A few years ago I had a lengthy conversation with Jeff Powell of Take Out Vinyl, one of a handful of vinyl mastering outfits here in the U.S.. Producer Bobby Macintyre introduced me to Jeff as his go-to mastering engineer when preparing his work and that of the artists he works with to release their material onto vinyl. As I’m sure he is now, Jeff was extremely busy in those days, and I felt lucky to have the opportunity to talk with him, learn more about his work and hear his story.
In 2015 Jeff bought a cutting lathe from Chad Kassem at Quality Records and started cutting masters out of the control room that was originally part of Studio B of Sam Philips’ Recording Services in Memphis. With that risky career move, which required some “last minute financing” that included a mortgage on his house and maxing out his credit cards, Jeff joined a fairly exclusive club of about 20 people world-wide who cut masters for vinyl.
Jeff originally worked as a recording engineer, mixer and producer based out of Ardent records, also in Memphis. During our conversation I asked him how he got into doing vinyl mastering:
JP: 11 years ago I approached Larry Nix who was the vinyl cutter at Ardent records about learning how to cut masters. There was a lathe there that had not been used in a while and initially he resisted the idea, but I kept bugging him and he eventually relented and taught me how to do it. I’ve been doing it ever since.
I’m fascinated by the process of vinyl mastering, and particularly by how it is that different mastering engineers can create such different versions of the same material, sometimes WILDLY different. To gain more insight into the process and perhaps learn more about how the work of different mastering engineers can vary so much, I asked Jeff to describe the process of cutting a vinyl master.
JP: First, I listen through the material. Then I figure out how to best set up the lathe for the best sound within the physical limits… I then do a simulation run on the lathe, letting it run through the side, manually banding between songs, all without actually dropping the cutter head and making a cut. These are called “dummy runs.” I do this, then I make adjustments to the processing until I can get the recording to fit, sounding the best it can.
I also usually do a test cut on a scrap lacquer and listen back to it. I often skip around and cut passages that I think are potential trouble spots and see how they play back before I commit. When I am ready to commit I bring out a blank master lacquer from its dust-free box. I visually inspect it for flaws, and if I don’t see any, I put it on the turntable, turn on the suction and cut the master lacquer.
Once a lacquer has been cut, it then needs to be converted into the metalwork ultimately used to press vinyl. Typically this should be done within 72 hours of the cutting, so there’s some time pressure with the process. Meanwhile a finished master lacquer cannot be played back, so Jeff and other mastering engineers are at the mercy of the process, not to mention whatever backlog there might be at the pressing plants (thanks RSD!), and will not get the chance to hear how the record they master sounds until they get their own copy back from the plant.
It seemed to me that it would be frustrating, as a mastering engineer, to not know for so long if the sound you went for on a record was the sound you got. When I asked Jeff about this, he indicated that this was perhaps why, more often than not, a mastering engineer opts for creating a digital copy first. A digital copy allows the engineer to make alterations in the sound as much as they like (and have time for – these guys are BUSY!) before cutting the lacquer and re-establishing the analog chain.
That is, IF the original analog tape is even available to use. A BIG IF! Again, Jeff weighed in:
JP: There are very few people who can cut masters from the original analog tapes. I’d guess I’m one of maybe 20 people in the world who do this. Also, many of the master tapes are damaged or are in poor condition. Master tapes often suffer from “shedding” where the tape has begun to decompose. If this is the case the tape can be baked in a convection oven to stabilize it. This gets the moisture out of the tape and reduces the shedding, but this also limits the number of times you can play the tape afterward. Making a digital master makes sense in this case so there’s a clean copy going forward.
I was curious to know what Jeff was working on when we spoke. That was a few years ago and there was one project in the queue Jeff mentioned that he was very hush-hush about. Jeff had gotten his hands on the original master tapes of the first 2 albums of Memphis’s own Big Star, and was going to remaster them with an all analog chain. I’ve been a big fan of Big Star since I discovered them in college and was VERY excited to hear this news.
After my conversation with Jeff, I kept wondering if he’d be able to bring out the magic on the master tapes of Big Star’s albums in a way, IMO, so few mastering engineers working today have managed with ANY reissued material. I really enjoyed talking with Jeff, and I could appreciate that he was extremely passionate and committed to doing great work, great work in fact that I expect is at the expense of cutting more records than he does and making more money doing it.
JP: I’m at the point now that I’m mastering like I were Bob Ludwig or Doug Sax where I’m using an all analog chain. This is much more expensive because doing it this way, it takes a whole day to master ONE record. Meanwhile these days in the industry there’s pressure to turn out 7 or 8 records a day!
I was rooting for Jeff on his Big Star project, but eventually forgot all about it. Then the other day I saw a new copy of a reissue (from 2019) of Big Star’s #1 Record at my local record store and the hype sticker told me it was the product of Jeff’s handiwork. It was then I realized that I was finally going to get my chance to hear what Jeff was able to do with those original tapes, and I was feeling both excitement and trepidation.
Something that struck me during my conversation with Jeff was when he pointed out how exceedingly rare it is that a modern vinyl record has been mastered from an analog tape source. It’s no wonder contemporary reissues with an ALL ANALOG pedigree are so in demand, especially with audiophiles. There just aren’t that many of them coming out!
