Bernie Grundman on Mastering and Cutting Vinyl | Red Bull Music Academy

[@bagley232]

I have seen Mr. Grundman's name on countless Albums. appreciate his contributions to the industry

[@shadowmixx]

I wonder if the people in that room really understood and appreciated the magnitude of greatness that stood before them sharing his wisdom and years of knowledge. I remember as a kid coming up before the 'digital'age and the 'loudness' wars; I would read credits on albums and the name that kept re-occuring on most every record was "Mastered by "Big Bass"Brian Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering". As I grew to truly learned what mastering was and I looked up these guys; that's when I relized that these legends were only a heartbeat away. #Salute to the "Masters" of mastering. Peace

[@DanJWilcox]

Dude Hudson Mohawke is there. I think he knows his stuff - the last tnght record was blessed by Grundman lol.

[@landryprichard6778]

I loved hearing him distinguish the difference between an artists' opinion of their own music and how it will sound on someone else's sound system.

[@cheynemcnab6540]

When you see “BG” in the dead wax you know you’re getting that primo sound

[@Gamer420life]

Damn I actually see that quite a bit. Ima look for jt more now

[@Deluxeta]

Same with CB (from the same studio), Matt, Bazza, Stu, Miles, and a whole lot of others.

[@michaelhorgan9525]

"KPG" (Kevin Gray) is also a great engineer.

[@joshuajones9482]

I find this to be the best example on KZbin of a Quality recording room. Whenever you can clearly hear someone talking on a video with loud music playing at the same time without distraction from the music while focusing on his voice says a lot about the room, which is the most important part in hifi.

[@joesosa41]

He has mastered so many of my favorite vinyl presses and represses and his name precedes him.

[@AnalogSoundsystemInternational]

Bernie I hope you are reading this, You are one of a kind, and Ive always admired your work in the art of mastering. I really hope you have taught many people this prestigious artform. I have always admired how spot on you are when the source recording (tape or digital) sounds exactly like your Mastering cuts.

[@TheNadasvada]

BG, my man! A legend in the business of mastering for vinyl. Certainly a mark of quality.

[@DanJWilcox]

Love HudMo chilling in back, taking in all the genius from Bernie. He definitley connected with him after - his mastering on TNGHT II was fantastic especially on the vinyl pressing!

[@Eddsucks]

Pew pi pew pew pepepepew

[@youngalexander3166]

This was highly informative, and those last couple minutes are enlightening. Thank You!

[@davids840]

My favorite olschool piece of gear in this studio definitely is that phone on the wall, classic sound

[@ralex3697]

A genius and humble man

[@senyamalikin3056]

The whole thing was interesting but the last couple of minutes were priceless

[@nunyabiz2016]

That perspective on music, so wise

[@Nephilim-81]

I’m amazed at how we’re still in 2020 and a lot of people just don’t get it that crushing your mixes doesn’t sound good at all. A ton of modern music sounds pretty bad today with all the digital processing and peak limiting of waveforms. Bernie Grundman preserves dynamics and doesn’t cater to the loudness wars and that is why I love the guy. All one has to do is listen to Supertramp’s live in Paris (1978) on Cd 💿 and take note. ;)

[@najinelson6742]

Thanks to Bernie Grundman especially for having mastered Prince's awesome early albums before Purple Rain and his masterpiece Sign 'o' the times

[@williamkinsey4979]

Bernie your a genuis. What you unearthed on those new pink floyd vinyl releases is nothing less than a revelation!

[@techslfink9722]

I've known his name and - what's more - his work for decades. Great to her the story of the master himself!

[@danender5555]

Incredible, how that girl in studio is watching her phone rather than listening to one of the greatest mastering engineers.

[@weifanhuang9038]

I watched the entire video, and the woman didn't pick up her phone until the last two minutes. What's wrong with you?

[@GulfCoastConnection]

Great interview. Much coaching, tips, etc in this from a master of mastering. Man has mastered some of you and your parents fav records wether you know it or not.

[@alainvincent1309]

This Is Gold.

