AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

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AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by mestreech » Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:14 am

Hi,

after long waiting AUDIO FIDELITY finally got the rights to master the B$B album. I don't know if it will be a SACD or a regular GOLD cd.
They mastered before LITD / Killer / School's out.

There is a very interesting story on their forum about the condition of the original tapes soundwise like.

Here's the link :
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/a ... ty.334492/
Last edited by mestreech on Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by mestreech » Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:19 am

It will be a SACD

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by Toronto Bob » Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:49 am

Good read, I am curious to hear the end result. Mainly for the potential in a different mix as opposed to an upgrade in sq. The gold discs for LITD, Killer and SO were nothing special imo and definitely not worth the extra $$, so I won't be buying the BDB SACD expecting even better sound from an already great sounding disc. But between the B$B stereo, quad vinyl and DVD audio mix, I'm interested to hear what else lives on those tapes.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:28 am

You beat me to it Mestretch!! I really like the Hoffman LITD/Killer and SO. A lot of detail was brought out on those versions. The BDB 2 disc remaster is just an ear bleeder so looking forward to this although it is not a true representation of the original album.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:29 am

Great album, maybe the best Alice?

Today at Stephen Marsh Mastering in the Hollywood Hills we nailed this one. It was a tense session because the tapes were pretty messy but messy is my middle name...

At any rate, Stephen, second engineer Fernando Lee and I were patiently mastering the Alice Cooper for Audio Fidelity. We did our usual split feed, DSD take and CD take, both at the same time.

The tapes were the original mix compilation reels that were done at the Record Plant back in the day. Each reel had the dates of the original mixes and what mix "take" was pulled to this album comp. There was also a big note on each reel saying: DO NOT USE FOR ANY PRODUCTION WORK, USE EQ DUB CUTTING MASTER!!!

And for good reason. The songs had many edits in them, many level changes and, wacky as it seems, some of the songs required different level setups and Dolby A adjusting.

Some of the songs were mixed in 1972, some in 1973 and each had a different set of tones to go with it. Yikes. No way a phonograph record in the old days could be cut from these master reels, so a "mastered" copy was generated and all lacquers, parts, etc. were cut from that, bypassing this original set.

However, us brave dudes decided to plug ahead and use these two fragile reels. First, Stephen Marsh went in and fixed each and every edit (the glue had bled over the years and it was a sticky mess at each of the many edit points). No baking of the tape was required as the tape stock was from the good year of 1972. Tape still played fine, no shedding whatsoever. Good news.

Once the splices were scrubbed and fixed, Stephen's Dolby expertise went into effect and he aligned the ATR analog playback deck with his custom Dolby A box until it was perfect (at least for the first few songs).

Then, we transferred, one at a time, using our special brand of mastering knowledge and dumb luck. None of the songs sounded tone-wise like any other songs on there, each had a different sound. Now on the old LP they made all of them sound similar but that was not our goal. I personally don't care what the old LP sounded like unless it had amazing sound (and this one didn't). I want YOU to hear what THEY heard back at the Record Plant in 1973 so I left the tonal changes intact for the most part from song to song but at the same time I made sure each one sounded the best it could in the context of "what they were obviously going for" back then.

Make sense?

At any rate, it took a long time today, high-priced designer pizza was delivered and we took a break but mainly we worked on this, one song at a time, having to fix levels, Dolby levels, EQ and other "tricks" for each and every song while having to "MRL" the machine back to neutral/normal after each one so we could carry on and on.

The album holds up nicely. I had a retro-type girlfriend in the 1980's who LOVED this album (she thought she was so cool to like something from an earlier era, I thought "eh, big deal") but I was reminded of her throughout the day. A weird feeling but I'm sure she will dig this new version.

As always, it's very important to me that the ORIGINAL VINTAGE mixes were used. I also found inside the boxes that they have most of the original song titles before they were renamed but legally I can't share them. A bunch of crossfades and other goofy stuff was still on the reels and I'm glad they wisely decided to edit them all out of the final production. alice_cooper-billion_dollar_babies--lp.jpg

Hope you all like this one.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pinkerton » Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:39 am

pretty cool. I'm wondering what the alternate titles were.
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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Nov 15, 2013 11:54 am

>Mainly for the potential in a different mix

I don't have any real problem with this project except that I'm always a little uncomfortable with things like this when the original producer is not involved. Also, this is now going to be fourth time this album has been through this kind of process. Again, I don't have a specific problem with that except you have to wonder where it will all end maybe.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:03 pm

I don't think the mix is going to be different in the sense TB thinks it is.

They aren't going back to the multis and doing a new "mix", they are simply going back to the original master tape (mix) before it was EQd and applying EQ and levels that suit Hoffman's style. His style generally attempts to be less imposing than others. Still, I think the end result will be faithful to what was actually recorded. Often times what the producer delivered and what ended up on vinyl or CD were somewhat different.

I'm glad to see this project happening because the other Hoffman discs are my go to versions and it will be nice to have a BDB that is in the same sonic ballpark.
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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:34 pm

>They aren't going back to the multis and doing a new "mix", they are simply going back to the original master tape (mix) before it was EQd and applying EQ and levels that suit Hoffman's style.

I realise that and that point is made in the explanation but that is also kind of my point. When does Bob Ezrin get to have a say in this? I am not saying he is necessarily going to disagree with the results of their work and it is pretty clear they intend to stick close to the original, but again, I would be happier if he were involved (or any of the band or the original engineers) but that isn't always possible.

> Often times what the producer delivered and what ended up on vinyl or CD were somewhat different.

