Preview - New Blind Guardian - Legacy of the Dark Lands - Vinyl - with Darcy Proper

Special guest- Mastering Engineer Darcy Proper joins Scott on this episode to discuss the making of a new vinyl release for the band Blind Guardian entitled Legacy of the Dark Lands.  We talk tech and about the music and all the skill that went into this "orchestral - metal" release.  We spend some time talking about how to make the vinyl turn out great and the power of a working partnership. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome to Making Vinyl at MasterDisc. I'm Scott Hull, Chief Engineer and Owner of MasterDisc, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with a colleague of mine, a mastering engineer, Darcy Proper of Proper Print Sound. And uh we're gonna get real deep into uh some of the details um of things that you've heard on previous podcasts, but you're gonna get to hear about it from another mastering engineer's perspective. Darcy and I have known each other for many years. We have several similar credits uh to our dames on our on our resumes and uh and a lot of mutual respect and admiration for each other's work. So welcome, Darcy.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Thanks, Scott, and thanks for having me. Uh thanks for chatting with me today.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

My pleasure. My pleasure. This is gonna this is gonna be fun. I've been looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yeah, two two m two mastering engineers in front of microphones. What could go wrong, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with this picture. Um but uh you know, we're doing our best. We do our best with our uh, you know, our my radio show voice and uh and your charm. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Oh yeah, I'll see if I can come up with one before the end of the broadcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

So we've worked on a project together recently that really was I I think remarkably successful. Um it was a project that um uh you did all of the mastering on, and and I was chosen to do the disc mastering, the cutting on. Um you're a little more versed in this. Why don't you tell um listeners about the project?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Okay, well, first of all, um I'm one of those uh misfit mastering engineers who has never had the opportunity to learn to cut vinyl. So um I know a little bit about it, uh, but I am by no means an expert in it. I think if you if you haven't really done it hands-on, uh there is a lot that is quite unpredictable about uh about cutting to vinyl. And for those of us who don't have experience with it, we uh do well to put ourselves in the capable hands of those people who do have experience with it, which is how you and I came to uh to work together on the project. Um the uh album was for uh a band called Blind Guardian. They have been around for decades in the I hope I have this right because I have to say I'm I'm not an expert on the the finer aspects of metal genres, but I believe they they uh fall into the fantasy metal uh category.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I I think you're I think you're accurate with that. A uh younger sibling of uh a friend of mine um I was um quite impressed that we were working on a blind guardian record.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, they they have quite a reputation. I know that. Having worked on some of their live material, I know when they tour, they do, you know, 25 to 35 tours uh uh in North and South America and 25 to 35 in Europe, and they sell out arenas and you know, I mean, in their genre of music, they are uh quite something. And the music is very um, it's very uh I would say it's intelligent music. It's uh based a lot on the um on mythology and philosophy, and uh quite a lot of their older material is based on Lord of the Rings and this kind of thing. So there is uh it's not just uh music to have a heart attack by. It's uh there's there's uh there's a story behind it, and uh uh it's uh the the these guys are really good at what they do. So um this project is a little bit of a departure for them, and in and rather than call themselves Blind Guardian for this one, they are the Blind Guardian Twilight Orchestra because they've actually foregone uh the band and uh the the singer Hans Kirsch he does the vocals for the the album and uh Andre Ulbrich, he's the uh guitarist, he did a lot of the composition uh with Hans. Uh it's a team effort effort for sure. But they've dispensed with the band and have done this with orchestra and choir and with Hans as the lead vocalist. And uh as I understand from the uh mix engineer uh Charlie Bauerfeind, um this has been ongoing for about 12 years. So this is this is a project that was started quite some time ago. It's been done uh in sort of bits and pieces, and the concept has fallen together, you know, as and developed uh as they've gone along. And what it has ended up being is an album of orchestra tracks with vocals and with a kind of narration in between which ties the whole storyline together. So so it the the songs are tied together in the full version of the album with uh with a narration based on the is it the four horsemen of the apocalypse? I think there's four. I I should know this after working on this. I looked it all up. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I get so absorbed in the way a record's gonna sound. I I sometimes re people ask me, well, who played who drew who was drummer on that record? And I'm like, I don't have a clue. It's like, what do you mean? You know, because they're they're fans and they would they would absorb that stuff. But no, I was worried about whether it had enough, you know, 2DB at 10K, you know. That's what I was worried about.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, what's funny is also it used to be that when we mastered projects, we got all of the label copy and all of the you know, all of the details were done first, and we got all the paperwork first, and then we sat down to work on it. And things don't work that way so much anymore. Um I I did in the end get get full label copy with the details that I needed, but who played what and when was was not a detail that I needed to have, and how many horsemen there are riding into the apocalypse uh wasn't among the I'm pretty sure it's four horsemen of the in the apocalypse.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Well, I've made a fool of myself on this podcast before. Uh feel feel free.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And it yeah, so it's it's we'll call it the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding into the thirty years war. So uh Wow. So it's an inter interesting bit of history and mythology.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

