor to work on both of them and they are both getting GREAT reviews in the usual places that people discuss and review vinyl reissue quality.
You can still order them both HERE.
UMe also reissued The Cranberries ‘Uncertain EP’ which had been out of print for a while and never on streaming (that I’m aware of). The EP has been fully remastered here. You can read more about it (and order it) HERE.
Peter Jesperson along with the family of Slim Dunlap put A LOT of love into a new 2-CD set from Slim Dunlap called ‘Every Little Word’. This new set features both of his amazing studio albums from the 1990s remastered here, plus a bunch of bonus tracks for each album. These bonus tracks are incredible and at times heartbreaking to listen to. It’s available on streaming but I highly recommend picking up the CD version from Curation Records to read the great liner notes and view the photos. There is also a 1xLP release coming that features ‘The Best Of The Bonus Tracks’. Since the two albums were somewhat recently issued on vinyl for Record Store Day, I think it was decided that doing another vinyl release (likely 4xLP) to fit all this on vinyl again wasn’t practical so for now, you can get it all on CD or streaming, and the best of the bonus tracks on vinyl. You can find out more HERE
Julia Blair (of the band Dusk) released a great new album on Don Giovanni Records called ‘All Of My Important Things’. It’s available on streaming, Bandcamp, and vinyl HERE.
On the technical side, I retired my Crookwood Insert Switcher (the thing that connects all the analog hardware to one place to determine what is in or out of the audio processing chain) with the excellent Dutch Audio IC2.1 AND IC1.1 units. Together they work to provide 16 stereo insert points which are all nicely controlled by a plugin in the mastering DAW for per-song automation and recall purposes. Overall, it’s a very nice workflow improvement from what I had. I’ll leave some photos below that I took of the current state of the mastering desk (and side-racks).
Also, while I generally go to The NAMM Show for the weather and people, I actually got to try the brand new Audeze LCD-5s headphones and I knew they were an immediate upgrade from the LCD-5. The LCD-5 were great but always felt a touch bright and bass-shy. The LCD-5s solves that and more. Perfect headphones which are now in use in the main studio, Standing Desk/Studio B, and the mobile rig.
As always, the best place to follow along on most of the recent happenings is via Instagram stories.
Also, while things are generally pretty busy here, don’t let that deter you from submitting your mastering projects. Singles can usually be done within 1 to 3 days. We updated the project submission form to have a more dynamic calendar to predict turnaround times based on the number of songs your project is. While we were doing that, we also added a way to add previously mastered singles (mastered here) to your new EP or album project which has been a growing trend in the last 5 to 10 years. More on that HERE.
Thanks for reading and thanks for your interest in what’s happening here at Mystery Room Mastering.
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