[@somndahma9581]

I loved watching this, thanks for sharing! I will DL it to share with my friends. I would love to ask so many questions regarding monitoring and room physics for mastering studios...

[@jas_bataille]

Jesus the phases are absolutely perfect on that mix, spot on! Great job :)

[@Andersljungberg]

What is the name of the song

[@Madrrrrrrrrrrr]

Duh it's under produced and digital. Although i hear some freq's of the kick get cancelled by the bassline. Typical digital behaviour in my book. Also the OG mix was too dynamic restrained. I don't know what he did but he opened up the top end nicely. Also heard him do a cover of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd with more real instruments mix to vinyl and that sounded way too dynamic for me. And too boxy. Also 45 rpm 12" i think.

[@skibbitybopity]

What song is he working on?

[@angelrafaellanc]

Hey love the video. It would be helpful to get a direct feed of what he's doing. It's hard to hear the nuances of his work through whatever microphones you guys are using. Otherwise, LOVE the video. Thank you for sharing and capturing his wonderful depth of knowledge.

[@bubz75]

Mastered MJ’s Thriller. #THE DON!

[@nebstaism]

what monitors is he using ?

[@cstarcrusher]

hudson mohawke rightfully paying astute attention

[@Onewerdy]

That is him, yeah? Lol @ folks trashing the audience.....They're just absorbing

[@pabloguzman3935]

What can you tell me about hearing deterioration with age? especially in the treble range. Doesn't it put the correct treatment of the sound tracks at risk?Anyway, I have vinyl remastered by Bernie and they are fantastic.

[@h7opolo]

I think he got the message across that he really aims to get the message across.

[@wxlvandy]

Anyone know what monitors Bernie was using?

[@jamieanderson7757]

tannoy components with custom cabinets and crossovers for the mains according to his website

[@MrMircs]

what console is that? great video thanks!

[@rabarebra]

custom made themselves

[@likesnoozn]

This looks like Bernie Grundman, a giant in his field, is giving an invaluable education on his craft to four millennials from a prison release program.

[@williamdarkzydeblackenedha9344]

Haha! Yeah.. this interviewer seems totally clueless as to what he's being told.

[@babyfacerizzo]

Haha dude, one of those is Sophia Coppola.. :@

[@jas_bataille]

They were respectfully listening...

[@likesnoozn]

@@jas_bataille more like having to listen to your dad about why eating your vegetables is good for you.

[@mikechivy]

He just nods his head "oh yeah totally. Of course"

[@markbois6046]

IMHO Bernie Grundman and Steve Gadd were cut from a similar cloth. They're both all about service to the music and to the artist, and their ideas and contributions to creative problem solving are offered without the encumbrances of vanity and egotism. This video was a fascinating glimpse into Grundman's process.

[@Goodtradition]

Enjoyed this very much. Thanks

[@vitoponzio2234]

What brand/model monitor speakers is Bernie using?

[@rabarebra]

Customised Tannoy

[@vitoponzio2234]

@@rabarebra thanks 4 the response

[@thaexception3406]

Insightful for real!

[@iTomAnks]

What's the name of the tune?

[@SPAZZOID100]

Considering that everything Kevin Grey cuts soubds fantastic, i will heed his advice on half speed mastering.

[@redjupiter2]

This is fantastic. I now love this man!

[@nicholasosczypko2248]

Just wondering why videos by audio guys are uploaded with such a low volume...the first part of the the video is about volume...know your audience....I'm not watching this on a 4k tv with a loud sound system...I'm on my phone or tablet nowadays....

[@sc0or]

Everyone who had not mastered Oasis are great people and professionals.

[@jaytea42]

Mega Respect for Bernie !

[@UdiKoomran]

I am curious to hear Mr. Bernie opinion on the sonic merits of cutting vinyl from digital source. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to master to digital?

[@rabarebra]

Google is your friend. He's in many interviews on YT stating his views on this.

[@Btvstudio]

the guy interviewing Mr. Grundman is awful. I can't stand the unimpressed people sitting on the wall. This man has a wealth of knowledge and it's squandered with these people who don't look like they care.