My first impression was that it was it was really quite profound and it uh would seem to appeal to both uh um uh uh uh to anyone into the Lord of the Rings type of of um of um just the aesthetic. It wasn't it's not really a uh metal or dark metal or a um um or a um fantasy metal record. It really kind of transcended that. I I thought they did a marvelous job pulling that off. It's not campy sounding at all to me.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

No, I think in the end it it comes across as uh sort of being a film score wi without the film. You know, you you have the narration that that ties it together, but the songs themselves in sort of an almost operatic fashion, they they tell the story, but they're not opera songs, they're sort of rock songs with orchestra. So um so yeah, it's it's an interesting uh combination.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, they they really kind of um threaded the needle between those two or three things really quite well. We'll find out if the uh if the listeners and the fans agree, but um it's gonna be a departure for their hardcore fans, but I think it's gonna um create some interest in a lot of other areas.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, I I hope that for I hope that for them also, because for one thing, it's a huge undertaking. I mean, the minute you start getting uh a full orchestra involved, then uh you know this this isn't something you do uh you know in a in a closet in your free time. It's uh it becomes a real commitment. And uh I think musically it it is uh very interesting and and I hope for them that their fans will like it. But I I rather expect that they will because um like I said the their music in general uh even though even though it's metal, it has uh it has an intellectual component to it as well. And uh I I think I think that is still there even if the guitars are not. And uh and the the energy and the power are certainly there as you've experienced for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, it was very compelling. It's hard to turn off. It was uh it was very compelling. So that's um well I'll I'll g I'll give everyone the details about this record uh in the description and and uh support information so they can find it. Um but uh not not out yet. Not out yet. By the time you're hearing this, it'll be getting close.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

It'll be getting close, yeah. I I think they were planning November, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Um on the mastering side of things, uh what should I tell you about it? It was quite an undertaking because we had a number of different versions to make. Um they have put out the album, the complete version with the narration, uh in the lead vocals. Uh, then they've done a digital version that is just the songs still with the lead vocals, and then they've done an orchestra-only version um, which is without any vocals at all. So no narration at all, no vocals at all, no no narration and no lead vocals in the song. So we'll refer to that as the orchestra-only version. Um so there was a a lot of elements to put together because the uh the narration elements were all separate and had to be uh combined in with the songs themselves, but they had to be done in such a way that that could then be removed afterwards for the versions without the narration. And then because this was going to be cut to vinyl, um, and uh to be honest, loud was still a consideration for the the digital version. Not to say that the digital digital version is crazy loud or stupid loud, it's certainly not broken, but I did have the feeling that uh keeping a bit more of the dynamic uh might be an advantage for the vinyl version. So then we printed everything again um uh with 3 dB less limiting to let everything sort of live and breathe uh uh a bit more.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

I was curious, how did the artist uh or the producer in this case um uh uh what was the reaction to the the lowered level of the of the vinyl? Did they cr scrutinize it or was that just uh taken at um um well under under advisement?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Well, I can say because I sat here working on it with Charlie, who was the mix engineer, he was very happy with uh with the less uh limited version. And I have to be honest that that that I do um I do prefer that version as well. Um but on the other hand, I think they were happy for the digital version to have, you know, have the the call it the slightly more competitive version because it doesn't have the guitars and and all the kind of elements um that you would typically have in uh in metal music. Um I think they were they were very concerned that if they came in with too little power, that it might not sit well with their fan base. So um so I I think we found a nice middle ground, but everybody was very happy that for the the vinyl we could keep you know keep a nice, you know, super dynamic version of the uh of the album. And having gone to the trouble, it's quite a long album, I think 70 some minutes, um having gone to the trouble of doing everything twice so that we could keep it more dynamic, um, it then became an even more compelling argument uh to get you involved. Uh, because having somebody who could help us to um to retain that sound and and that dynamic and still be playable on vinyl uh became a really important part of the equation. Um with no disrespect to people who are you know lathe operators and that kind of thing, I do think there is a difference between a a true cutting engineer, a true cutting mastering engineer and uh and somebody who can cut vinyl, you know, w uh letting the machine do most of the work and uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Yeah, we've we've discussed this a little bit on previous episodes. The uh I find even if we we put a talented person in that role, the motivation um is different. Um my motivation working with you on this record was to do everything I could to get every ounce of music that you you you supplied on the on the master to get it to play back, you know, on the on the vinyl. And it it it doesn't mean that I had to do nothing. It means that the ch changes that I had to make to it um needed to be transparent, in other words, not readily audible, but I I did need to modify the recording a little bit to make it safe and competent and to make it play back properly for the consumer. But um we've talked about it before, but I so I don't want to belabor it, but by spending a little extra time and setting up that uh as the prime directive, you know, do at first you know, do no harm. I guess I'm mixing up my metaphor as the prime directive with the Yeah, I was a trekkie too.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

