OMG Tim!!! I bought those 2016/17 Chris Bellman (Van Halen) cuts. They are ALL ABSOLUTELY to die for. Also, I have been criticized for saying this but my all time fav Van Halen song of all time is Me Wise Magic. That song truly got me through some troubled times. If one is like me, you can definitely lose weight on the treadmill from playing that song. So glad you mentioned Chris and that song. Also, my all time fav song by The Flaming Lips is Race For The Prize. Cheers!!
today i went to a record fair in Norwich Uk and most of the VH re-.mastered by Chris Bellman were there i bought VH first and second albums after hearing your video i now wise i had bought some more VH albums mastered by Chris Bellman
Hey Tim! I was going through my whole Tom Petty re-masters of twelve LP’s and CB is on every one of them. Listened to several and they are fantastic!! Thanks for your continuing great videos!
CB mastered the new reissue of DMB - Before These Crowded Streets and it sounds amazing. Normally anything with CB in the dead wax always sounds amazing
That was great didn’t realize how much these reissues are taking off. I managed to finally get Fleetwood Mac Tango in the Night Mint with hype. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Thank You!
Hi Tim. Thanks for the video and info. First time I heard of Chris Bellman was on a review of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly. I have that copy from 2010 pressed in The Netherlands. I have The Nightfly - Quiex, MoFi OneStep and the 2010 CB. The CB sounds really good as usual. I have also the Tom Petty - Wildflowers 1994 WB original and did not know CB did the recent remaster. I have also the new remaster but have not done an in depth comparison - A/B test yet...certainly I will do this next weekend. Thanks again for the info. Most importantly I will thank if you could explain the difference between the mastering step and the lacquering step...this is still for me a little bit confusing. For example going back to The Nightfly ...CB is credited for the laqcuering but not the mastering which still is credited to Robert Ludwig. On your video you brought a good example to review which is the Van Halen's compilation album which was done by CB. I understand all these songs were recorded on tape by the recording and mixing engineers and each song has an individual tape. And then in the case of Van Halen compilation there were two new songs added to the list. I will assume CB received lets say 20 individual tapes and then he starts the mastering and lacquering. It is still not clear to me what is done in the mastering phase and what is the done at the lacquering phase or if both steps are done at the same time. If you could explain this in one of your videos it would be very much appreciated. It looks CB is famous for his lacquering abilities and the mastering phase is done by Bernie Grundman but I am just guessing. For example another great reference for Bernie and Chris Bellman working together is on the Dire Straits reissues/remasters which started individually around 2010 and then all albums were released on the Box with the 6 albums around 2014. If you review the release page of these albums Remastering is Credit to Bernie Grundman and Lacquer cut is credited to Chris Bellman. Thanks again.
Here is a pretty good description of the process from a thread in the Hoffman forum: After mastering test run-throughs, where the tape is played, all mastering moves are made with the lathe running, but the cutter head is not engaged, and the engineer makes any last minute decisions as to disk space considerations, all settings controlling lathe behavior are handled at the console; the engineer does nothing at the lathe until cutting is complete. (I suppose some of the older, less automated lathes required the engineer to push various buttons are turn handles to create lead-ins, lead-outs, and lockout grooves at the beginning and end of sides, and the spaces between songs.) After cutting, obviously, the engineer spends a good deal of time examining the disk surface through the scope looking for potential problems before sending lacquers to the plating facility. Similarly, the engineer should have spent some time making sure the quality of the lacquer blank was good, avoiding those with obvious surface bubbles or other imperfections. And scoping still does not catch all groove problems. That is the main reason why test pressings are sent to the studio... for playing on typical home style turntables to make sure they don't skip before large quantities of records are manufactured. These are the "not so interesting", "boring" even, aspects to disk mastering which are artful only in the sense that the engineer must know how to deal with them, and that have nothing to do with CDs or any other other listening format other than vinyl.
Thanks Tim@@Universityofvinyl . When mentioned here.....the tape is played....does this refer to the individual tape for a single song? If this is the case I would assume the mastering / lacquering engineer will start and stop the process for every song of an album. Is that correct?
@@jptabja my understanding is that A “Mastertape” is assembled & compiled from all of the various individual tracks. This master is then EQ’d and compression, and other choices (more bass,etc) is manipulated as needed during the final mastering process
Great overview of Bellman's career, Tim. I either didn't know or forgot that he cut X's Los Angeles! My fave reissues that he cut are Black Sabbath's Vol 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Ramones s/t, Tom Waits Closing Time, and Love's Forever Changes. Every single one of those are mind blowing. Sooo jealous you've got Broken Arrow on vinyl! Gorgeous record. What I wouldn't give to see that (and Year of the Horse) get a repress. And thanks for your kind words! All's well here in the City of Lakes! Hope you're doing well too 👋
Nice One Tim! I really enjoy your Mastering Engineers series. I don't think it's super rare, but I'm jealous of the Last Waltz sampler (it's on my short list to acquire). Didn't know about that Live WIthout a Net release, needless to say I'll be going to Barnes & Nobel tomorrow. Cheers from Cental California!
