High
Fidelity Review Feature:
Crest National, Marcussen Mastering and The Who’s ‘Tommy’ Surround
SACD
Stephen
Marcussen behind the desk in Mastering Studio “A” at
Marcussen Mastering in Hollywood.
After visiting with Lon Neumann in the SACD Project Room in
Hollywood, I was given a tour of the Marcussen Mastering facility
by Eddie Wisztreich. Marcussen Mastering was founded by mastering
engineer Stephen Marcussen in 1999. Initially the firm’s
work was done out of the former A&M Studios facility in
Hollywood while the current mastering studios were constructed.
The firm moved in a year later and has been working there since.
Marcussen Mastering has two mastering rooms and a digital
editing room with an additional room under development. The
studio provides mastering services for a variety of formats
including stereo CD, DVD-Video, vinyl LP, SACD and DVD-Audio.
Stephen Marcussen handles mastering work, Louie Teran performs
mastering and digital editing while Stewart Whitmore also handles
the digital editing side of things. The rooms in the studio
were designed by SAGA architect and well known acoustic designer
George Augspurger.
Checking Out Mastering Studios A and B
Studio B is where Louie Teran does his mastering and digital
editing work. I had a chance to meet Louie and see his mastering
set-up. The room includes separate custom-made analog and digital
signal processing chains. Monitors in the room are B&W
Nautilis 802 and Velodyne subwoofers. Other equipment includes
Studer and Ampex tape machines, Manley and SSL compressors,
Weiss equalizers, TC Electronics processors, Prism and dB Technologies
D/A and A/D converters, Pro Tools and a Sonic Solutions Digital
Audio Workstation.
Moving to Studio A, I met with Steven Marcussen who was doing
a mastering project of an upcoming DVD-Video for Virgin Records.
Marcussen’s mastering room has a similar equipment list
to Teran’s room. He has full 5.1 channel monitoring for
his surround work in the room. His custom analog mastering
console has controls for all six channels as well as the ability
to control the volume between pairs of speakers.
Also of note, all of the rooms are on a fiber optic network
that lets them share equipment, including the Sony Sonoma DSD
8 Channel Workstation in the SACD Project Room. This adds Direct
Stream Digital (DSD) capability to each room along with the
separate analog and digital signal chains.
A Chat With Stephen Marcussen
I had a chance to chat with Stephen Marcussen during a break
in his mastering session work. Marcussen started in the mastering
world as a mastering engineer at Precision Lacquer, a firm
he was with for twenty years. He mastered many an analog album
at that firm before leaving to start his own mastering organisation
in 1999.
Louie
Teran in Mastering Studio “B” at
Marcussen Mastering.
According to Marcussen, he and Teran have been responsible
for mastering a number of well known surround SACDs including ‘When
I Look In Your Eyes’ by Diana Krall (Verve), ‘Ask
a Woman Who Knows’ by Natalie Cole (Verve), ‘All
I Got’ by Al Jarreau (Verve), ‘Glow’ by Peter
White (Columbia), ‘Strange Beautiful Music’ by
Joe Satriana (Epic) and ‘The Calling’ by Dianne
Reeves (Blue Note).
Marcussen says he has enjoyed his 5.1 SACD surround mastering
assignments and is a “…big fan of DSD and 5.1
SACD sound”. Noting that his firm had the first fully analog
room for 5.1 mastering, Marcussen says he has an advantage
when working on 5.1 surround mastering assignments. That “advantage” is
the “years and years of analog chops” developed
as a mastering engineer for vinyl LP releases.
When re-mastering surround sound SACD material that comes from
analog master tapes, Marcussen says he keeps the material in
the analog domain and does all of the equalization work there
before the final transfer to Direct Stream Digital (DSD). Marcussen
says “…you have to be at the top of your game” to
be able to do all of your mastering work solely in the analog
domain. But he feels with his experience and the custom analog
consoles and equipment at Marcussen Mastering, he and his firm
are well equipped for that challenge.
Looking forward, Marcussen envisions continuing his firm’s
work in all formats including CD, DVD-Video, vinyl, SACD and
DVD-Audio. He says he has noticed a recent uptick in assignments
for SACD mastering and is planning to have Stewart Whitmore
join himself and Teran in staffing the additional SACD work
that is coming in the door.
After listening to three SACD samples (see
part one of this report), it was time to jump into Lon’s company van – which
just happens to have an SACD logo on the hood – and head
over to Crest National. It turns out that Crest National is
only a few blocks away from Marcussen Mastering and the SACD
Project Studio. So it’s very convenient to take the finished
DSD master tapes down the road for conversion to SACD test
pressings. Lon told me that does indeed occur on many SACD
projects where Crest National has been designated as the pressing
plant for the final product.
At Crest National, we met with Robert Freedman who is the plant’s
Vice President. Our first stop was a visit to the company’s
lab and pressing area. There we had a chance to get an update
on Crest’s SACD pressing program and the work they are
doing to improve the quality of their hybrid SACD discs.