It's good.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

I never know where my brain's gonna go sometimes. Um so but anyway, we had we had a conversation about that because um it was a kind of a perplexing or or or it was a decision that could have gone a couple different ways.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

And this was and this was very challenging material to cut, which we knew to begin with. I mean, there are some elements in that orchestra that are just big and wide and low frequency, which is sort of everything that you don't want to have to try to cut to vinyl with is sort of loud dynamic music. So uh we knew we handed we knew we handed you a puzzle and uh and and the way you the way you took it on with enthusiasm and clearly with a passion for the music. Um that's um that that makes a big difference. And I have to say uh to you now that it made a very big difference for uh for Hans uh also. He you know he's he's somebody who has spent uh now over twelve years and a lot of money to create this uh this album and uh that that he could put it in your hands and that you immediately took it on as a personal mission to make it sound the the way he was hoping it would sound. That uh that that that made him feel like he was truly in the right hands, and uh and he was.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Well that's great. That's that's you by both of us. Why we both uh do what we do is to is to enable to to help people achieve their their vision and their results. I mean it was really clear this this orchestration relied heavily on this huge cinematic uh driving bass um uh drum and b bass um element, um contra basses and just uh big and scary at times, but also very d delicate and open and and detailed at times. So uh from a c uh a cutter's perspective, it would have taken you know, about an hour to go through the record and put on the kind of standard tools to, you know, roll off some of the b well, you know, quote unquote, vinyl can't have a lot of bass on it or or it or it has a problem. And and quote unquote, you can't if you put too much top end on the vinyl or if you're running too close to the to the label, you're gonna have problems in distortion. But the fact really is if you do test cuts and you do playbacks and you listen carefully to those test cuts and playbacks, you find out that vinyl is quite a bit more resilient and a l qu more dynamic and you know if you if you think back to your classic record collection, there's some things that sound pretty awesome on vinyl. Actually, that's kind of why uh the vinyl resurgence is happening in the first place, because the sound of those original records, and it just bugs the heck out of me when I hear records back that have been kind of been seriously neutered. But uh, yeah, it indeed just under the claim that, well, vinyl can't handle it. And and I I had the fortune, great fortune, of learning mastering before the digital came around. So it was proven to me that vinyl could do this. Uh I got to see it every day. Um and uh it was it was proven that vinyl was robust, but it was also very fickle. It was the kind of thing that if you pushed it just a little too far, it would hit you back. It will bite you back, yeah. Sent you set you back a couple pegs. I mean, nothing quite as scary as sending off a um a cut part to the plant, and then finding out, well, if you were lucky, you found out from the technicians before it went to press, but finding out after the fact that what you cut actually was not playable. It skipped or it caused distortion or something. But that's how we learn. Uh just like a a sculptor or you know, uh, I hope it's not too lofty to say like a diamond cutter, but it's something where, you know, it it all really matters. Every s every tap of the hammer on on the marble, you know, really matters because at at any moment that one more hit will cause it to to crumble and you get to start.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

