The Idiot's Guide to Pressing Plants, Engineers, etc.

MikeH said:
Plants are harder to qualify because sure, I’ve had a handful of PRP stuff that has sounded okay but they are wildly inconsistent. If a plant has a track record of huge misses and then some pressings that sound good, it’s not a good plant to me…

So there’s really just the higher quality plants that I auto buy from or look for previous pressings from, then some that have a mixed record and ones that plain old suck.
Click to expand...
Maybe we define each tier by consistency and quality?
 
MikeH said:
Plants are harder to qualify because sure, I’ve had a handful of PRP stuff that has sounded okay but they are wildly inconsistent. If a plant has a track record of huge misses and then some pressings that sound good, it’s not a good plant to me…

So there’s really just the higher quality plants that I auto buy from or look for previous pressings from, then some that have a mixed record and ones that plain old suck.
Click to expand...

I agree... It's why I'd like to add explanations down the road, to paint a better picture of what the general view is of each plant.

GZ, PRP and now MRP (since the buy-out, before they were firmly shit) are exactly the same to me = buy from Amazon so I can return them if they have issues, because there's a good chance. I guess I find the difference between tier 2 and avoid to be blurry for some of these, because they are technically "avoid" to me if I can't buy from a place where I can easily return them, but in effect I treat them as "approach with caution". That said, I firmly agree with IRP, NRP, United and Rainbo in the avoid category.
 
Turbo said:
I agree... It's why I'd like to add explanations down the road, to paint a better picture of what the general view is of each plant.

GZ, PRP and now MRP (since the buy-out, before they were firmly shit) are exactly the same to me = buy from Amazon so I can return them if they have issues, because there's a good chance. I guess I find the difference between tier 2 and avoid to be blurry for some of these, because they are technically "avoid" to me if I can't buy from a place where I can easily return them, but in effect I treat them as "approach with caution". That said, I firmly agree with IRP, NRP, United and Rainbo in the avoid category.
Click to expand...
I guess second tier is “buy from somewhere with a good return policy” then hah.
 
MikeH said:
Plants are harder to qualify because sure, I’ve had a handful of PRP stuff that has sounded okay but they are wildly inconsistent. If a plant has a track record of huge misses and then some pressings that sound good, it’s not a good plant to me…

So there’s really just the higher quality plants that I auto buy from or look for previous pressings from, then some that have a mixed record and ones that plain old suck.
Click to expand...
So GZ should be proceed with caution.
 
I think tiering pressing plants (and most things) just gets a bit too anecdotal - as we all can become biased over an issue we encounter.

Optimal does great work - except when they don't, and I ran into a lot of issues with their pressings over the span of a few years.

GZ (and their subsidiaries) is even more difficult. Is it the pressing that sucks - or is it the shit mastering to digital that was FTP'd over to them to DMM cut? Who knows.
 
LeeVing said:
I think tiering pressing plants (and most things) just gets a bit too anecdotal - as we all can become biased over an issue we encounter.

Optimal does great work - except when they don't, and I ran into a lot of issues with their pressings over the span of a few years.

GZ (and their subsidiaries) is even more difficult. Is it the pressing that sucks - or is it the shit mastering to digital that was FTP'd over to them to DMM cut? Who knows.
Click to expand...
GZ tends to be more prone to warps and non fill than optimal in my experience. I can’t really take mastering to account for a plant. Is it flat, does it have noise in the dead wax? Does it pop and tick? Is it off center?

Every plant is gonna send out a few crap records, is it more than a few?

Optimal is kind of like Pallas, they seemed to suck a bit over the pandemic but have recovered fairly well in my opinion.
 
MikeH said:
RECOMMENDED ENGINEERS LIST:
list taken from discord recommendations that I mostly agree with

God Level
Kevin Gray, Bernie, Ryan Smith, Van Gelder, Bob Ludwig, Nilesh Patel (RIP), Doug Sax (The Mastering Lab)

Tier 1: Next Level - incredible work, perfect track records
Matt Colton (if not above), Tim Young, Andreas Kauffelt, John GOLDEN, Simon Francis, Chris Bellman, Joe Nino-Hernes, Lee Hulko (founder of STERLING Sound), KENDUN, Dubplates & Mastering (anything cut there), Record Industry / Sony/CBS, Haarlem in house cuts, Matt Lutthans, Gilbert Kong

Tier 2: Inconsistent Greatness - Capable of greatness level and often so, but also some mid cuts
Ric Essig, Michael Sarsfield, Pete Lyman, Walter Coelho, Daniel Krieger, Carl Saff, John Dent, Ron McMaster, Lex van Coeverden, The Exchange (most things cut here), Cicely Balston, Anne-Marie Suenram, Krieg Wunderlich, Josh Bonati - Bonati Mastering, Heino Leja - Optimal in-house cut, Levi Seitz