[@burns46824]

Chick with the orange tanktop is ballin', tho.

[@FlyHighSociety]

this a good interview, allowing the person to speak. I wanna hear what Mr Grundman has to say and not an interviewer who is constantly interjecting or going off on excited tangents.

[@Audiojunkk]

@@FlyHighSociety Exactly! Let the expert speak!

[@nunyabiz2016]

They looked focused intently like they were taking it seriously.

[@FlyHighSociety]

@@GnCFilms those 'people' including a producer that worked on A TON of Kanye West music for the last 10 years or so, credited and uncredited. Don't judge a book by it cover or how someone appears under lights and camera. google Hudson Mohawke and Laurent Fintoni before you judge them any further.

[@zackamania6534]

Nothing says excellent mastering and 50 years of music production like….. Red Bull

[@roneystapes]

Ikr, it's ridiculous 😂😂

[@revokdaryl1]

It IS made in Austria, after all 🇦🇹.

[@itonybrown]

incredible video

[@Tazmanian_Ninja]

"ok..." (that interviewer...)

[@FrankieG63]

Great and inspirational to all vinyl music lovers, artists and producers. Thanks a lot for this technical contribution. Love that. Frankie G. from Germany

[@jessefillmore]

Bernie is a living legend . I hope he is passing down his knowledge .

[@michaelhorgan9525]

He has several people in his studio that also master records along with a studio in Tokyo.

[@michaelhorgan9525]

Chris Bellman is an excellent engineer that works there and knows his stuff in regards to cutting vinyl.

[@Andersljungberg]

What do you say about DSD. have you thought anything about native DSD. NOTE DSD is not PCM. The second best thing according to some is to transfer analog audio to DSD and that it is better than transferring PCM to DSD. whats your opinion ?

[@ogasi1798]

nice ! thank you redbull

[@josebarrera_]

Cannot say enough about Bernie, a legend and genius, but I get distracted by the beautiful girl sitting wearing the orange blouse...she is gorgeous!!

[@RonnieVaiArovo]

so interesting! thanks

[@etyrnal]

would be funny to make a player that could PLAY the "hair" (the cutout/chip) -- just because we could

[@APKSRMKS]

GODLY

[@cromosktal]

Awesome!!!

[@REBELDONOG]

Bernie Grundman is awesome

[@Gamer420life]

Does anyone know of any AAA albums hes mastered?

[@stayalivegaming1018]

Nirvana - Nevermind (BG in the deadwax, usually on the pallas pressings) Dave Brubeck - Time Out Analogue productions He has done hundreds of different ones, but those two just came to my head straight away.

[@mikechivy]

Fleedwood Mac Rumours. He did the 33 and 45. Both as good as any vinyl ever made.

[@stayalivegaming1018]

@@mikechivy the pallas versions of rumours were mastered by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman, he might have mastered some original pressings, but not the 45 ones.

[@mikechivy]

@@stayalivegaming1018 ah you’re right

[@mtheorymkali5770]

Greatness!!

[@gman1010]

Black art, amazing video

[@GnCFilms]

We see you, gesticulating guy at 1:32!

[@allanblack1645]

Thanks Bernie great stuff. Interesting you used this particular track to demonstrate. Not telling grandma how to suck eggs, but maybe next time demonstrate a ‘not so good’ sounding track so the punters can really hear your talent. Cheers.

[@hang-sangitch]

Awesome

[@tuveuxlademocratieoutuveux4692]

*The documentary is superb and highly informative !... So sad though that the great man had to work on so unbearable a piece of percussive techno shit for the demonstration of his mastering technique !!...*

[@jas_bataille]

I gotta agree with that. I was very well produced, but what I liked about it the most are how perfect the phases where... mais enfin voilà il faut un peu de mélodie ;)

[@jjjjj2220]

That a hip hop track or dubstep track

[@Audiojunkk]

Is that Hudmo in the white t shirt??? haha

[@RBMA]

Yes it is!

[@rabarebra]

Who is it?