It will be worthless, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

There's so there's a slight similarity in vinyl because we have to get it all on on the record on in one pass. It's there's just one groove on a record. Uh from and it has to be contiguous, you know, c consistent from top to bottom. So if there is uh something that isn't quite perfect, we have to start over. And that's really the point I've been making with the podcast. It's um the cutters that work in uh in the plants and the cutters that don't take the kind of time or don't you know charge enough for their time, um won't spend the time to investigate these options. And they would have lowered the level two or three dB, they would have lowered the base. And honestly, I tried that to as a as an alternative and the record sounded really uninspiring. It was it was I I I was compelled to find a better way.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah, it it's it's just it's to your credit that you kept going, because I have to say, when I when I put the discs on here, um it really taught me a lesson uh about uh what is possible on vinyl. Um, you know, l like you're saying, uh it has become so normal for uh for vinyl just to be cut according to call it the technical parameters. The side length is so long we want to make it yeah so loud we have to uh mono the the low end uh and take some low roll off the low end from here to here and uh you know d DS it and whatever, and then it will be fine. And it may then technically be fine, but it isn't taking full advantage of what vinyl is capable of. And when I uh when I put on your uh your test cuts, I thought, oh my god, I don't think I can't think of the last time I heard vinyl with this kind of low end, for example. And and it really it made me realize that a lot of my preconceived notions about vinyl are from getting vinyl that is adequate but not um special.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Well, if it's in the mix and if it's not getting in the way, um this is the same decisions we'd make, you know, in the mastering studio, we're you know, we're we're we're aiming for the ultimate uh the ultimate creation to achieve what the you know producer and artist you know what their vision was. It's really necessary um uh to get to that perfect place uh where we're achieving what we what we did um collectively with with the mixed engineer and yourself and myself. Um good engineering is paramount all the way through this process. Um I could not have done this, I could not have put that base on that record if it wasn't well engineered um uh to begin with. And for the listeners, that's really hard to describe exactly what that means, but it's really easy for me to tell the difference when something comes in that's well engineered and what it's not. So I I it's it's very clear the engineered, well-engineered recording, I can achieve everything that we've just talked about. On a not so well-engineered record that's got a lot of base on it. Um, I my hands are much more tired. The limitations of vinyl, um if I can say it this way, are actually exaggerated, um, um put inversely proportional to the the skill of the uh mix engineer, the mastering engineer.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah. I mean, we are always uh in mastering, whether it's for whether it's for vinyl or whether it's uh yeah, for digital formats or what have you, we're always at the mercy of the material that we get in. So something that's recorded well and mixed well is is always going to be easier to to deal with um than uh than something that isn't. You know, uh if we don't have to solve a lot of problems or try to solve a lot of problems, or most of the time they can't be solved, we can just sort of try to cover them up with something else. Um if we can polish rather than correct, then that's always uh a nice place to be.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

And uh we we really are fighting this. Um the loudest wars is really the front line, I think, for it really is in the mastering studio.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

And um it's still there.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

I hate to say it that though that at over at different times. A number of different master engineers have feel like they need to or are basically have to give up um the cause because it's it's just um we also have to balance the our our aesthetic uh our ideals with um paying the rent. Yeah. You know, we have to we have to take the work in that we can get.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, that and that's sometimes that that's sometimes a real difficult place uh to sit, you know. Um I mean I love music and I get um uh I I I think uh like you also just judging from the way you you immediately jumped in with both feet into into the mission of uh of Blind Guardian to make this uh this very special record for them. From the moment I get involved in a project, I get personally in involved. In in mastering, I'm involved in a project for a much shorter period of time than other people earlier in the production chain, you know, the the writing and the performing and the uh recording and the mixing, these processes take longer. But uh for me it's a very intense experience, and from the moment that I start working on something, I really want it to sound the absolute best it can sound. And it's it's not about looking for perfection because uh yeah, music is also humanity and and it's not always perfection we want, but that the that the emotion and the and the art of of the music comes across to the listener, but um, but that you want it to get that message across in absolutely the best manner possible, that that the listener cannot help but to feel the emotion, to feel the message behind that music. And it is so discouraging when when you get attached to something and you really feel like you're working in a good direction and you send it off and you're you know you're you're proud of it. I th yeah, I did good work today, and then it gets kicked back to you. Uh yeah, sorry, but you know, it needs to be four dB louder.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

You know, I think I know it's so discouraging. And uh you know, we both try really hard to to educate the producers and involved in in what that actually means. But um I've been saying it probably for ten years now, it really is going to rely on the consumer pushback. And there have been a couple of moments when the consumer does realize that uh you know this over accelerated level thing doesn't produce great um uh great product. And I I quite frankly, I think that the loudness wars, this this hyper um uh b hyper loudness that the listeners will uh hear on a digital product on special on C D has sort of made it a little easier for the vinyl resurgence for people who really appreciate and understand know the difference and um and appreciate the difference of a record that doesn't feel so squashed of what that sounds like coming off their turntable. Yeah, it's it can be a little confusing as to why uh what you're hearing sounds better. Um on a high profile project, on a pro project that's gonna spend a little bit of money and may really have quality as its prime concern. Um you know, it we'll make a completely different mastering process uh pass, as you mentioned, um lowering the the overall level. Um but not just lowering the level, it's allowing the peaks to explode when it's called for.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Indeed, yeah, increasing the dynamic basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Yeah. And I have I honestly run into enough people um that think dynamics means louder, but we don't want to explain that dynamic range uh means being having louder louds and softer softs. Um and um as you as you limit, you're actually limiting that dynamic range, not giving a record more dynamics, it's just louder. And but well, in fact, all of the softs are louder. Um and but all the louds are are somewhat softer than they should be.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah, are are not much louder than the softs anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

