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Snap, Crackle, Pop!

There is one simple aim when mastering -  make it sound like a record.

I’ve been working on a new single for a very well known, iconic 1960s band. The A side is a new live recording, and the B a hitherto unreleased track from many years ago, taken from an acetate.

For you younger readers, acetates were one off, one sided vinyl test pressings, with a very limited life; after a few plays, the thin plastic outer layer began to wear out,and the record got very scratchy and crackly.  This particular acetate has had its share of plays over the years, and before I even heard it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to restore it completely. No matter – the song is great, the performance full of energy, and the recording itself very well made. It’s the kind of track an A&R would hear and sign the band on the spot – that’s how good.

What struck me as I listened, was how the crackles and static and noise added a very distinct sense of time and place and atmosphere that would not be at all evident in an antiseptically clean, overly enhanced digitised remaster. This is certainly not true of most things dug up from the vaults….and it set me thinking; how best to reconcile this with the newly recorded A side song, when there’s such a huge sonic divide between them? How best to convey a sense of continuity and purpose between the band then and now?

It was obvious, and completely contrary to the precepts of mastering: -  add crackles and pops and scratches and static and noise to the CLEAN track! So I looped up some vinyl gubbins from the disc, shoved it onto the new song, and what do you know – it sounds like a record!

This is the kind of conceptually sound ,if technically insane idea which I come up with from time to time, and hope to get away with. I liked it, at any rate. However, the label told me that the single is a prequel for a new live album – so promotionally it’s ,er, not exactly ideal….

But I’m going to send them the scratchy one anyway!

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