FROM LEFT: BERNIE GRUNDMAN, MICHAEL HOBSON, PRISCILLA SANCHEZ, SQB
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BERNIE GRUNDMAN (continued...) In 1968, when working for an independent studio, Bernie joined A&M Studios and started the legendary mastering studio that still exists there today inside Henson Studios. Bernie quickly got a reputation as someone who 'got into it' and as a guy that worked well with artists, especially Herb Alpert himself. As well as most of the 70's A&M Records output, Bernie has worked with everyone.... literally. After many years with A&M, he left to start his own one room facility in east Hollywood around the mid-80's. A second mastering room in Tokyo was built a couple of years ago. Recently he has acquired a new space (and a large staff) on East Hollywood Blvd.*, with an incredible amount of interior space, inside which our mastering session is to take place.
Bernie's was chosen by Classic because he's always been one of the best digital and disk mastering guys around and also has a wonderful collection of vintage gear. I'll describe this later in the article. MORE ABOUT CLASSIC RECORDS Michael Hobson told me the concept of Classic Records was to recreate the vinyl experience of the late 50's -- that is, a tube signal path, sensible levels and a quality transfer to disk. The manufacturing stage uses quality plating and pressing techniques on 180 gram vinyl. To save money on plastic, many manufacturers after 1960 cut the amount of plastic used in a biscuit, thus making a thinner, more warpable record. Sometimes old records were even ground up and fed into the fresh plastic hopper, making a much noisier product. A lot of the great classic records we loved in the 70's were rushed through production and the quality of many of them suffered greatly. With 180 gram pure vinyl, Classic has created an product that is as close to perfect as possible. Another cool aspect of the Classic vinyl experience is the cover. They get an original cover and reshoot it perfectly, often printed better than the original. And they keep the logos and liner notes exactly as originally presented. Only a tiny 4 point font at the bottom reveals it's a recreation. Quite a feeling to put a 180 gram disk on the turntable and hear wonderful silence....then the MUSIC.... The CLASSIC RECORDS approach to the sound of the LP is to try and approximate the intentions of the original producers and mastering engineer by listening to an original first-run pressing. This is then compared to the master tape, and an attempt is made to strike a balance between the revisionism of a cleaner transfer and the original LP experience. THE EQUIPMENT Bernie has the gear. A collection of new and old. Starting at the tape machine, a highly modified STUDER A80 Transport with advance head. The advance head gives the disk mastering system advance warning of upcoming audio information. This deck is designed for one purpose: Mastering to disk. The first and second stereo heads are connected to a second pair of preamps, faders, limiters and eqs. The first head gets the music first, then the second head. This allows the electronics in the disk cutting 'computer' to know in advance when a louder or softer section comes up before it happens -- so it can instruct the disk cutter to widen the spread and deepen the groove for loud passages, and narrow the spread and shallow the groove for quiet ones. This increases the possible playing time and the dynamic range. Your componentry can really add up if you have preview and program channels then fed into an A and B set!
The special impedance program playback head on the Studer transport is connected to a set of 3 AMPEX 350 Tube Eletronics (preamps) totally rebuilt by Grundman tech Beno May.
article contines.....
* Bernie Grundman Hollywood Studios
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