A&M Mastering Whiz Bernie Grundman Wins Award

[Rudy]

Positive Feedback has just awarded Bernie Grundman, and other mastering engineers (Steve Hoffman, Stan Ricker, Doug Sax) each a "lifetime achievement" Brutus Award for excellence in their line of work. Bernie Grundman began mastering for A&M studios a few decades ago, and his work grew to where he has set up his own mastering facility. IMHO, his A&M albums always sounded better than the majority of the other mass market releases out there. Today, Grundman also masters SACD titles, and in the 90's, I recall he'd done some mastering for Classic Records, which specialized in reissuing old RCA Victor "Red Seal" recordings on premium vinyl editions.

Doug Sax is also a mastering engineer of the high quality standards that Grundman put into his work--I have many albums with his work. Steve Hoffman was the main reason the DCC (formerly Dunhill Compact Classics) remastered CDs sounded so good, and he currently remasters recordings for Audio Fidelity (SACD and LP), among other projects. Stan Ricker was the engineer who mastered the many Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs LPs in the 80's. Ricker was one of the pioneers of half-speed mastering, drawing the attention of Mobile Fidelity's founders and essentially launching the "high end" premium audiophile LP releases.

Congratulations to all!

Complete list of award winners here:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue10/brutusawards.htm

 

[Dave]

Steve Hoffman, I believe was in charge of "Budget Line" compilations on Cassette I have owned by Steppenwolf, The Mamas & The Papas and Joe Walsh...on MCA, of course. And yes, anything boasting the DCC label on CD (reissues of works by artists on Skye, for example) has been courtesy of Mr. Hoffman.

Doug Sax actually mastered those Sheffield Lab Direct-To-Disc recordings I've got a few of. That is, he was already making the 'LP Master Plate' as 'The Band Was Playing Live In The Studio'. And albums mastered from tapes onto vinyl and even CD, Doug did.

And who doesn't know Bernie Grundman?...or Arnie Acosta?...or Frank De Luna?...or...?

Dave

 

[snapcrotch]

Looks like 'PF' handed out the Brutus simultaneously to ALL the heavies in high-end mastering. Next year's ceremony can only be underwhelming.

 

[Rudy]

In the article, they mention this is a big year due to playing "catch-up" for not having awarded anything in past years. It should be interesting to see who they'll pick next year.

 

[W.B.]

The funny thing was, most of Rita Coolidge's A&M work of the 1970's was mastered by Doug Sax and others at The Mastering Lab. Wonder why Grundman and the other A&M mastering engineers were bypassed for her work? And I also seem to recall a Mike Reese working at The Mastering Lab during the '70's. Even more odd (I.M.H.O.), both The Mastering Lab and A&M Studios took turns cutting lacquers in 1978 for Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams's top-charting duet on Columbia, "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late."

I have some 1973-74 A&M singles (Stealers Wheel's "Everyone's Agreed That Everything Will Turn Out Fine," AM-1450; Sister Janet Mead's "The Lord's Prayer," AM-1491-S) where the lacquers had the name "Ross" etched onto the dead wax. Since quite a few people with the name Ross (both as first and last name) worked at A&M over the decades, I'm wondering which Ross was a mastering engineer there.

I also recall the individuals of New York's Bell Sound Studios who cut many independent records in the 1960's and up to the '70's, i.e.: Sam Feldman, Joe Brescio, Robin Kruse, Alan Corbeth, Domenic Romeo, Sol Kessler, Irv Diehl. The thing I noticed about the Bell Sound lacquers, especially those in mono pre-1970, was the uber-gritty sound. Must've been partly the Grampian Feedback cutterheads they used. Feldman closed out his career at Atlantic Studios in New York in the '80's. Brescio went on in the mid-70's to the Master Cutting Room (which started out in the early 1970's as the disc-mastering arm of the Record Plant's New York studios). Romeo and Kessler went to Mediasound in 1970.