FWIW, I got the masters back from Carl today and he did a fucking swell job....they sound great.We've just released the album on preorder and one track is up here:https://secretblackboyfriend.bandcamp.com/album/an-altar-of-nothing-erected-for-no-one...the album tile is actually a lyric I heard in a song shared somewhere on this forum (I can't remember who or what, but thank you regardless) but it struck a chord as I was listening to it to drown out the religious nuts that are my parents while they were on a rant during one of my infrequent visits and stuck with me. Call it 'divine inspiration' hahah.

bishopdante wrote:Under the circumstances of submitting reel to reel, I would be miffed to learn that some sort of computerised denoise and multiband limiter had been slapped onto the signal without asking, even if digital processes do those jobs well compared to the analogue equivalents.so you would prefer that the ME use the analog stuff that does the job less well? why? if the end result sounds great what does it matter how you got there?

bishopdante wrote:In my own experience 320kbps mp3 is not actually necessarily as bad as 16 bit red book CD quality or DAT. I don't disagree with this, especially if the mp3 is encoded from an un-dithered 32-bit floating point source. It can be hard to tell a difference between 16-bit PCM WAV and a well encoded 320kbps mp3. Like most things, mp3 gets a bad wrap when it's poorly done but it's not always terrible. The bigger issue the broker sending mp3s is that they were probably the extremely loud/limited/smashed digital masters (encoded from 16-bit WAVs no less). Whether it's a WAV or mp3, a digital master is likely not going to translate very well to vinyl.Making a vinyl pre-master that is optimized to translate well to vinyl can really go a long ways. This often means removing or greatly easing up on the digital limiting and average loudness to a more natural state. The lacquer cutter/DMM engineer will determine the loudness of the actual vinyl, and often times stuff that is brick-walled with a high RMS level makes for a quieter and less exciting cut. Other loudness factors with vinyl are length of the sides and how much bass info you have/need/want.In recent years, I started to up-sample everything to 96k with Weiss Saracon (or sometimes RX5 or Myriad/Goodhertz) before starting the mastering process. The up-sampling alone of course doesn't make it sound better (and can make it sound worse if you use a mediocre sample rate converter) but the digital and analog processing that follows the up-sampling can have great benefits.This of course also makes it possible to submit a 24-bit/96k WAV vinyl pre-master for lacquer (or DMM) cutting.Most good lacquer cutters and pressing plants will work with this no problem but there are still a few budget/old-school/whatever places out there that ask you to mail them a CD-R which is of course limited to 16-bit/44.1k, but the norm is submitting hi-res digital WAV files via Dropbox/WeTransfer/FTP to whoever is doing the cutting. They can play the 96k audio into the lathe.The other thing is that lacquers (and DMM) can be cut from 24-bit/high sample rate sources. Best to keep things at 24-bit (or even 32-bit floating point) for obvious reasons...plus if the cutting engineer needs to make any adjustments digitally they are not starting from a 16-bit dithered source as any digital adjustments in any modern DAW/app will increase the bit-depth to 32-bit floating.I once wrote this article to help my mastering clients and other engineers not be disappointed with their vinyl pressing after spending thousands of dollars on it:https://theproaudiofiles.com/the-importance-of-lacquer-cutting-for-vinyl/

Chris Goosman has always done a stellar job on my projects. Absolutely fantastic to work with. (Thanks Chris.)Recently Will Killingsworth (Orchid, Ampere, Failures, Demonbrother, etc.) did a mastering job on my band's latest 7" that was fucking awesome. It made us sound pretty crushingly heavy, but he has a lot of range besides that and would do just as great a job on poppier stuff. He also has fantastic rates. Highly recommended.

Gooseman!

Stephan Mathieu, a great electroacoustic musician, is offering discounted mastering rates as part of his Indiegogo campaign to get funds for a new studio: LinkHe's done mastering for artists on labels like Die Schachtel, Kompakt, Room40, Raster Norton, Temporary Residence, Editions Mego and Staalplaat. Might be of interest to some of you noiseniks or droners looking to get mastering work done.