[@MajorCulturalDivide]

He says it's going 45 rpm and we're not going to use a lot of the disk so we can make it loud. Why does it work that way?

[@MajorCulturalDivide]

Thank you. What decides how long the run-out groove should be? According to what you say one would think the run-out groove (not sure what it's called) would be as short as possible so the record could use all of the available space for loudness. But it always seems to vary. I even have some records where the run out groove is almost half the record.

[@MajorCulturalDivide]

I had no idea so much went into making a record. It's a wonder the vinyl sounds anything like the master tapes with all that needs to be considered. Thank you for the information.

[@bbarrera86]

there's a big problem about what he says around 12:10, he talks about the details... the thing with details is that if you compress them u are allowed to hear them better cause they get louder, but the real trick is to let them be heard how they were originally performed without altering it's dynamics so that you can get more emotion and a better sense of what the artist felt when recording it.

[@jas_bataille]

Thank God you have to point it out to this legend... seriously? He repeatedly said that the job is to make it "louder but a good musical experience) through and through, he never said to compress the details. Sheesh

[@ZiadSidawi]

Loud, loud... most commercial songs have no dynamics and harsh. Stop the loudness war and get better headphones amps and speakers.

[@guitarfoundry]

i've bought some albums and they are utterly unlistenable...I have a very high end system and it reveals the harshness and grain..Pink Floyd 'remasters' are awful unless its the Doug Sax...Amy Winehouse..awful

[@ZiadSidawi]

simon lloyd check the master level meters on his screen at 17:03....it looks the dynamic range is not more than 3dB! this is mastering for $10 ear buds and nothing else. Alas, most remastered albums are unlistenable. They teach in mastering now how to clip the digital converter and bring back into the analog domain; this is insane.

[@etyrnal]

Not everyone has listening rooms. Much music is enjoyed by the the working masses... while driving the car to work, or taxiing noisy kids to school, regular people who BUY the music that PAYS for the artists gear, the engineers studio, and exec producers summer cottage, need to be able to hear that "nuance" OVER the roar of life. Don't be so pedantic?

[@wildbill6976]

I think many of them do it on purpose to take advantage of mp3 compression that most will be using anyways (mp3 works by removing sound imperceivable to human ear); i.e. louder/harsher = higher distortion/frequency = more compressible. I've noticed it over the last 20+ years when converting various media formats to mp3. You just don't get the same level of compression out of the classics because they were recorded & mastered properly to begin with.

[@MrmelodyUs]

@@wildbill6976 all in the transfer

[@martinzen]

why the insane level of mic noise??

[@nogoogleplus]

Golden insights from a Master.....on a side note who is the super cute brunette in the orange t top... she made it harder to concentrate :)

[@dialecticalspectacle]

Wish they picked a better song to demo with, otherwise very informative.

[@DrAudioBot]

i know! those high pitched 32nd note 808 snares are as annoying as auto-tune...

[@IronMan-tk8uc]

@SergioMartelli Exactly (even though I absolutely hate this type of sound).

[@user-yk4gd1fl4z]

Great. Except that god awful non structured collection of samples thrown together.

[@sicarioinfantry78]

Legend

[@ludgelovesbass]

the pencil sharpener tho

[@Fontsman]

The platter on the cutter doesn't seem very good. You've got high engineered hi-fi turntables with precision bearings for playback and yet the cutting lathe platter looks pretty ropey.

[@jas_bataille]

Thank God you're here to tell this poor man with no experience about this that his cutting plate is "ropey"... a cutting plate cannot be as smooth as a plate for playback, because you have to put pressure on it.

[@Fontsman]

@@jas_bataille Well you've got Turntables by SME, Goldmund, etc, which use state of the art bearings far beyond what we see here. So I see only benefits when using that level of engineering in cutting lathes.

[@dabbidaa1547]

​@@Fontsman That equipment is worth something like 500k conservatively estimated. I think they know what they are doing and the equipment is up for the job.

