Week 4?? 5? what ever week following the post before this one ha ha.: DISC EDITS

This week’s forum excursion found me falling asleep in disc edits. In my half-asleep haze I learnt that these guys got in on mastering CDs nice and early. Their soundproofing and design was impeccable, their equipment good quality and their couches allegedly pretty comfy. Disc edits have been operating since around 1992. Originally I think they intended to do other things like recording voice-overs. The equipment for this is still present and used. However, as CDs came to the fore of the audio landscape, it became apparent that something needed to replace the editing process present in tape recordings, something was needed to restore a little warmth to digital recording, disc edits set out to become a mastering studio. Like other mastering studios we have heard about, disc edits possess an array of analogue devices through which signal can be processed. They also make good use of equalisation and have an oscilloscope device that can tell you what the stereo image is doing. I was somewhat perplexed to learn that they usually listen to music at 80 db (at this level, you can work for an hour I think before needing to take a break). Personally, I would try and work at as low a level as possible (so at night, you could probably get away with considerably less than 80 db). However, it is imperative that every different recording requiring analysis for effective mastering is listened to through the same speakers and at the same volume. An hour and 45 minutes into this excursion, I woke right up when our disc edits man gave us the history of recorded music in 15 minutes (impressive). All of the manufacturing processes up until the point of CDs I was at least a little bit familiar with and yet this guy managed to make it sound interesting. Finally, he arrived at the era of the CD and not only told us about ‘Glass Masters’ but showed us one as well. In fact, he had 3 Glass masters (I think) and was able to show us the Glass, the Glass with a nickel coating and the Glass after it has been etched. He seemed mystified as to why bands might ask to keep their Glass Masters. That is no mystery to me, they look COOL.