If you feel like the first the downbeat of the song is pretty much the same level as the final uh, you know, end of the final chorus, where it should be, you know, a big build and and emotionally uh then it's it's heavily limited. Um you know, a number of vinyl records are being made cut from Digital Masters, and enough of the blogs already are are calling them out on those things. And um I was really uh excited to see a record that I worked on um come back from the press um just a couple days ago. And on the back they had a little dropout section graphically in the bottom corner, and it listed um um uh mastering, cutting, plating, and pressing, and who was involved in each one of those steps. So a consumer before they bought it could turn the record over and say, Oh, this was pressed at NIPRO. The last record I bought that was pressed at NIPRO, I thought was sounded great.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

And of course I was happy to see my credit and and uh uh studio named mentioned on that. And I'm I'm on a mission to tell everyone on the planet that uh that that's like a really good thing for selling records. Um if you put uh the credits on the back of your record, it's because everyone involved really put a lot of effort into it and you're proud of that. And uh you're proud of the people that you affiliated your record with, and so making that um visible to the consumer before they uh commit to buying it, I think is is really, really important. Because that same record could have been sent off to a one-stop shop, cut much quieter, and uh and and plated and pressed, you know, inferiorly, and uh you know th uh uh it's the still the same record, it's still the same package, but the listening experience would have been dramatically different.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yeah, I think I think when you get people to personally engage, um, and when you get the right people together who do want to personally engage in the productions they work on, then um yeah, that that sense of pride, that sense of um craft and workmanship and and the years of experience that go into it, um i i it makes a difference. Um and and it's uh it's a nice thing to think that if you consistently do that, that your name might eventually become recognized as a as a brand of quality. You know, when it says uh that it's been cut by Scott Hull, then you know it's uh people will recognize that it's been cut with care and with regard to uh to the musical content and not just cut by the numbers and um and that credit is rightfully deserved.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

That's um yeah, it's big. It's big. And um I I don't consider myself to be that old. Um but uh you know back in those days when it was all about records, uh credits were um clearly available and um and um you I think as myself and my the friends that I hung out with, we we scoured through the credits and we've we've noticed when there was a uh producer or a mixer uh that was in common with a couple of different records that we liked, or or even a bass player or a drummer that um liked, oh check out this, this is the same, you know, Ron Carter played on both of these records and and uh and then you start to notice the playing styles and start to notice the uh the production styles of the people that you um admired, not just the artist that kind of transcended the artists um um in in some cases. Maybe that's what made me uh you know become an engineer. Yeah. Yeah noticing those things. But I think we've done a pretty good job of describing that that process. We're still waiting for the test pricings to come back, so we're not quite done.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Hopefully uh we're gonna cross our fingers and hope that uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yeah, well it it's um it I've seen both happen recently, basically. Um it's a crapshoot. Um for the listener um to understand uh after I cut the master lacquer, I send it off to to be plated and it's plated, and then test pressings are made on vinyl and sent out to everyone to approve. Um surprisingly, this is a step that gets really shortchanged and and and not um detailed uh enough. I guess maybe why am I surprised? It it takes time and money. But um uh it if you don't do that part of the process, you really don't know what your final record's gonna sound like. And um one four-sided record that just came in recently, um three of the sides were absolutely perfect. Just I couldn't find I really could barely find any flaw on it at all. The flaws that were there were really minor. But one side had a really bad pop in it, and it was in both of the test pressings that I was sent, and it wasn't like gonna, you know, people probably wouldn't have returned the record for a pop on the C side of a four-sided record. But um I brought it up to the producer and to the label, and we um uh I sent my notes to the plant, uh, in this case a um a well-known um Central European plant that generally does really excellent work. And um I I pointed out the noise to them and they said, Oh, okay, good. We um uh uh literally within a few hours um I um I got back a note from them that they had checked the mother and that there was no pop on the mother, so they were gonna make a new stamper and they were gonna make a new set of test pressings um for us to listen to. We approved one set uh for the A and the B side, and they were gonna give us uh a new set of test pressings uh on the C side. Um it's gonna for me it's gonna make this uh record um you know glorious. It's gonna be um uh the difference between it being you know pretty good and being great. Um it just takes a little bit more determination and quite frankly, it's uh you gotta plan for a little extra time so that you can that it's okay for you to say, you know what, let's just spend a little more time and get this really good before we make, you know, five thousand of them.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah, that looks that luxury of time is is really a great thing to have, and it i it it's interesting that it seems to happen. We s I I seem to work on projects that have that luxury of time when I'm working with uh older, more experienced artists. Um it's it um which is not to say anything uh negative about the the younger artists, but um the production chain used to take longer. It you know, uh from get getting something recorded and getting something mixed, and uh, you know, there were sometimes months of rehearsals planned and songwriting sessions planned, and you know, when people were making an album, they used to uh make, let's say, a bit more of an event of it and and take uh take the necessary time to do it to make it good. And it wasn't uh the the it's not to say that there weren't deadlines and sometimes they were tight, but um it wasn't so much the tail wagging the dog that we have, you know, we now have a deadline and now we're gonna start making an album and see if we have time between now and the deadline to get it finished. The you know, the the deadline was calculated with the production process in mind. And um having that extra time, having the luxury of that extra time gives you that freedom to work on the details and and and fine-tune things that you don't have with something that you know is mastered today and has to be available on the uh Spotify tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah. I I I I'm afraid to say, or sorry to say, that uh probably 20% of the projects that come through us for vinyl um have have not planned enough time uh in pre-production. So we we get the test pressings, but about 20% of the time it doesn't really matter as long as it isn't completely broken.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, you don't have time to go back and fix anything if uh if it wasn't right.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