[@Andersljungberg]

You may have been influenced by time I think at the time when dire Straits had their hits then the dynamics were much better than on today's pop music. it was probably even better in the early 2000s. But loudness was coming. and it's not like an automatic level recording on a cassette player. here we are literally talking about cutting sound tops. where basically everything sounds equally loud on certain recordings. which there are graphic images that show from sound analyzes

[@guitarfoundry]

Fuck the loudness wars and morons who think hifi is an iphone or something with Sony written on the front. Real music fans have to suffer for the unwashed masses..yes i am an elitist....Loud CD's almost always sound awful and i tend to avoid anything that's been 'enhanced' or 'remastered'..I often hit the forums to see what the consensus is for a particular version of a recording i want to buy..The great thing with CD's is that they are out of fashion (just like vinyl was) so bargains galore can had..They will have their day again...If im buying vinyl i always try and buy the original or earliest pressings i can get before any reissues, unless i KNOW that the reissue has improved the original, not just made it louder...there are a few Blue Note vinyl reissues that are better than the 50's versions..a few... The trouble is most people say that are fans but they are not, they listen to crap through crap..Yes Im a cork sniffing snob but i like composition, performance and production/mastering done properly not for the masses of idiots.

[@mtheorymkali5770]

simon lloyd damn! ok ok! I feel ya man.. that's what's up.

[@The90sGamingGuy]

I totally agree with your point about loudness wars they are absolutely stupid. Dynamics in re-issues is slowly making a come back and if it does fully come back the record companies need to learn a lesson not to keep up with this stupid loudness wars B.S.

[@mikechivy]

Calm down

[@dmomcilovic9185]

all this skill and knowledge, only for the zombie Iphone generation to listen to compressed crap on youtube

[@UberPilot]

store.acousticsounds.com/d/128461/Roy_Orbison-Crying-45_RPM_Vinyl_Record

[@sb848]

ok boomer

[@thepuppethead1188]

yeah that zombie iphone generation,what with independent bands releasing every new album on vinyl and vinyl sales beating out all digital purchases for 3 years in a row

[@m9shamalan]

where is the weird echo on his voice coming from?

[@MrBrainneeded]

if you think major labels are disgusting look at red bull

[@GustafTW543]

Sonochi No Sadame

[@GustafTW543]

JoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooJo

[@underworldent4817]

class act.

[@genericjesus8803]

I gots t’ get me one of those vinyl cutting machines

[@Luis-mq8pg]

🤯

[@aladdin_007official]

!

[@DJJOHNNYT1]

❤️🌟

[@Jumo55]

Zappa in New York 40 anniversaire édition...

[@dannydaniel8975]

I'd rather cut my vinyl from a cassette tape than a Wav file

[@DJALfutureclassicmusic]

Sooooo loooong

[@zip7806]

WTF. Don't ever put a Water Bottle on Bernie Goodman's custom Mastering Console. How rude and he's the Guest.

[@ruthlesscutthroat]

you forgto to mention Led Zep.

[@JoeLaFon3]

Bryan Cranston

[@Tholli18]

it's so annoying that they overlayed a sound and did not play what is actually heard in the room. He switches the speakers on and off and you simply hear the same thing still playing. Why bother making this documentary then?

[@rabarebra]

complain complain complain. what else can you?

[@Konrad_K.]

Why is he saying okay like a children's therapist

[@horowizard]

It's heartbreaking watching such a skilled Mastering Engineer working on such putrid crap.

[@sovietcomrade4970]

He probably gets a lot of money for it

[@ytnsanw]

Dude with shades and the beard looks as though he's napping...

[@EmeraldWoodArchives]

I wish he'd have been working on something else on this day. That track is so annoying.

[@rabarebra]

copyright

[@jake.sherman]

I feel like the crew that made this was not the right crew for this job…

[@HowardFrischer]

I feel bad for the two people with long hair. Your hair is blocking out so much sound/tone.

[@antonmedvedev1128]

And the track is sooooooo annoying! It sounds like some of those "experiments" my classmate would do when we were in our early 20s back in 2002.

[@rickyninja9693]

Agreed. Not a good example for this.