mastering & oh the joy

Went and mastered the first single on tuesday, with the lovely Pete at Heathmans - certainly the most professional looking mastering studio I've been too. Pete was brilliant - he seemd a little puzzled at first but got what I was trying to do and managed to cut both sides at 45rpm. With a lot of bass.



geeky equipment boy that I am, I took a load of pictures of the lathe (hope I didn't embarass you too much Rich). Despite it being tragic that they're no longer built anywhere, and the number of people who can repair and maintain them is dwindling, I love the fact that they've all got their own little story, this one was from 1970's czechoslovakia, cutting classical records, and being named after one of the engineer's children...



There's this moment, after the EQing and the compressing and all the parametric fun, when he did a little test cut of half a minute or so of clapton deep, took it from the lathe and onto a record player, and then oh, you hear it, for the first time, coming back from the vinyl, with all of that alchemy and wonder - the way the sounds are warmed and spread and fluxed and rotated.
all the nerves and anxiousness melted away.
big smile on my face.



can't wait for the test pressing...