Wow, 'X'... I have a 1st US pressing but I had no idea Chris Bellman had anything to do with it (I have all their others, I'll hafta check to see if he did the others) Sure LOVE the wonderful history we learn here Tim! 👍 Oh yeah, his Van Halen pressings sound amazing! Everyone raves about the earlier Hoffman/Gray pressing of I & II, but I rather like the vibrancy of the Bellman pressing better.
Van Halen is my all time favorite band so Ive got a ton of multiples of them (Upwards of 175+ on vinyl including a ton of Bellman's cuts). In 2009/10, Rhino reissued the Debut, II, Women and Children First and 1984. For the Debut, they used the 1998 DCC metal work that featured Kevin Gray's Cut that was based on Steve Hoffman remaster/mix. Chris Bellman did cuts for II, WACF and 1984....All of these were pressed at RTI in 2010. In 2015, He did all of the classic DLR six-pack again. These were all pressed at Record Industry in Holland (Always thought that was cool considering Ed and Al's heritage). As for the Sammy-era boxset, Bernie Grundman cut these. He also cut their last studio album A Different Kind of Truth in 2012.
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OMG Tim!!! I bought those 2016/17 Chris Bellman (Van Halen) cuts. They are ALL ABSOLUTELY to die for. Also, I have been criticized for saying this but my all time fav Van Halen song of all time is Me Wise Magic. That song truly got me through some troubled times. If one is like me, you can definitely lose weight on the treadmill from playing that song. So glad you mentioned Chris and that song.
Also, my all time fav song by The Flaming Lips is Race For The Prize.
Cheers!!
Hi Darrin, I appreciate your passion for music 👍🏻👍🏻
Always great to get another episode of Tim's 'The Mastering Engineers'...!
today i went to a record fair in Norwich Uk and most of the VH re-.mastered by Chris Bellman were there i bought VH first and second albums after hearing your video i now wise i had bought some more VH albums mastered by Chris Bellman
Another good one Tim. Always learn something. Thanks
Outstanding!
Hey Tim! I was going through my whole Tom Petty re-masters of twelve LP’s and CB is on every one of them. Listened to several and they are fantastic!! Thanks for your continuing great videos!
CB mastered the new reissue of DMB - Before These Crowded Streets and it sounds amazing. Normally anything with CB in the dead wax always sounds amazing
Another great production Tim. Thanks for sharing all that knowledge
Glad you enjoyed it
That was great didn’t realize how much these reissues are taking off. I managed to finally get Fleetwood Mac Tango in the Night Mint with hype. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Thank You!
Thanks Brian - Happy Thanksgiving 🦃
Would like to get your new mailing address Santa is packing the sled again Lol
Hi Tim. Thanks for the video and info. First time I heard of Chris Bellman was on a review of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly. I have that copy from 2010 pressed in The Netherlands. I have The Nightfly - Quiex, MoFi OneStep and the 2010 CB. The CB sounds really good as usual. I have also the Tom Petty - Wildflowers 1994 WB original and did not know CB did the recent remaster. I have also the new remaster but have not done an in depth comparison - A/B test yet...certainly I will do this next weekend. Thanks again for the info. Most importantly I will thank if you could explain the difference between the mastering step and the lacquering step...this is still for me a little bit confusing. For example going back to The Nightfly ...CB is credited for the laqcuering but not the mastering which still is credited to Robert Ludwig. On your video you brought a good example to review which is the Van Halen's compilation album which was done by CB. I understand all these songs were recorded on tape by the recording and mixing engineers and each song has an individual tape. And then in the case of Van Halen compilation there were two new songs added to the list. I will assume CB received lets say 20 individual tapes and then he starts the mastering and lacquering. It is still not clear to me what is done in the mastering phase and what is the done at the lacquering phase or if both steps are done at the same time. If you could explain this in one of your videos it would be very much appreciated. It looks CB is famous for his lacquering abilities and the mastering phase is done by Bernie Grundman but I am just guessing. For example another great reference for Bernie and Chris Bellman working together is on the Dire Straits reissues/remasters which started individually around 2010 and then all albums were released on the Box with the 6 albums around 2014. If you review the release page of these albums Remastering is Credit to Bernie Grundman and Lacquer cut is credited to Chris Bellman. Thanks again.