And um I I mean I have convinced people at at times when when things really could be better. Um it the process is is so handcrafted that things just sometimes don't go right and it's actually no one's fault. Um you know the only thing you need to do to make sure that that doesn't happen to your record is to follow good quality control processes and um and check the work and like I said be willing and able to ring the bell, you know, to stop the production process, um literally so that you can check the work to make sure it's good. Again, that's what you know quality producers, um both uh music producers and uh producers of vinyl and uh mastering and pressing people, that's that's that's what we do. The people that I generally refer projects to, and and frankly, the people I enjoy um sending our our projects to for plating and pressing all have that same methodology. Um they will be more likely to dig in and try to find the the solution uh than they will to be trying to find whose fault it is. And th that's a really, really big difference at this point. Um the plants that um you know when I w uh uh a a different plant um with that same defect that I mentioned earlier, uh would write back and tell tell us without even listening to anything, oh, it was on the lacquer. Um if you you know there's nothing we can do about it. Which makes my client think that I haven't done my job because they've placed the blame on me. And um uh i it um it it hurts the process in entirely because now maybe maybe um there there would have been a way to to make it work without having to re- recut it. And now I've got to convince the client that not only was I doing my job properly, um that I'm gonna go ahead and recut it, you know, uh either at a uh on my own dime or at a reduced cost, just so that this project will turn out good and that I can I can be happy that my name's on it. And uh inscription and my stamp is on it as well. It's uh it's a moment of of pride, but also uh, you know, my name's on it. And I want it to be good.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah. Yeah, it is um I think I think it means more than a lot of people might realize, you know, when you put your name on something, uh how for many of us that that actually means quite a lot. And it means it doesn't guarantee perfect results, but it means that that every effort has been made to make it as good as possible within the limitations of the project itself, whether that's you know, time or budget or uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

I I I think it's important to say that I I I don't ever um put myself in a position to to like um ber, you know, um to denigrate or berate the client and making them feel bad because they have a budget constraint or they have a time constraint. Or um we had um one project um now many years ago, it was beautiful um classical solo trumpet recording that had a particular time frame to get released. Um and it was not my choice, but they chose to use a Canadian pressing plant. But uh let me just make make sure I'm I'm clear with everyone, it's not the Canadian pressing plant that we're currently suggesting using. It was someone else. Uh um and actually I can't remember the name. They but uh it was it was a Canadian label and they wanted to use this plant, and as it turns out, the plant was going to close when they finished this project. They were literally had sold the equipment and they were just running out the end of the lease, and they were doing so to provide service for this label um because as a favor. And uh you can what what could go wrong with that scenario?

SPEAKER_00 37:20

No, that no no no possible way that could uh blow up. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

Well, the so the you know uh literally it ended up with the you know, um with us on the third attempt and they still didn't still didn't sound like it was a a record that anyone wanted to put their name on. And um I had an unfortunate conversation with the label where they had to tell me that they they had to pull the plug on it. They they could no longer um uh try again or even change to a different plant because they will have completely missed their opportunity, the promotional opportunity on the record. And quite frankly, the the record never came out. Yeah. And it still bothers me to this day. It's about it was about five or six years ago. Um it still bothers me that a beautiful record never made made it up on vinyl. Um if I get lucky this year, maybe I can have something to do with uh changing that.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