In his recent article EXTREME RECORD COLLECTING, TBR contributor Richard Metzger warns us to “AVOID all digitally-sourced vinyl of older albums.” Richard recommends what I believe most audiophile vinyl enthusiasts adhere to – when it comes to reissues of older (last millennium) music, stick to those remastered FROM THE ORIGINAL ANALOG TAPES.
Those of you who’ve read my other articles know where I stand on modern reissues, all analog or otherwise. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see if perhaps Jeff Powell had figured out how to do what other cutting engineers haven’t. And even though I may seem an incurable curmudgeon when it comes to reissued vinyl, I do occasionally lapse into entertaining the futile hope of every audiophile record collector – that someone will figure out how to make new records sound like old ones.
Before I get to the results, I do have a confession to make. I don’t always (rarely actually) clean the heavy vinyl reissues I review on this site before I put them up against other versions. Meanwhile, I ALWAYS subject the vintage records I write about to my rigorous cleaning process. Not totally fair, I realize, but the VINTAGE vs. REISSUE articles I’ve posted mostly reveal differences in mastering and not the quality of the pressings themselves. And wrong mastering cannot be righted by cleaning the crud out of the grooves. If only it could!
But in the interest of giving Jeff’s cutting of #1 Record every possible advantage, as well as postponing the inevitable for a little while longer, I put my shiny new Big Star reissue into the cleaning pile and eventually found some free time to give it the same scrub I’d already given my Big Beat reissue of the same title. It seemed only fair!
Big Beat out of London was the first company to reissue Big Star’s seminal first 2 records, releasing their first pressing of #1 Record back in 1986. Big Beat direct metal mastered #1 Record and Radio City from a digital tape source. I don’t own an OG of any of Big Star’s records as I thus far have been unwilling to shell out the BIG $ they command these days. Therefore it would have to be my Big Beat reissue that would serve as the counterpoint to this new reissue from Jeff.
When I started this website 5 years ago I was inspired by Bill Hart’s The Vinyl Press. Bill reviews a good number of interesting records on his site and I admire the way he gives every modern reissue its due, often with track-by-track commentary to support his views. I won’t be doing that with this new reissue of #1 Record. It only took me 30 seconds of the first track to hear most of its problems.
When Jeff told me about the Big Star project he also said, after hearing the master tapes, “the recording is so bright!” He may be absolutely right, and certainly hearing the different versions of the album have reinforced that. The guitars, horns and piano on both of Big Star’s first 2 records DO sound bright! And edgy! And with lots of glare! At least they have on the versions I’ve heard.
So the question is, as a mastering engineer, what do you do with that? In Jeff’s case (we have not spoken about the record since our last conversation, which was before he cut the new version) the answer appears to be “boost the bottom end.” At least that’s what it sounds like he did. I only wish I could say I thought that was the right way to go.
Does boosting the bottom end help to balance the brightness and edginess at the top? Not at all. It only serves to make the drums and bass sound boomy and flabby and to plump up the lower mids in a way that degrades the tonality of the all-important acoustic guitars.
This fact was made achingly clear on the song “Thirteen,” which is exclusively acoustic guitars and vocals. Jeff’s version sounded strikingly off to me, so off in fact that for a moment or two I was wondering if this was a track that had been left off the original album and that Jeff had added back on. Alas, that was not it. The guitars on this track, a track that was actually very familiar to me, just sounded, well, not like guitars, and the performance fell flat.
On occasion I’ll read a review of a new heavy vinyl reissue and a phrase that often comes up is “tonally rich.” “So and So’s remaster of such and such is ‘tonally rich’ or more ‘tonally rich’ than the original.” In my mind, this is another way of saying the bottom end is “boosted,” and when some part of a track is “boosted” then just about every other part of the track is going to sound off. Such was the case with this new heavy vinyl reissue of #1 Record. The bottom end is “tonally rich,” and as a result other parts sound off, especially the guitars on “Thirteen.”
Reeling from the disappointment, I put on my Big Beat reissue, which I hadn’t played in a long while, and I was shocked to hear how much better it sounded than this new version. Digital mastering is nothing if not clean and clear and this version is VERY clean and clear. It’s also appealingly transparent. But what surprised me was how much more natural and “master tape” sounding it was, given that it wasn’t mastered directly from an original analog master.
Whoever did the digital remaster for Big Beat did a pretty good job with it. Not a perfect job by any means, but a solid one. The Big Beat version sounds, for the most part, pretty much like a digital version of the master tape mastered to digital. That is, leaving aside the imprint of digital on the sound, it mostly conveys the sound of the original recording, or at least gives the impression of doing so.
Unfortunately Jeff’s version does not give this same impression. It’s great that he had the original analog tape to work with, and I’m sure the record he cut ultimately did benefit from that in some ways, but not enough to bring the sound of the original tape to this reissue. Apparently having that tape just wasn’t enough to assure success.
As I continued to play the Big Beat reissue it became increasingly clear to me that it is overwhelmingly better than this new one. Then I became curious about the version that Concord Records released some years back. As it turns out I don’t own a copy of their version of #1 Record, but I do still have my Concord Records reissue of Radio City, a record I wrote about here some time back.
I put that record on and realized I still liked some things about it. For one, it gets the drums and bass right, and if Jeff’s work on Radio City is anything like it is on #1 Record I’d say that version would improve on Jeff’s in that department. But the Concord Records version of Radio City is a bit of mess up top, and it appears that’s the hardest part of Big Star recordings to get right. Perhaps the original does? Looks like I’ll need to finally pony up and find out!