Vinyl mastering processor

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RuudNL

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 26, 2009
Messages
3,099
Location
Haule / The Netherlands
I have been thinking about designing a vinyl mastering processor with the following features:

- Balanced inputs and outputs
- Balanced inserts for M and S signals
- M and S level trims
- M and S mutes
- Eliptic Equalizer (All LF side information under a certain frequency to mono)
- LF rolloff filter, 12 dB/oct. under 45 Hz.
- HF rolloff filter, 12 dB/oct. over 14 KHz.
-15 KHz. 'Brick Wall' filter
- Insert bypass switch
- Main bypass switch
- Solo, for M and S signal, pre and post inserts

A block diagram of the first design is in the attachment.
Any more ideas about this?

Here is a picture of the first prototype:
VM-1.PNG
 

Attachments

  • vinylmaster.GIF
    vinylmaster.GIF
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Thanks. Yes, I have seen this site and I have read a lot of articles by mister Wayne Kirkwood.
It seems he has been very busy doing research on vinyl mastering equipment.
 
Is this targeted to people who do "vinyl premasters" and are not actually cutting? It might make sense for that. Anyone doing cutting on a professional machine would need a four channel unit for automation. Most of the dub cutters are mono. The EE and M/S stuff is overkill for that.  A two channel is underkill for professional use.
 
For a high frequency limiter make sure it can keep up with the Maselec or the BSB74. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. A high frequency limiter that isn't tuned to protect the cutterhead is worse than useless.
 
Yep your definitely going to need four channels. 2 for preview 2 for program.

I would loosen the filters up a bit or have a choice for 30hz and 18Khz.

In my opinion the mid side stuff isn't really that useful for normal vinyl cutting. It would be nice to have it for metering, (vertical/lateral) though.

In my opinion a nice utility bare bones Vinyl console would have:

Most importantly four channels (stereo for preview - stereo for program)
Elliptical filter like you have.
3 selective choices for high and low filters 30-40-50 and 14K-16K-18K
Selectable 12db/octave and 24db/octave
Separate gain for both preview and program

Nice metering output options. whether the meters are in the unit or not, a nice meter driver is nice to have for both preview and program.  If you want to get fancy M/S or vertical lateral.
Good analog metering is important for me. Its how I judge how much music I'm going to be able to fit on the record. Digital metering just doesn't do it.

An aux input for a record player, and even a simple phono pre would be a cool option.

Monitoring of both preview and program separately. And one more aux input for whats called "feedback" and is the signal tapped off the actual cutter head coil. This is important to listen to and what I'm monitoring as I'm cutting.

And yes a  de-esser would be super nice. But like Gold said it will have to be really fast and a very good one.  And you only need it for the program so you would not have to make four channels for that.

Probably missing a bunch of stuff but as a guy who cuts everyday those are the things I would be looking for.



 
Gold said:
Is this targeted to people who do "vinyl premasters"

Yes, that is the idea. The purpose is not to include 'unnecessary' frequencies, while having the possibility to adjust the 'width' of the stereo image and avoid LF phase problems.
 
SKJGProject said:
Why not add a highshelf for the sides as well?

https://avensonaudio.com/mid-sider/

It would be interesting to know how they did the filtering in the side channel.
Because every filter adds a certain amount of phase shift, this also has to be corrected in the mid channel to keep the phase integrity.
In the prototype I had to use an allpass filter in the mid channel, to compensate for the phase shift in the side channel when using the EEQ filter for example.
 
RuudNL said:
Yes, that is the idea.

Then I would argue the processor is unnecessary. There is no way for someone who has never cut a side to know if their mix will cut or not. There is no reason to blindly do anything the processor does to any mix.
 
I agree, with Gold. And in addition, there is not anything in this box that can't easily be done with plugins . And people who give me cutting masters have loads of plugins. And nobody who is giving me a cutting master is concerned with filtering or mid side stuff. They just want to know how much headroom I need.

So your either making this box for mixers, who don't need any of the functions.. or cutters who need a lot more functions. Its kind of a novelty box that only a small hand full of people will find useful. And not for making cutting masters.

Regardless, It seems you put a lot of work into it and it really looks cool!


P.S. there really isn't any 4 channel cutting consoles out there that don't cost a billion dollars. If you came out with an affordable console that had the features I listed in the previous post, you could probably make some sales. 
 
bluebird said:
P.S. there really isn't any 4 channel cutting consoles out there that don't cost a billion dollars.

There are no new manufacture four channel mastering consoles commercially available AFAIK.
 
bluebird said:
I think Maselec will make a four channel version of his mastering console. Thats the only one I know of.

No one has ever pulled the trigger on one according to Leif. You’d need four channel versions of the EQs and compressors too.  The full blown MTC- 1 setup with crossfader and lathe remote was about 50K USD. It has been discontinued. Not expanded to four channels.  That’s why I’m building mine, it makes no financial sense.
 
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