Here is a pretty good description of the process from a thread in the Hoffman forum: After mastering test run-throughs, where the tape is played, all mastering moves are made with the lathe running, but the cutter head is not engaged, and the engineer makes any last minute decisions as to disk space considerations, all settings controlling lathe behavior are handled at the console; the engineer does nothing at the lathe until cutting is complete. (I suppose some of the older, less automated lathes required the engineer to push various buttons are turn handles to create lead-ins, lead-outs, and lockout grooves at the beginning and end of sides, and the spaces between songs.)
After cutting, obviously, the engineer spends a good deal of time examining the disk surface through the scope looking for potential problems before sending lacquers to the plating facility. Similarly, the engineer should have spent some time making sure the quality of the lacquer blank was good, avoiding those with obvious surface bubbles or other imperfections. And scoping still does not catch all groove problems. That is the main reason why test pressings are sent to the studio... for playing on typical home style turntables to make sure they don't skip before large quantities of records are manufactured.
These are the "not so interesting", "boring" even, aspects to disk mastering which are artful only in the sense that the engineer must know how to deal with them, and that have nothing to do with CDs or any other other listening format other than vinyl.
Thanks Tim@@Universityofvinyl . When mentioned here.....the tape is played....does this refer to the individual tape for a single song? If this is the case I would assume the mastering / lacquering engineer will start and stop the process for every song of an album. Is that correct?
@@jptabja my understanding is that A “Mastertape” is assembled & compiled from all of the various individual tracks. This master is then EQ’d and compression, and other choices (more bass,etc) is manipulated as needed during the final mastering process
Great overview of Bellman's career, Tim. I either didn't know or forgot that he cut X's Los Angeles! My fave reissues that he cut are Black Sabbath's Vol 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Ramones s/t, Tom Waits Closing Time, and Love's Forever Changes. Every single one of those are mind blowing. Sooo jealous you've got Broken Arrow on vinyl! Gorgeous record. What I wouldn't give to see that (and Year of the Horse) get a repress. And thanks for your kind words! All's well here in the City of Lakes! Hope you're doing well too 👋
Thx Ian
Nice One Tim! I really enjoy your Mastering Engineers series. I don't think it's super rare, but I'm jealous of the Last Waltz sampler (it's on my short list to acquire). Didn't know about that Live WIthout a Net release, needless to say I'll be going to Barnes & Nobel tomorrow. Cheers from Cental California!
Thanks Brian!
Chris Bellman cuts sound better on my system than any other current mastering engineer. He’s amazing.
Wow, 'X'... I have a 1st US pressing but I had no idea Chris Bellman had anything to do with it (I have all their others, I'll hafta check to see if he did the others) Sure LOVE the wonderful history we learn here Tim! 👍
Oh yeah, his Van Halen pressings sound amazing! Everyone raves about the earlier Hoffman/Gray pressing of I & II, but I rather like the vibrancy of the Bellman pressing better.
Another hard to get LP done by Bellman is Porno for Pyros. Again, maybe it's my stereo but it's super hard to listen to at any higher volume level.
Tim have you done one on Greg Calbi? If so, can you post a link please. His discography is impressive. Thanks
Here you go: th-cam.com/video/5S-CvDPHOAI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=_POnvpBKUyO_72B5
Van Halen is my all time favorite band so Ive got a ton of multiples of them (Upwards of 175+ on vinyl including a ton of Bellman's cuts). In 2009/10, Rhino reissued the Debut, II, Women and Children First and 1984. For the Debut, they used the 1998 DCC metal work that featured Kevin Gray's Cut that was based on Steve Hoffman remaster/mix. Chris Bellman did cuts for II, WACF and 1984....All of these were pressed at RTI in 2010. In 2015, He did all of the classic DLR six-pack again. These were all pressed at Record Industry in Holland (Always thought that was cool considering Ed and Al's heritage). As for the Sammy-era boxset, Bernie Grundman cut these. He also cut their last studio album A Different Kind of Truth in 2012.
Thank you 👍🏻
I wish we'd get a reissue of ADKOT!
@@Universityofvinyl It really needs one. I was lucky enough to get my copy before the prices went crazy.
i learn some intersting stuff,i never even heard of Chris Bellman till i started following you and a few other people, tim.
Is the Who’s next reissue good sounding and worth the money ?
Sorry to say in my opinion the remastered proper album is a disappointment. I did enjoy the 2 lp lifehouse demos
@@Universityofvinyl Thank you
Do you have snow already?
Yes in higher elevations, that was driving by Vail last week
I have two copies of LA X. Maybe it's my stereo but it sounds pretty bad on my stereo.
As noted, it’s def not audiophile but my pressing sounds pretty good with lots of life and presence.
Those VH Reissues are stellar and still readily available and CHEAP!!! No need for the MOFI releases that are coming out in the fall of 2029 😂😂😂😂
True, no need for those!