Crest Makes Changes in Hybrid SACD Production Techniques
Crest
National Vice President of Operations Bob Freedman
poses in the Crest listening room.
You will recall that some of the copies of Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark
Side of the Moon’ hybrid layer surround SACDs
that were pressed at Crest National developed cracks around
the
center hole of the SACD. Looking into the situation at that
time, I reported on High Fidelity Review that several other
Hybrid SACDs pressed at Crest National also exhibited such
cracks while others did not. After the situation was discovered, Crest
issued a statement and told us that they would be making
a series of changes in their manufacturing process to address
this situation.
During the update, I was told that the original series of changes
discussed at that time have now been fully phased in at Crest.
Crest also has developed some test equipment to evaluate and
analyze the quality and strength of optical discs (CDs, SACDs,
DVDs) that are made at the Crest plant and elsewhere. In addition,
they are now working to phase in a couple more changes to further
improve the hybrid SACD discs that are made at Crest. In recent
months, the number of Crest pressed SACDs displaying the cracking
appears to be on the decline. It will be interesting to see
if the additional changes now being phased in put the issue
to rest in the future.
Returning to the Crest National Listening Room
When I visited the Crest National plant last (see
previous report), they had just completed and opened a
state of the art listening room. The room featured top of the
line equipment
including Halcro amps, Eggleston Works speakers, the Meitner
Switchman II preamp/switcher, Meitner SACD-1000 Transport and
DAC6 SACD playback system. The speakers were precisely placed
and balanced in the ITU standard layout for 5.1 playback.
At the time, the room had literally been completed the day
before and I was to be the first “outsider” to
hear it. While that situation produced a number of disclaimers
and nervous moments for the Crest, Halcro and Eggleston Works
folks, the room delivered some wonderful sonics - even on day
one.
Since that time, the listening room has been used extensively
for testing and playback of hybrid SACD discs made at Crest
National. Along the way, a screen and video projector were
added so that DVD-Videos could be reviewed in the room as well.
During this visit, I noted the new video equipment in the room
as well as the completed carpeting and a new paint job. I was
told that a number of well-known recording engineers, artists
and producers had visited the facility to listen to surround
sound SACDs.
To hear how the now fully burned-in room was sounding, Bob
Freedman put on ‘The Concert for New York’ surround
SACD (Columbia) and played three cuts: ‘Won’t
Get Fooled Again’ by The Who, ‘Up On The
Roof’ by
James Taylor and ‘Let It Be’ by Paul McCartney.
Freedman told us he used these selections to demonstrate the
ability of SACD surround to convey a realistic sense of being
at a concert. It was an effective demonstration with Lon Neumann
in particular enjoying the selections as a former live concert-recording
engineer.
Next we moved on to two standout SACD surround selections – ‘Hasta
Alicia Baila’ from ‘LAGQ: Latin’ by
the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (Telarc SACD-60593) and ‘New
Favorite’ from ‘New
Favorite’ by Alison Krauss and Union Station (Rounder
SACD 0495). Both were excellent in terms of providing detailed
sonics from the front and surround speakers. ‘New
Favorite’ remains
an almost magical experience in the Crest room, in fact, Bob
Freedman tells me that the Krauss cut is a favorite when other
recording artists visit the room to hear SACD surround for
the first time.
The
completed Crest listening room. Each of the Eggleston
Works Savoy speakers is powered by an individual
Halcro amplifier.
The “Check Disc” Surround SACD of
The Who’s ‘Tommy’
As a surprise bonus during the visit, Bob Freedman pulled
out the “check disc” surround SACD pressing of
The Who’s ‘Tommy’ (Geffen B0001386-36)
which had just come off the hybrid SACD line. The surround
SACD is
due out at the end of October (October 28th) and was being
sent over to Universal Music for final approval before the
pressing order began. After a quick call to the Universal eLabs
group for a media clearance, it was time for a listen.
Freedman was very excited about being able to share the moment
with Lon Neumann and I. He told us “It’s hot” and “a
great surround disc”. We started out by listening
to the first two tracks ‘Overture’ and ‘It’s
A Boy’. Next up was the classic track ‘Acid
Queen’.
The 5.1 surround mix by Peter Townshend of The Who is excellent
with extensive use of all five primary speakers. Vocals are
placed in the center with instruments in both the front and
surround channels.
But the highlight was clearly track thirteen, ‘Pinball
Wizard’. It starts with the opening guitar riff
in the right front speaker, the next riff pans to the left
surround
before all of the instruments and vocals come in to all five
speakers. The result is a wonderful surround mix of a rock
classic that the demo attendees called “great” and
in one case “Wow!”. In short, I think
this one will be on the must have list when it appears at the
end of
October.
And with that, I wrapped up my visit to three of the key SACD
facilities in Hollywood. Two in the same building - and the
other but a few blocks away. All in all, an enjoyable day that
provided some interesting insights, news and listening to some
very nice SACD discs that will be coming you way in the days
and weeks ahead.
Brian Moura - 23/10/2003
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