Tier 2: Consistent solid - great, rarely exceptional (but not in a bad way) names to check for
GOLDEN (JJ, April), Dave Cheppa, Barry Grint, Cameron Henry, Alex Nimmermann, Moritz Illner, Carl Rowatti, Heino Leja, Beau Thomas, Sean Magee, Don Grossinger, Pete Norman, Adrian Barber, Allen Zentz, George Marino, Kassian, Porky, Ray Staff, Carlton Batts, Howard Craft, Guy Davie, Adam Gonsalves, Jason Mitchell, Carl Rowatti - Trutone Mastering Labs


Tier 3: Proceed with Caution:
Ian Sefchick, Phillip S. Rodriguez, , Randy Kling, Wes Garland, Miles Showell, Joe Reagoso, Dietrich Schoenemann - Complete Mastering (possibly due to bad pressing plants)

Gambles:
Generic GZ cuts, PRP/GZ

Avoid: Ray Janos, Dave Cooley, Ω, NRP, Bellman doing anything outside of Rock/Classic Rock, Kevin Reeves,

Cheat Codes:
Steve Hoffman + Kevin Gray
Anything plated by EG

Generic / In House cut Rankings:
Record Industry fka Sony/CBS, Haarlem
EMI Records
GZ
NRP
United
Click to expand...
This is awesome. Would you put Bernie's last name? A newbie wouldn't know it.
 
Roy DuNann, Bones Howe, and Richard Bock are all very good.
Not sure if you want to go that far back but they belong in the same conversation with RVG.

Orrin Keepnews isn't a cutting Engineer but all of his productions are pretty incredible like the Evans stuff.
 
Jbraswell said:
Roy DuNann, Bones Howe, and Richard Bock are all very good.
Not sure if you want to go that far back but they belong in the same conversation with RVG.

Orrin Keepnews isn't a cutting Engineer but all of his productions are pretty incredible like the Evans stuff.
Click to expand...
I think eventually we can go back that far! Bunch of other older folks that belong in the convo!
 
this is interesting, semi-useful but spurious, regarding engineers at least - nothing spoken of with regard to master tapes, wherein we have no idea what the sound is like on the tape - they could just be doing the best they could with what they had, and that's no reason to stack rank.

I get this is written from an audiophile consumer perspective though

because you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter - which may be the case in many situations
 
bornard said:
this is interesting, semi-useful but spurious, regarding engineers at least - nothing spoken of with regard to master tapes, wherein we have no idea what the sound is like on the tape - they could just be doing the best they could with what they had, and that's no reason to stack rank.

I get this is written from an audiophile consumer perspective though

because you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter - which may be the case in many situations
Click to expand...
I don’t disagree with you, but there are engineers have proven track records of being awesome and those that have proven track records of being less than.
 
Nee Lewman said:
I don’t disagree with you, but there are engineers have proven track records of being awesome and those that have proven track records of being less than.
Click to expand...
exactly - and is that proven track record due to source material? since we do not know the correlation is spurious - but since this is basically a consumer guide its understandable...
 
bornard said:
exactly - and is that proven track record due to source material? since we do not know the correlation is spurious - but since this is basically a consumer guide its understandable...
Click to expand...
Reeves has done enough stuff over enough periods of times that I have a hard time believing his usual lackluster mastering has to do with tape issues. Given that his mastering of The U.S. Beatles albums was actually really well done (and I have heard those tapes are fucked), I’d guess it’s complacency. But believe what you want.

There have also been some explanations here and there that so and so may not be getting a fair shake because of plant issues.
 
Nee Lewman said:
Reeves has done enough stuff over enough periods of times that I have a hard time believing his usual lackluster mastering has to do with tape issues. Given that his mastering of The U.S. Beatles albums was actually really well done (and I have heard those tapes are fucked), I’d guess it’s complacency. But believe what you want.

There have also been some explanations here and there that so and so may not be getting a fair shake because of plant issues.
Click to expand...
exactly again, there are too many variables - again, from a consumer perspective its interesting as their name (brand) can be a sign of quality - on the other hand they also might be able to turn projects down (protect their brand) and or know when master tapes are shit and feel their name (brand) can't help a bad product..
 
bornard said:
exactly again, there are too many variables - again, from a consumer perspective its interesting as their name (brand) can be a sign of quality - on the other hand they also might be able to turn projects down (protect their brand) and or know when master tapes are shit and feel their name (brand) can't help a bad product..
Click to expand...
I mean it’s all subjective anyhow.
 
bornard said:
exactly again, there are too many variables - again, from a consumer perspective its interesting as their name (brand) can be a sign of quality - on the other hand they also might be able to turn projects down (protect their brand) and or know when master tapes are shit and feel their name (brand) can't help a bad product..
Click to expand...
Sure. Some people may never get to cut records that have good sounding source material. But then you probably don’t want to buy those albums on vinyl. As @Nee Lewman said, most of these people have long enough track records to know if stuff they cut is worth buying or being cautious of buying especially with the price of new vinyl now
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top