But uh Well I I I wish that for you, but yeah, that that disappointment is definitely uh a big one.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Because of all of the work, I mean I actually it just like with your project, I I I threw away the rule book on that one, um, which said that you know, you know, classical trumpet can't be above about you know minus three or minus four uh in level. And um, you know, you know, m you know, watch out for bass drums. And this is a really dynamic, um and really uh um uh at times uh uh aggressive composition. It was uh uh modern repertoire for for trumpet and orchestra.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Oh boy, trumpet trumpet's always tricky no matter no matter what you have to do with it. It's uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

But he was it was masterfully played. I I wish that the names would would pop into my head, but um if I think of it at the end I'll uh I'll credit it or maybe even play a sample from it for um for our for our out music just because it was so so beautiful. Um I'm sorry if I won't be able to share the uh the music that we're speaking of at this point because it's not been released yet, but um I will give everyone links to it. Um so I don't forget as we uh meander on, um Darcy, tell people um how they can get in touch with you. Um what's your um the website and social media?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Well, uh yeah, at the moment I'm embarrassed to say I don't have a website, and that's been the situation for for almost four years now. So that will be remedied in the very near future. Um I'm currently based in the Netherlands, and uh so we're now speaking to each other at the end of July, and by mid-August I'll be moving back to the US. So um I'll be back in the US then, and then we'll be dotting all the I's and crossing the T's and getting everything uh up and running with uh where I'll be able to be found on a website and that kind of thing. Uh for the for the moment um I am always Darcy Proper and uh I can be found uh most easily, I think, given that phone numbers and everything will be uh uh will be shifting. Um I'm Darcy D A R C Y at Proper Prentsound.com. P-R-O-P-E-R, P-R-E-N-T-S-O-U-N-D.com. My husband, Ronald Prent, is a is a recording and mixing engineer, and um he'll be making the move with me. So um we'll be and we'll be making this known, you know, through typical uh, let's say, marketing and uh publicity uh channels and that kind of stuff. So we we if we do this well, we won't be difficult to find uh once we've made the move. It's just this coming month, to be honest, is spent more uh more time is being spent packing and organizing the house and all of that. And then uh when the smoke has cleared, we'll uh we'll we'll make ourselves uh more uh visible again.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Well, I I I know the move uh routine pretty well. Um I I've moved uh far too many times uh in my career. Um I I got actually kind of got good at it. Um uh but it's it was never uh was never um not uh completely devastating to to work flow and to the deadlines and everything. So I wish you the very best. It's gonna be a challenge. But an exciting time.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, it's an exciting time, I have to say. I don't sleep much at night. If I wake up in the night, I you know there's that long list of oh can we get this packed and that packed and and and that kind of thing. But uh eventually everything will make it into the container and it will, you know, uh God bless us if the if the if the uh ship doesn't sink, then uh then it will end up where we are and we'll be back in business again.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

So uh Yeah. Oh my oh my god. Transatlantic uh uh move just it just um scared me.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

It is something else. It's funny. When I made the move to Europe, I think I had you know, I had a little pallet of stuff, you know. I brought most of my stuff in a suitcase, and then I had a few few things from my family and what have you that I was quite attached to on my motorcycle, and then these came with me. But um, yeah, you know, now uh now married and with a with a nine-year-old child and um just an immense amount of stuff that we've collected over the years. And yeah, we're we're parting yeah, we're parting with a lot of it now, but but you know, some of it we're emotionally attached to. The nine-year-old especially. So, you know, um he's he's gonna he's gotta come with us and all of the accessories that come with a nine-year-old. So uh so yeah. Well that's right.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Well I look forward to um uh to uh tweeting about your uh tweeting or uh uh reposting your announcements when you uh when you get set up in the States. And um you're not gonna be all that far from us actually, just up the just up the river of the U.S.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yeah, sort of up up up the river and to the left. Uh in the neighborhood uh in it's uh Auburn, New York, in the neighborhood of Syracuse, I think would be kind of the closest uh the closest reference point, not too far from Ithaca, but uh sort of between Ithaca and Syracuse.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Um one thing that I wanted to mention that I've really enjoyed about working with you on this, and not just for what you've put into it personally, but the nice thing about doing something where vinyl is a primary format for release, um, Blind Guardian with the the style of music that they play and the fact that their albums tell stories, it's conceived in a certain order. It's conceived and built to tell a story from point A to point B, you know, uh from beginning to end. And um and vinyl sort of force forces is a big word, but it encourages the listener to listen in that way, uh, which has become a rather unusual way of listening uh these days. Um of the things that I find frustrating in mass. For digital releases, is that a lot of times the continuity of an album, interesting transitions and crossfades and that kind of thing are being thrown away because everybody's concerned about how their material will then play in playlists. And that's very frustrating because the art of making an album is is suffering, you know. Yeah, imagine Dark Side of the Moon without any transitions, you know, if everything had to have three seconds of black between it so that they could divide it up and you know and shuffle it around with uh uh you know with other material, you know. And the fact that everybody is expecting now, no matter what the genre of music is, no matter what the style of music is, they want it to be able to sit in a playlist with everything else. You know, today I'm gonna listen to stuff uh by artists that begin with M. And I have Miles Davis and I have Madonna and I have Metallica and I, you know, and all of these things should be able to go into a playlist and sit next to each other, and they should have basically the same uh the same feeling of EQ and loudness and presence and you know, all of these other things that we that we judge music by. And um yeah, frankly, that's just not possible, and still at the same time do justice to to the the style of music that it is. You know, um and it is one of the most difficult aspects of mastering these days. And what is really uh for me a very positive aspect of vinyl is this idea that you know people still listen to vinyl as a sit-down listening experience, you know, rather than going through the drive-thru at McDonald's, they're sitting down in a restaurant and having a nice meal, you know. Um and uh and uh that that is something that I thought worked especially well for this Blind Guardian album, of course, because it does have the narration and it does tell the story. And uh something I very much appreciated about it.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Yeah, I I think there's a lot a a lot of projects that just simply miss that opportunity uh to stitch their songs together into a into a story. Um it's it's obviously connected to our you know global society's l lack of attention, um attention span um and uh and sort of the desire to have you know that next fleeting thought. I I I want to have I wanna hear that now. I wanna I want to interact with that now. No, I want this, I want that. Um you know, uh watching my teenage daughters um going through um YouTube feeds and some other things and and um it's not uh it's not unusual for them to, you know, uh have lost interest in something well before it gets to the end. Um and they're both also fans of vinyl, but it's part of society right now. We um very instant gratification uh oriented and you know as it turns out you you can be instantly gratified asking Siri to find you something and it's there.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