Exactly - because they weren't always involved in the mixing or mastering process.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by homerx » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:52 pm

It was on DVD-A a few years ago. As well as being offered via HDtracks.
I understand its the most popular album. However has to be the most "remastered" of them all.
Still should be interesting to see what the do.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:36 pm

A_MichaelUK wrote:When does Bob Ezrin get to have a say in this? I am not saying he is necessarily going to disagree with the results of their work and it is pretty clear they intend to stick close to the original, but again, I would be happier if he were involved (or any of the band or the original engineers) but that isn't always possible.
I see your point and in a perfect world Ezrin would have some involvement. But on the other hand, I think the purpose of a boutique release such as this is that you're getting the Audio Fidelity (Steve Hoffman) treatment.

That said, I wouldn't read too much into Hoffman's comments. It's from an audiophile mastering engineer's perspective rather than a producer's perspective.

Overall, I think Hoffman's touch is much lighter and more faithful to the original tapes than what is often seen with modern mastering techniques using brickwalling and compression.

I'll be interested to hear the finished result.
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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:41 pm

homerx wrote:It was on DVD-A a few years ago.
That was over 12 years ago, I believe.
homerx wrote: I understand its the most popular album. However has to be the most "remastered" of them all. Still should be interesting to see what the do.
Given that some artists catalogs have been remastered several times over or more, two remasters for one of the most popular titles in an artist's catalog isn't really that extreme.

Still, I would love to see the entire catalog (or at least the WB albums) given a full proper remaster treatment as was planned some years ago with the "Monster Box".
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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:53 pm

A_MichaelUK wrote:>They aren't going back to the multis and doing a new "mix", they are simply going back to the original master tape (mix) before it was EQd and applying EQ and levels that suit Hoffman's style.

I realise that and that point is made in the explanation but that is also kind of my point. When does Bob Ezrin get to have a say in this? I am not saying he is necessarily going to disagree with the results of their work and it is pretty clear they intend to stick close to the original, but again, I would be happier if he were involved (or any of the band or the original engineers) but that isn't always possible.

> Often times what the producer delivered and what ended up on vinyl or CD were somewhat different.

Exactly - because they weren't always involved in the mixing or mastering process.

These releases are relatively small, I think around 2500. Hardly a big money maker. I think it would be cost prohibitive to have Ezrin involved ( though I would loke to see it ). By all accounts Hoffman is a bit of a prick. I believe MB wanted to attend a remastering of Killer and Hoffman nixed it so his fan boys could attend.

Has Ezrin commented on any of Hoffman's Cooper work?

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:56 pm

RemarkablyInsincere wrote:
A_MichaelUK wrote:When does Bob Ezrin get to have a say in this? I am not saying he is necessarily going to disagree with the results of their work and it is pretty clear they intend to stick close to the original, but again, I would be happier if he were involved (or any of the band or the original engineers) but that isn't always possible.
I see your point and in a perfect world Ezrin would have some involvement. But on the other hand, I think the purpose of a boutique release such as this is that you're getting the Audio Fidelity (Steve Hoffman) treatment.

That said, I wouldn't read too much into Hoffman's comments. It's from an audiophile mastering engineer's perspective rather than a producer's perspective.

Overall, I think Hoffman's touch is much lighter and more faithful to the original tapes than what is often seen with modern mastering techniques using brickwalling and compression.

I'll be interested to hear the finished result.

I agree though a lot of people feel his re do's are too smooth sounding. It's as if he his applying the same process to CSNY as he would NMTB.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:05 pm

>Given that some artists catalogs have been remastered several times over or more, two remasters for one of the most popular titles in an artist's catalog isn't really that extreme.

This will be at least the third, as I indicated.

>Still, I would love to see the entire catalog (or at least the WB albums) given a full proper remaster treatment as was planned some years ago with the "Monster Box".

What about the recent Japanese versions? I know there was some discussion of those here but I don't think I remember if it was ever established which sources they used.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:11 pm

>These releases are relatively small, I think around 2500. Hardly a big money maker.

That wasn't the point I was getting at. It isn't as if this version will replace the 2001 version or anything. People will still have something of a choice. My point is that at some point, most people (I think) will want the 'definitive' version and if technology continues to improve there could be more and more versions of this or any other album.
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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:13 pm

>I agree though a lot of people feel his re do's are too smooth sounding. It's as if he his applying the same process to CSNY as he would NMTB.

Exactly. It is all down to personal taste, in which case, even more reason to have one of the original creators present, if it was possible (and even then, not everyone would be satisfied).

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by RemarkablyInsincere » Fri Nov 15, 2013 5:46 pm

A_MichaelUK wrote:This will be at least the third, as I indicated.
I was counting only the US releases, but you are correct.


A_MichaelUK wrote: What about the recent Japanese versions? I know there was some discussion of those here but I don't think I remember if it was ever established which sources they used.
I don't know what sources they used, but they certainly sound like a unique mastering. They don't suit my tastes, however.
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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 5:50 pm

The definitive version will always be the album. No idea what is the best pressing is and I don't really care, all I know is my UK original copy sounds wonderful. I doubt there is any consensus on what the definite cd's are but I do believe the 2 disc leaves a lot to be desired. I think Hoffman would shit a brick if Ezrin was in the studio.

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Re: AF Masters BILLION DOLLAR BABIES

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 5:52 pm

RemarkablyInsincere wrote:
A_MichaelUK wrote:This will be at least the third, as I indicated.
I was counting only the US releases, but you are correct.


A_MichaelUK wrote: What about the recent Japanese versions? I know there was some discussion of those here but I don't think I remember if it was ever established which sources they used.
I don't know what sources they used, but they certainly sound like a unique mastering. They don't suit my tastes, however.
I thought they were the same as the original WB pressings. Maybe someone could A B them or whatever if they have the time.

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