But the discovery part of um I I think what the listeners probably already understand, uh if they're into vinyl, and into vinyl creation and into vinyl collecting and and and listening, is that the finding and the selection of a record um ha can have a big impact on your expectation, a big impact on your enjoyment of it. Um we've got a um um uh a used and new record store with two locations really, but quite close to us here, um, with you know, warehouses full of discs and and uh you know it's a it's still a browsing, collecting and kind of communication, like this like real human interaction kind of communication that happens when uh when a uh somebody comes into his store and um and they uh they're looking for something and he goes, you know what, I I bet you you're gonna like this. And and that's just so cool. That you turn people on to something that they've they become a a fan of and and and then tell a whole bunch of other people about. So um for future listeners, uh Big Jim's Records is gonna be on a on a podcast uh in the future. Um we're gonna we're gonna highlight uh everything that he does to help make vinyl happy.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Yeah, that that human interaction, yeah, that human interaction is uh very important. It's uh it's it's like I said, the comparison between sort of the drive-thru at at McDonald's and uh in a sit-down dinner. You know, it begins it begins before the meal itself begins. You pull up at McDonald's and you know, they have these uh electronic uh um uh stations now where you can you can order everything without even speaking to a human being through a speaker. You know, I mean you you just look at the pictures and and tap what you want and the the order goes through and in the end you pick it up at the the the drive-thru and eat while you're you know driving down the road. You go to a nice restaurant, and first of all, you've gone to the trouble to select the restaurant in the first place, and who knows if you've been pouring through uh the Zagat guide or the Michelin guide or um uh just uh a local review or uh slow food book or what you know, whatever it is that's inspired you to go there. And then you sit down and you actually look at a menu and you sort of read the menu and you you think about the options and you talk with the um you you talk with the uh the the waiter about uh what uh what yeah, what what do you like best? What do you recommend? You know, yeah. And so before you even have your food, the dining experience has begun. And yeah, that this is uh this is the the uh uh this is the service that that vinyl shops provide and and the people who run them, the very special people who run them.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Yeah, it's been very cool. That's been very cool. Um I think we probably could wrap up. Um I have more questions for you, but I uh I know you're um uh strangled for time um and uh and and want to get uh probably not want to get back to your move, but uh need to get back to your move.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Not so much actually. It's been nice sitting still for a few minutes.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Well, Darcy, this has been a wonderful conversation. Likewise. I appreciate you uh you joining us on the podcast and uh wish you uh nothing but success and and uh in in your new location. Want to hear all about it when you when you get settled. And um I'll sign off now. Uh you've been listening to Making Vinyl at MasterDisc today with Darcy Proper. My name is Scott Hull. I'm the chief engineer at MasterDisc, and I hope you enjoyed the podcast. And uh subscribe and we'll we'll give you more. We love talking about vinyl. Thanks again, Darcy.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

Thanks a lot, Scott.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Take care.